Featured Antique gold pendant / brooch. 40 mark, Russian? Part of modular parure?

Another difficult one. An antique gold pendant/brooch, about 1870, with a tiny 40.e mark and some letters I can't make out.
Is 40.e a Russian 40 zolotnik mark? It tests positive for 10k gold (41.7%).
The stone in the flower is a seed pearl.

It has a hook instead of a ring, does that mean it was part of a modular parure? To combine it with other parts of a parure and make it into the jewel of choice?
It is 4.9 cm / 1.92" high.

Thanks for looking.

 

Hi AJ......not that I could help, but I'd love to see the photos......

"Error" won't let me.........

 

Sorry, I was editing and something went wrong. You can see them now.
The last one is blurred, but it is the best I could do with a tiny mark.

 

It's lovely.....

The last photo shows the mark well.

 

Thanks Judy. I love this one, so it is staying for now.

 

Oh my goodness, it is beautiful. I love the size. Any larger and it would be (in my mind) bordering on ostentatious as opposed to simply lovely.

 

In contemporary usage, the hook allows it to be hung between beads, where a closed bale would not be wide enough in diameter to slide over the beads. Most of the ones being produced today have a hinged bale with a "snap" or pressure catch/closure.

 

Too bad you can't get a better photo of that mark! Maybe the letters above would help in identification.

 

Yes, I thought so too. I took about 8 photos, this was the best. The mark is absolutely tiny. I'll try to take some more, but I am afraid this is as good as it gets.

 

This is a great piece, is it pink gold? Looks like it might have had a closed cavity on the back for a piece of hair or other memento. In the fine antique jewelry suites we often see these multi purpose items, very practical, worn for different types of occasions.

 

Yes it is pink gold, just a little paler (more silver content) than rose gold.
Used to be called Russian gold, but not confined to Russia of course.
I don't think the cavity is for hair or so, there is no sign there ever was a hinge. But 19th century jewellery was often made this way, because gold was so much more expensive than now. A matter of spreading as little gold as possible over as much surface as possible, just like filigree.

 

If I could read Russian, I'd be able to help more. Nice piece. Mansons is right about the hook. It was done that way to slide over a string of beads, probably pearls. Or since this is Russian, maybe amethysts?

 

AJ, You would know best, since you have it hand. My grandmother had a hollow bangle hinged bracelet in this metal color. Sad thing is it was not marked, my mother did not think it was valuable and neither did I when she gave it to me,
I sold it to a dealer for little, as I was strapped after moving, in my mid-twenties, very sorry now. Hindsight and all that....

 

I was thinking of wearing it on a string of small pearls with a few gold spacer beads and a gold clasp. I hardly leave the house nowadays, but regularly treat myself to wearing nice jewellery at home.

 

@Figtree3 I managed to take this one, the second is the same one, edited with less colour and more contrast. Not sure it is Cyrillic, looks more like Latin script now:

 

it that word on top, ruble?

 

Could be. Either the coin, but why, or maybe the name of the manufacturer.

Ruble on Wikipedia:
According to one version, the word "ruble" is derived from the Russian verb рубить (rubit), "to cut, to chop, to hack", as ruble was considered as a cutout piece of a silver grivna.

Rubles were parts of the grivna or pieces of silver with notches indicating their weight. Each grivna was divided into four parts; the name "ruble" came from the word "cut" because the silver rod weighing 1 grivna was split into four parts, which were called rubles.[1]

Another version of the word's origin is that it comes from the Russian noun рубец (rubets), the seam that is left around a silver bullions after casting: silver was added to the cast in two steps. Therefore, the word ruble means "a cast with a seam".[2]

Doesn't really make sense in this case.

 

I could be waaaaaaaaaaay off, but I vote French.

 

What if the e after 40. is an l, for Lot/Loth? As in old central and eastern European silver and gold grade?

 

The lot system only used 16 "parts" for pure silver, with lower numbers for lower purity. I have not seen anything saying that a lot system was used for gold (not that it isn't possible, of course.)

And that really does not look like a lower-case L to me.