Victorian

Why am I displaying two similar brooches?  Unusually for me I bought these two brooches within days of each other.  The one on the left I bought at auction in Yorkshire, UK and the one on the right from a dealer online based in Westchester New York, USA.  And only this year I saw another…

This is a small heart shaped brooch to celebrate Valentines.  Was it given as a love token?  I don’t know.  But I like to imagine a young man presenting the brooch to his sweetheart on St Valentine’s day. It is not valuable, the stones are just glass and are mounted in brass.  But care has…

This brooch is made of gold and oxidised silver and in the form of a Zulu shield.  The design was registered by M J Goldsmid of Birmingham on 4th September 1883.  The British Museum has a Zulu shield brooch in its collection by the London jeweller John Brogden c1880.   In ‘Jewellery in the Age of…

To celebrate Burns Night (25th January) this month’s brooch is made of Scottish hard stones and gold.  Scottish hardstone jewellery, also known as pebble jewellery, is extremely distinctive, the earthy coloured agates, granite and quartz are instantly recognisable.  The heyday for this type of jewellery was from the early 1800s to the First World War,…

This brooch is made of silver gilt with amethyst, peridot and garnet.  It depicts George and the Dragon. The original Saint George was a Greek soldier who fought for the Roman emperor Diocletian as a member of the Praetorian Guard.  He died in 303 having been sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian…

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…

This is the first cameo I ever bought. I had to fight off several dealers at an auction in Oxford who also had their beady eyes on it.  It is a large shell cameo, set in gold.  The overall brooch measures three inches across (7cm) with the actual cameo measuring a full two and half…

I bought this brooch at a small fair where to be honest most of the jewellery was run of the mill.  But tucked under a pile of medals was this lady.  She is hand painted on porcelain.  The quality of the painting is remarkable given that the surround of the brooch is not gold but…

This brooch belonged to my mother who would have been 91 this month. I remember her wearing it on numerous occasions; it was one of her favourites especially for an evening out. It is made of Pyrope Garnet a blood red garnet and almost certainly from Czechoslovakia and late 19th century. Pyrope garnets were used…