Designs for two brooches with garlands of leaves and hanging pearls
Drawing with designs for two 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. Both brooches are made up of garlands of gray branches and stylized, green leaves, with strips of hanging pearls; the one on the left is simpler and smaller than the one on the right. The color of the branches might have been achieved by using silver in the manufactured jewel, while the green color of the flowers leaves might have been achieved through the use of enamel or of small, green stones (emeralds?) set into gold or silver. This kind of brooches were often worn by women to decorate their corsets, or on their heads to decorate the fashionable hair styles of the time.
Artwork Details
- Title: Designs for two brooches with garlands of leaves and hanging pearls
- Artist: F. Mellerio Borgnis
- Date: ca. 1830–70
- Medium: Pen and yellow, gold, and green ink, with traces of graphite, heightened with gray wash
- Dimensions: Sheet: 7 15/16 × 10 1/16 in. (20.1 × 25.6 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(4)
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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