If you read these lines, it certainly means that just like me, you have already spoiled a lot of time online, searching for some relevant information about red and rose gold alloys.
And if you actually have, you probably noticed the lack of feature articles on the subject. An incredible lack when compared to the huge offer of red and rose gold jewels featured on websites, which introduce them brazenly as a genuine novelty.
But let’s be clear here. These alloys are nothing but old (however valuable) recipes, which have become the new darlings of the luxury marketers who found there a new winning formula to make something new out of the old …
Since the blog of LA Joaillerie highlights the red colour this month, I ‘d like to share with you a new article compiling the major characteristics of red gold and of its “baby pink” variation (see point # 6), just to debunk a few misconceptions and help you to understand the reasons behind this trend.
In this article:
IN A HURRY? FIND A RESUME OF THIS ARTICLE IN AN INFOGRAPHIC HERE
#1. RED GOLD AND ROSE GOLD ARE NOT REALLY GOLD BECAUSE GENUINE GOLD IS YELLOW. WRONG
#2. THE CREATION OF RED AND ROSE GOLD ALLOYS IS RECENT. WRONG
#3. GOLD IS COLOURED BECAUSE OF ESTHETIC CONCERNS. RIGHT, ALTHOUGH RATHER SIMPLISTIC.
#4. RED GOLD AND ROSE GOLD HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FLAWS. CERTAINLY NOT! IT WOULD BE FAR TOO SIMPLE…
#5. ROSE GOLD FIRST APPEARED IN RUSSIA. WRONG
#6. RED GOLD AND ROSE GOLD ARE FEMININE ALLOYS. ARE YOU SERIOUS?
#7. RED GOLD AND ROSE GOLD SUIT SWEET AND CALM PERSONS. NOT RIGHT, BUT NOT ENTIRELY WRONG…
#8. RED GOLD IS A TREND. RIGHT
#9. IF YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE, HERE IS WHAT YOU SHOULD KEEP IN MIND BEFORE CHOOSING A JEWEL MADE IN RED OR ROSE GOLD
#1. RED GOLD AND ROSE GOLD ARE NOT REALLY GOLD BECAUSE GENUINE GOLD IS YELLOW. WRONG
The colour of pure gold is yellow, but as Pliny the Elder wrote, in 77 A.D. (chapter XIX of Book XXXIII of his Natural History), gold in the native state, “whereas all other metals, when found in the ore, require to be brought to perfection by the aid of fire, this gold that I am speaking of is gold the moment it is found, and has all its component parts already in a state of perfection.”
Grains of fine gold. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
Stainless, precious and noble, pure gold (24K) is nevertheless very malleable.
To be worked, it must indeed be alloyed with other metals, in varying proportions depending on the desired characteristics in terms of :
- colour
- malleability
- toughness
- durability
18K gold sheets : from green gold to grey gold. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
In France, the legal fineness of the gold used in jewellery equals or is above 18K (ie 750 per thousand). In other words, whatever the metal associated to gold to modify its colour (silver, copper, zinc, nickel), the actual proportion of gold is invariable.
18K yellow gold, green gold or red gold will therefore be composed of the same weight of fine gold.
18K red gold sheet. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
- Composition of 18K red gold: 75% fine gold + 25 % copper.
- Composition of 18K rose gold: 75% fine gold + 20 % copper + 5 % silver.
The proportion of silver (which can vary up to 10% for a particularly pale rosy tone) is responsible for the rosy tone of the red gold.
Whatever the colour of its 18K gold alloy, your “made in France” jewel must wear two hallmarks:
- the Eagle’s head hallmark, or State hallmark which indicates gold’s fineness
- the Maker’s mark which is unique and proper to each manufacturer.
#2. THE CREATION OF RED AND ROSE GOLD ALLOYS IS RECENT. WRONG
The alleged novelty of rose gold is a marketing argument. Red gold and rose gold have somehow always existed.
The gold and copper alloy was mastered by Egyptians in the Ptolemaic period, since they used it to manufacture rings or to weld some objects.
In Roman times, Pliny the Elder refers to it (in opposition to “silvery” gold) as “a gold impregnated with copper” (Book XXXIII, Chapter XXIX – Natural History) which, he wrote, “will contract, on coming in contact with the santerna, become dull, and only be soldered with the greatest difficulty: indeed, for this last kind of gold, there is a peculiar solder employed, made of gold and one- seventh part of silver, in addition to the materials above-mentioned, the whole beaten up together.”
