Brooches

Brooch of the Month

The Brooch

Elephant in a Hat

The Designer

The Period

This brooch is cast in metal which has been mixed with copper to give a rich reddy brown hue.  For a small piece (the elephant is only 2” long (5cm) maximum) of unnamed costume jewellery there is a good deal of detail in the casting. You can see the folds of skin, tassels on the blanket and even a bow on the straw hat.  So why is this elephant brooch special? Well it’s the hat.  In my own collection I have seven elephant brooches but only this one is wearing a hat. Doing an internet search I can find one other example, an elephant wearing a comical clown’s hat.  It is a brooch, but not the same quality as mine. I believe my brooch was made in the 1940s.  Novelty brooches depicting elephants don’t appear until the 20th century with the emergence of costume jewellery and designers like Hattie Carnegie, Ciner and Trifari pushing the boundaries of design.  I have found references to Elephants in Benin jewellery from West Africa in the 16th century.  The British Museum has examples of ivory armlets depicting elephant heads.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate a decent picture.  Further to the west in the Ivory Coast the Baulé people’s beliefs made the elephant a symbol of strength, prosperity, long life and wisdom.

I did find a few images of elephants wearing hats and sometimes crowns, one of the best was a Victorian engraving of an elephant with a top hat and cane.

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