Design for a brooch with stylized leaves and strips of pearls
Not on view
Drawing with a design for a brooch, part of an album of drawings in pen and ink of designs for jewelry in the style of the French School of the 19th century, designed for the French jewelry house Mellerio-Borgnis. The brooch is made up of a garland of scrolling branches, colored with brownish-yellow, and stylized leaves, colored with thin, vertical, green lines, and with hanging strips of pearls. The color of the branches might have been achieved by using yellow gold in the manufactured jewel, while the green color of the leaves might have been achieved through the use of enamel or of small, green stones (emeralds?) set into gold or silver. These brooches were often worn by women to decorate their corsets, or on their heads to decorate the fashionable hair styles of the time.