Diderot and D’Alembert, Encyclopedia, Recueil de planches sur les Sciences, les Arts Libéraux, et les Arts Méchaniques avec leur explication, plate XV.
Finally, in the Encyclopedia of Diderot and D’Alembert, red gold is designated as a “16K gold allied with three parts of fine gold and one part of rosette copper“. It is also said that in a naturalist approach, red gold is used in jewellery to represent the colour of the skin of the human figures.
Red gold and rose gold are thus no novelties. But contrary to what you might think, their physical properties, much more than their colour, are the true reasons of their use in jewellery.
Box (18th Century) red and yellow gold. Private collection. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
#3. GOLD IS COLOURED BECAUSE OF ESTHETIC CONCERNS. RIGHT, ALTHOUGH RATHER SIMPLISTIC.
As explained earlier, gold is naturally soft.
The alloy has thus two basic functions:
- changing the natural colour of the metal for aesthetic concerns
- increasing its resistance
Once alloyed with copper, fine gold gets new qualities.
Red gold alloy is:
- very hard
- enduring and sustainable
- more difficult to scratch
- unalterable colour
- highly resistant to machining (ideal alloys for industrial production)
- and finally it is E-L-A-S-T-I-C
That’s right, we owe the famous “spring” effect to red gold.
Jewellers usually say that red gold has “good memory”. Indeed, if you twist a thin sheet of red gold, it will resume its original shape without keeping any trace of this manipulation.
All these qualities make red gold particularly suitable for the manufacture of certain jewels or certain strategic parts of your jewels, such as mechanical elements or elements that are often handled:
- brooch’s rods
- tie-pins
- springs
- clasps
- hinges and other articulated elements.
Vintage articulated bracelet (circa 1940’s) rose gold and yellow gold. Private collection. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
For a long time, red gold and rose gold were limited to supporting roles, mostly because of their physical qualities. They were actually present, but you could just not notice them. Why?
#4. RED GOLD AND ROSE GOLD HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FLAWS. CERTAINLY NOT ! IT WOULD BE FAR TOO SIMPLE!
They are (too!) hard
Red gold and rose gold have indeed the flaws that are inherent to their qualities. And with good reason : they are incredibly hard. A quality that quickly becomes a disadvantage when it comes to set a stone …
Yes indeed, red gold and rose gold are definitely not the favourite alloys of the setters who rightly blame their lack of flexibility.
Medallion (first half of 19th Century) pierced red gold, silver, diamonds and natural pearl. Private collection. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
That is why until today, these alloys were very rarely used to set precious and fragile stones like emeralds for example, that only an expert hand will be able to crimp on such a hard material*.
But that’s not all. In case of impact, instead of protecting the stone, red gold will amplify the shock, thus exercising an additional pressure on it, even if it has been set properly.
*When some jewellery manufacturers recommend not to associate rose and red gold with emerald, under the guise of aesthetic considerations, could it be in fact to hide a lack of know-how…? Indeed, since red and green are complementary colours, why wouldn’t they actually look good together?
Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of a Lady in green. Oil on poplar panel, 1528-32.
Now I’m sure you understand better why red gold and rose gold have remained invisible such a long time. Massively used to design the structure of the jewel, these alloys were then generally welded to another metal, allowing to crimp the stones more easily.
Ring (first half of 20th Century) rose gold, grey gold and diamonds. Private collection. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
This is why it is so common to see two alloys of different colour combined in a single jewel. Many Art Deco rings (1915-35) were composed of a massive rose gold body. Their shoulders and volumes were then covered with silver, grey gold or platinum to receive the precious stones.
Today, you can also find rings, which body is made in rose gold, while the claws supporting the central stone are made in yellow gold.
Ring (1940’s) rose gold, grey gold, rubies and diamond. Private collection. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
To cope with the rose gold trend, many manufacturers thought they could get round the pitfall of the stone setting, by prototyping the grains (beads) of metal that are used to crimp the stone. But if the amount of metal is insufficient to properly grip the stone, not only does the stone risk to fall over time but also to be broken by the slightest shock …
They are not suitable for surface effects and are not ideally adapted to handmade textures.
If you like smooth, shiny and uniform surfaces, rose gold and red gold are definitely made for you. But, if you like deeply worked, carved and refined surfaces, prepare to bid farewell to these alloys which are not at all appropriate for etching.
They are coloured. That’s the point.
Coloured gold is obviously not consistent with all coloured gems, although this remains a matter of taste. Logically, if you like white diamonds, you should avoid associating them with a metal that will inevitably give them a pink colouring.
