Designs for Four Brooches with Dancing Female Figures and Floral Motifs

Drawing with designs for four brooches, 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. All four designs for brooches consist of a couple of sleek female figures in motion, possibly dancing, holding their hands together, forming an X between their hips. The first design, executed on a small, white sheet of laid paper attached to the larger sheet containing the other designs, consists of a quick sketch with the dancing females, both wearing semi-abstract draped dresses and their long, wavy hair flowing in the air, standing on a semi-abstract grotesque and under a semi-abstract wreath that sits between their faces. The second design, executed directly on the greenish-blue buff paper containing all the drawings, is a more finished version of this design, executed with brown shades of gouache; the wreath is made up of a thin garland of small, stylized flowers and leaves, and has a ribbon bow with loose ends that scroll around it; the grotesque is upside-down and is flanked by small wings. The third design, executed on brown paper attached to the larger greenish-blue sheet, consists of a variation of the first two designs: the wreath has been replaced by a thin branch, hanging from two ribbons, where a couple of semi-abstract birds shands; the female figures are now inside a round frame formed by a thin branch with small, stylized leaves and white flowers, and their nude bodies are only partially covered by a thin, flowing fabrich that scrolls around their hips and the frame. This drawing is outlined with black pen, and only partially rendered with white gouache and brown watercolor. The final design, also executed on brown paper attached to the larger greenish-blue sheet, is a more direct variation of the first two: The wreath and the draped clothes of the female figures remain similar, although they are now rendered with shades of brown, purple and yellow; they are now surrounded by scrolling ribbons colored with blue and purple, and they not stand on a skull motif flanked by two thin wings. These designs reveal 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.