Temple Jhumka with Pearl Fringe

A pair of jhumkas in gold-tone brass, set with cubic zirconia and coloured stones. The design is built around a temple arch. Photographed in Red.

Design and detail

Temple jewellery copies the shapes of South Indian shrine architecture: the arched niche, the stepped tower, the figure set into a frame. It is the most formal of all the Indian jewellery idioms.

The earrings are jhumkas: a dome with a flared bell hung below it. The jhumka is probably the oldest surviving Indian earring shape, and the bell is what makes it swing rather than merely dangle.

A fringe of drops hangs from the bottom edge, and its job is movement. A fringe catches the eye when the wearer moves; a static piece only catches it when the light does.

Metal and stones

American Diamond is the Indian trade name for cubic zirconia, a crystal grown in a furnace rather than dug out of the ground. It takes a proper facet, holds a polish, and throws a little more coloured fire than diamond because it bends light harder. At this price it is the only stone that will give a design real light.

Where the coloured stones sit in flat rims of metal rather than claws, the piece is borrowing from kundan work. In true kundan, pure gold foil is burnished cold around a stone until friction alone grips it; it is one of the few setting methods that needs neither heat nor solder. Costume jewellery copies the look in plated brass, and the broad flat rim is the tell.

Which colours are stocked

One colourway is stocked, in Red — the shade the design was drawn for and the one in the photographs.

The base is brass under a premium gold polish. Brass is the right base for costume jewellery — heavy enough to feel like something, soft enough to be worked, and it does not go brittle with age.

Wear them with the hair back or up. An earring of this kind disappears against loose hair, and the design is worth seeing.

Costume jewellery earns its place by letting you wear a shape you would never commission in gold. Nothing here pretends to be precious; the pleasure is in the design, and the design is genuinely old.

Looking after it

The care is simple and it matters: no water, no perfume, no chemicals on the metal. Wipe it dry after wearing and store it sealed rather than in open air, because humidity is the enemy of any plated finish.

The photographs on this page are of the piece itself, shot under ordinary light rather than in a studio, so what you see is close to what arrives. Screens do shift colour, though, and a deep red can read as maroon on one phone and as crimson on another — if the exact shade matters to you, ask on the enquiry and we will describe it against something familiar.

Checkout on this piece runs through an enquiry rather than a cart. Colour stock moves quickly at this price, so we confirm the exact shade, the price and the delivery estimate with you first. All Keyura orders are prepaid. We do not offer cash on delivery.