Designs for a Chatelaine with Grotesques, Fantastical Animals, Scrolling Motifs, and Interlacing Strapwork

Drawing with a design for a chatelaine, probably designed by French jeweler Georges Le Saché around 1873, 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. This design for a brooch consists of a triangular frame formed by interlacing strapwork and a crown around a small frotesque motif, surrounded by different types of scrolling motifs, leaves, dragons and other animals, and grotesques, flanked on the lower side by a heart motif formed by two scrolls, containing a stylized flower with two elongated, scrolling leaves on the sides, from which hangs a strip of round interlacing rings, grotesques, and two interlacing fantastical creatures, between two other strips of round interlacing rings that hang from the upper scrolling motif to its sides. The design is executed with shades of yellow and brownish-yellow, and outlined with thin lines executed with black pen, suggesting the manufactured jewel was to be made with gold. The design is 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.