Design for a Haircomb with a Bundle of Flowers

Drawing with a design for a haircomb, designed around 1900, part of an album of drawings by various artists for individual pieces of jewelry, containing a variety of designs in the Art Nouveau style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as well as some pieces in historic period styles. The haircomb in this drawing consists of four teeth joined by a slightly curved horizontal strip, with diagoal rope motifs interlacing around the intersections between the comb teeth and the horizontal strip. From under the horizontal strip, between the two central comb teeth, scrolls upwards a green stem with two large, stylized leaves that stand over the side spaces between the central and outer comb teeth, and a large bundle of stylized flowers with four petals with thick borders and with small, round pearls as pistils, and smaller flowers without borders of similar shape. This design reveals the aesthetic of late Art Nouveau jewelry style, designed, among others, by Rene Lalique, which drew inspiration from antiquity and japonism, abandoning the exclusive use traditional precious stones in the manufacture of jewels, and using, instead, a combination of gold, gemstones, semi-precious stones, mother-of-pearl, ivory and horn, enamel, and glass, to create colorful, powerful, and sinuous designs, often presenting animal and other figurative motifs. This design is likely a copy of the design for a comb on the previous sheet of paper, as it presents the same type of bundle of flowers, except it is unrendered on this case, and the body of the comb, although a sketch here, also seems to be inspired on that of the previous drawing.