Designs for a Brooch and Three Bracelets after Beaugrand's "L'Aigle Impérial" (The Imperial Eagle), created for Empress Eugénie in the Second Empire

Drawing with a design for a brooch and three bracelets, after a set designed by French Imperial Jeweler Beaugrand, titled "The Imperial Eagle", for Empress Eugenie between 1850 and 1870, 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 design for a brooch consists of a large, black bird with open wings, standing on a thin, U-shaped garland with stylized leaves with a ribbon bow with a green, round stone in the center, between the feet of the bird, from which hangs a thin strip with a round, pink stone, and a scrolling motif with a fleur-de-lis, with three hanging teardrop-shaped stones: a larger, green one in the center, and two smaller, yellow stones on the sides. The drawing is executed with black pen and watercolor, green and pink watercolor, and white gouache.
The first design for a bracelet consists of the same black, open-winged bird motif seen in the brooch, standing on an undulating garland with stylized flowers and round pearls, and with a ribbon bow under the bird's feet, inside two green strips that frame the body of the bracelet. The drawing is executed with black pen and watercolor, green watercolor, and white gouache. It is likely that this bracelet was intended to be worn as part of a set with the brooch. The second design for a bracelet is executed only with black pen, and might have been drawn after the first bracelet. The third bracelet is a quick sketch in pencil of a similar bracelet, also possibly drawn after the first. These two might have been created by a young designer or a learning artist.
These designs are all of the style of the French School of the 19th century, which featured naturalistic motifs decorated with recognisable fruits, and animals, and complex compositions of flowers and foliage. The designs often included diamonds and precious stones, as well as colored glass and other semi-precious stones. The inscription in pencil in the sheet suggests that these jewels were created by Gustave Baugrand for Empress Eugenie (probably ca. 1955-1970). This style later inspired some designs of the Art Deco period, recreating the "garland style" of earlier jewelry designs from the 18th and 19th century.