So far, this colouring effect used to be offset by the use of white metals. At least that was the rule until recently.
Except that, with the growing trend of coloured diamonds and more particularly of rosé or red diamonds (which are very rare and sought after), some have decided to actually take advantage of the colour of the metal to create the illusion of red/rose diamonds while using yellow diamonds (which are not among the rarest diamonds) …
#5. ROSE GOLD FIRST APPEARED IN RUSSIA. WRONG
As I explained earlier (# 2 of this article), rose gold and red gold are not “spontaneous creations”. They did not come from nowhere.
However, it is clear that these two alloys experienced an unprecedented popularity during the nineteenth Century (notably in Russia) probably due to the conjunction of several factors:
- In jewellery design, the revival of historical styles brought back into fashion some very ancient know-hows, such as the technique of the Florentine repiercing or the colourful enamels on precious metals (these techniques use metals containing large amounts of copper). On this basis, Peter Carl Faberge, who created the famous Easter eggs for the Czar and his family, is one of the main architects of this revival, which was accompanied by the emergence of warm-toned metals.
Peter Carl Fabergé, The Gatchina Palace egg (gold, “en plein” enamel, silver-gilding, portrait diamonds, rock crystal and seed pearls ). Continuing a practice initiated by his father, Alexander III, Tsar Nicholas II presented this egg to his mother, the dowager empress Marie Fedorovna, on Easter 1901. Walter Arts Museum, Baltimore, USA.
- The significance of red in the traditional Russian culture, in which the same word “Krasnoi” equally refers to the colour “red” and to the adjective “beautiful.” At that time, red gold alloy was commonly referred to as the “Russian gold“. However, it could also be found in the rest of Europe, often combined with silver, like in Victorian jewellery.
Brooch (19th Century), red gold and australian opals. Private collection. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
- The industrialization of manufacturing processes and generalization of semi-finished metal products in jewellery industry.
Nineteenth Century was an era of technical innovations and jewellery was no exception to modernization. The factories of Pforzheim in Germany, Birmingham in England, Rhode Island in the USA, through the generalisation of low-fineness metals (therefore containing a high proportion of non-precious metals such as copper) brought to light a new consumer culture in Europe, in Russia and in the USA. The low-fineness red gold alloys (15, 14, 9 or 8K) which are particularly suitable for machining, stamping and manufacturing of medals became all the rage at that time in social classes that until then had been excluded from jewellery consumption. Besides, most of the Russian rose-gold jewellery dating back from the nineteenth Century and from the early twentieth Century that are now available on the market of vintage jewellery are representative of the fashion of that time, and are usually made of 14K red gold alloy (56 zolotnik). *
*Short comment on the jewellery history.
Unlike works of art, that are meticulously preserved over time, our view of jewellery history is often distorted. It is indeed essentially based either on the jewels of the powerful, or, since the nineteenth Century, on cheap jewellery (low-fineness alloys are not easily recycled), which escaped melting or destruction. Therefore it is always risky to draw conclusions from the few remaining testimonies of the jewellery of that time, which may not reflect the whole reality. As such, the written testimonies of famous jewelers (like Vever), the archives of the Chambers of Commerce or the reports of the juries of the World’s Fairs are more reliable sources of information.
“Jeanne amoureuse”, (one-of-a-kind ring by Robert Mazlo) red gold, platinum, diamonds, pyrite, XIXth Century gold-filled medal. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
#6. RED GOLD AND ROSE GOLD ARE FEMININE ALLOYS. ARE YOU SERIOUS?
You must surf the internet and visit some of the discussion forums flourishing here and there on jewellery to understand how stereotypes have a hard life …
Indeed, I have never seen so many “connoted“, if not “gendered“, adjectives associated to an alloy. Here’s a short selection just to illustrate my point:
less masculine (to be understood as “feminine”)
too feminine
And, consequently:
precious
discreet
fine
classy
refined
soft
fashionable
warm
difficult to match
too flashy
charming
younger
trend
vintage
dressed
delicate
not ostentatious
timeless
poetic…
On a forum dedicated to “watch lovers” (which I obviously do not consider as a scientifically reliable source about rose gold but which, somehow, perfectly reflects the remarks and nonsense I’ve heard all over the years of my long career in the jewellery realm), to the question “what do you think of rose gold?”, 12% of voters answered that rose gold is completely feminine and thus “not appropriate for men” (!!!! ). Now you see what I’m getting at, don’t you?
Not only is it annoying to see notions of gentleness and discretion constantly and exclusively associated to femininity (as if men had the monopoly of strength…!), but it is all the more painful when such associations tend to be historically and sociologically erroneous.
