Nine designs for brooches with ribbons and stylized leaves

Drawing with nine 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, likely created for the French jewelry house Mellerio dits Meller, one of the oldest jewelry companies in Europe, which has supplied jewelry to Marie de Medicis, Marie Antoinette, Queen Isabella II, and Empress Josephine, among others. Three designs consist of large, stylized, green leaves with gold branches, one of them containing two stylized gold nuts. Another design consists of two interlacing pear-shaped rings of gold with a scrolling blue ribbon from which hangs a heart-shaped pendant of gold with blue outlines, and a similar one consists of a red eye-shape with scrolling ribbons of gold ending with spear-shaped buckles. Two designs consist of oval frames: one with scrolling strips of gold and interlacing, stylized, green leaves; the other with a simple green frame with interlacing thin branches with stylized silver leaves, flanked on the bottom by a gold fleur-de-lis. Another frame is made up of a gold escutcheon containing an undulating branch with gray pearls over a red ground, and stylized, green acanthus leaves. The last design consists of a silver oval ring and interlacing ribbons of gold, from which hang two strips of semi-abstract, green flower buds. The green, red, and blue colors in the designs might have been achieved using enamel or small (semi-) precious stones in the manufactured jewel. The empty spaces in the oval frames would have likely been personalized for the different customers.