Brooches

  • Chandelier

    This brooch is made with Swarovski crystals giving it a unique and fabulous sparkle.  It was made by Lobmeyr in Austria.  The brooch is based on the famous New York Met Sputnik chandeliers and when the Met moved to its new home at the Lincoln Centre in 1966 the original brooch was made as a…

  • The Owl and the Moon

    This small owl is made of carved ‘Bog Oak’ with glass eyes.  If you look closely you can see how the carver has indicated the plumage of the owl, this can’t have been easy as ‘Bog Oak’ is a particularly hard material.  During the mid to late nineteenth century the majority of ‘Bog Oak’ jewellery was…

  • Fuji Man

    This brooch is known as Fuji man.  It can be found in a number of reference books, which allows it to be accurately dated to 1942.  Coro was one of the largest and most prolific costume jewellery manufacturing and wholesale companies in the United States. Fuji man was originally attributed to Adolph Katz, but he was…

  • Fractured Abstract

    This wonderful abstract brooch is by the Scottish designer Hazel Thorn.  It is made from silver and gilding-metal.  Gilding-metal is a high-copper brass alloy made from 95% Copper and 5% Zinc, which are fused together.   Firstly, Hazel fuses rods of the two metals (silver & gilding-metal) together side-by-side.  These are rolled out as one sheet,…

  • Orchid

    This brooch is made of silver in the form of an orchid. Bond-Boyd was established in 1940 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  It is a family firm still in operation today and still manufactures in its hometown.  Nowadays the company specialises in producing corporate jewellery; cufflinks, tie pins with company logos or symbols.  They also make…

  • Three City Gents

    These brooches were designed by Deborah Crow as part of the Transport for London brooch competition and exhibition based on the TubeFlash project.  In 2017 TfL joined forces with Craft Central to hold a competition to design new brooches for sale as part of the TfL product range.  The winning brooches were part of the…

  • Flower Cart

    This dainty brooch is made of silver with marcasite and enamel decoration. The little wheels spin round and the brooch is designed as a three-dimensional piece. The canopy of the cart comes out from the main part of the design. Most brooches are designed ‘flat’ but adding a third dimension adds depth and interest. Marcasite…

  • Three Queens

    This elegant brooch is by the designer and jewellery maker Ella Fearon-Low, who I met a few years ago at the London Dazzle exhibition. We quickly began a conversation about brooches and arranged for Ella to come and view my collection. We had a wonderful afternoon and over a cup of tea and piece of…

  • Grasshopper Weather Vane

    Guglielmo Cini was born in 1903 in Italy and arrived in the USA at the age of 17 already an accomplished jeweller and silversmith. His talents were soon recognised and he founded the Cini company in 1922 in Boston Massachusetts. The company specialised in silver jewellery with an emphasis on sculptural design. Cini silver jewellery…

  • Romeo and Juliet

    To celebrate Valentine’s Day this brooch is from the 1930s and depicts Shakespeare’s lovers Romeo and Juliet in the balcony scene in Act Two when Romeo scales the forbidden garden of Juliet’s house to woe her.  The brooch is French.  There are no markings on the brooch so how do I know this?  The French…