Two designs for brooches with stylized leaves, flowers and pearls
Drawing with two designs for brooches, 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 first design consists of a scrolling gold ribbon with strips of square-cut brilliants or diamonds, with interlacing, stylized, green leaves and branches with pearls, and with hanging three rings of decreasing size, each with a stylized, green leaf with a pearl on the bottom, from which hang strips of gold that end in a round pearl. The second design consists of a garland of stylized, silver flowers, rosettes of red petals around a round pearl, and round pearls and red stones, with an interlacing blue ribbon. The green and blue would have likely been achieved using enamel or small, (semi-) precious stones of the desired color in the manufactured jewel; the red stones could have been corals or rubies. A combination of silver and gold would have been used to achieve the different colors of metal in the designs. The designs are drawn in two different sheets of paper, which are pasted to the same page of the album.
Artwork Details
- Title: Two designs for brooches with stylized leaves, flowers and pearls
- Artist: F. Mellerio Borgnis
- Date: ca. 1830–70
- Medium: Graphite, pen and black, red, green, yellow, and gold ink, heightened with gray wash and white gouache
- Dimensions: Sheet (Left): 7 3/8 × 4 1/8 in. (18.7 × 10.4 cm)
Sheet (Right): 7 3/8 × 4 1/8 in. (18.7 × 10.4 cm)
Album: 8 11/16 × 12 1/8 × 1 9/16 in. (22 × 30.8 × 4 cm) - Classifications: Albums, Drawings, Ornament & Architecture
- Credit Line: Gift of Raphael Esmerian, 1957
- Object Number: 57.662.3(25)
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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