Jewellery, Watches, Antiquities and Objects of Vertu

A pair of 1950s diamond earrings, by Sidersky of Johannesburg, of stylised foliate design, set throughout with brilliant-cut diamonds, mounted in white precious metal, to clip and post fittings, unmarked, with signed case, length 24mm. £1,000-£1,200

A Sidersky & Son, Johannesburg

Sidersky & Son were the oldest family-run jewellery manufacturing company in South Africa, with more than 100 years of continuous trading, from 1902-2006. Adolph Sidersky, the founder, was educated and trained in Leipzig, Germany, as an engraver, setter and jeweller. He emigrated to South Africa in the late 1800s, participating in the Boer War on the side of the Boers. After the war in 1902, he opened his own manufacturing jewellery studio in Surrey House, Rissik Street, Johannesburg. In 1928, his son Max joined the business, taking over the company when his father died in 1959. The studio specialised in the mounting and setting of gemstones in platinum or gold, gaining a reputation for excellence in their craftsmanship - indeed commissions in the early 1950s included those from a South Rhodesian firm for jewellery that was presented to the young Princess Elizabeth, and later to the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. In 1973 Sidersky’s opened a retail shop in Sandton City. In the late 1950s, Max Sidersky was active as the chairman of the South African Manufacturing Jewellers Association, with a progressive attitude to the development of jewellery manufacturing, in 1958 arguing the case for introducing a standardised jewellery hallmarking system - which was to take another 55 years before legislation established a South African hallmarking system in 2013.

The company was sold in 2006.