Let it be known: neither red nor pink are exclusively “feminine”.
Raphael, The Young Man with an Apple. Portrait of Francesco Maria I della Rovere. Oil on wood, 1505, Uffizi, Florence.
In the history of Western culture, red is traditionally associated to male gender and to its “conventional” attributes:
- power,
- strength,
- activity
- even agressivity
Lucas Cranach, Portrait of Princess Sibylle of Cleve, 1526. Schloss Weimar.
At the turn of the 20th Century, pink which stems from red, became associated with the femininity and especially to childhood. Our perception of red and pink are therefore the result of a recent cultural construction that pursues us so far but that is not at all objective.
Pink has long been considered as a “red for children”, especially for boys, because at that time military uniforms used to be red. Until the invention of synthetic dyes, children were indiscriminately dressed in white (that could boil without fear of damaging the colours …). The red and blue colours were reserved for ribbons and laces of girls and boys as well.*
Franz Xavier Winterhalter, Portrait of Louis-Philippe-Marie-Ferdinand-Gaston d’Orléans, Comte d’Eu (1842-1922), 1845. Versailles, National Museum of the palaces of Versailles and Trianon.
Red gold and rose gold are therefore not particularly feminine nor masculine. One should preferably qualify them according to their objective physical properties :
- hard,
- resistant,
- difficult,
- warm…
* If you’d like to learn more about the history of the “gentrification” of colours, I recommend reading the book of Jo B. Paoletti, a researcher from the University of Maryland, “Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America”, which studies the genesis of this process in America.
#7. RED GOLD AND ROSE GOLD SUIT SWEET AND CALM PERSONS. NOT RIGHT, BUT NOT ENTIRELY WRONG!
As red gold and rose gold are commonly associated with femininity, many consider them as particularly suited for quiet, ethereal and sweet personalities (stereotypes again…).
But, as we have seen above, contrary to their soft and warm appearance, red and rose gold are restive and hard metals. Before being worked, red gold must literally be beaten (hence its use for mechanical stamping of medals). According to their physical properties, they would rather be recommended to strong, bold, impulsive or reckless personalities.
In short, to particularly active people whose jewel must not fear shocks!
“Héloïse” (one-of-a-kind ring by Robert Mazlo) grey gold, red gold, yellow gold, diamonds and tourmaline. Photo credit: Bob Ivanovitch.
But please, beware of generalizations. Any rule has its exceptions.
Whether you are a man or a woman, quiet or energetic, the choice of the alloy of your jewel should never be based on fashion, stereotypes or guided by the diktat of appearances BUT based on YOUR reality, the reality of your lifestyle, on how you are going to use your jewel and on your personality. All these parameters vary so much from one person to another that no generalization is valid. It is really up to you to weigh the pros and cons.
#8. ROSE GOLD IS A TREND. RIGHT
The recent emergence of rose gold may coincide with a return to typically bourgeoises values of comfort, security, authenticity and softness. It also echoes the fashion of “nude” in makeup and in ready to wear, and corresponds to the search for a discreet, non-ostentatious and low-profile luxury.
More prosaically, it corresponds mainly to a shift in jewellery production methods, now mostly using prototyping and consequently mass-produced. Waxes obtained through prototyping are then edited in very large series. The resulting jewel requires very little or no manual skills at all (such as stone setting or etching) except for the polishing.
#9. IF YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE, HERE IS WHAT YOU SHOULD KEEP IN MIND WHEN CHOOSING A JEWEL MADE IN RED OR ROSE GOLD
- Red gold and rose gold are not byproducts of yellow gold. These are simply coloured gold alloys.
- Red gold and rose gold are no novelties. They are known since ancient times.
- Red gold and rose gold are particularly appropriate for jewels entirely made in gold: medals and signet rings or any other engraved jewel, as they will wear more slowly than other gold alloys. They are particularly suitable for jewels worn daily such as simple wedding bands, chains and bracelets.
- If you absolutely want to wear a ring or any other jewel made in red or rose gold, prefer a relatively hard and not (too) fragile stone like a diamond.
Otherwise, the most common option is to combine red gold with another metal to receive the stones or to design the claws (silver, platinum or yellow gold).
And most of all, remember that gold, whatever its colour, is a precious gift from Nature and as such, that it should be consequently used sparingly and with great respect.
If possible, prefer recycled metals and give a second life to the precious stones that are left unused in your jewelry box by making a completely original bespoke jewel.
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