Berkshires - Brooches

This antique amuletic bronze framed pendant cages a dozen 7mm-diameter single-cut rock crystals that each feature a table-cut decagon crown, deep pavilion, 21 facets and uncut girdle, while the culets range from off-center to blunted. They are tightly set within four linked rings to overlap at the same angle in a sparkling single row. Seeming to retain a little of its original yellow-gold gilding on just the interior, the frame that surrounds each of the four sections of three crystals enables them to reflect pale yellow and lime light when the pendant is viewed from certain angles. Each crystal can be manually rotated. Suggesting French heritage, the medieval Frankish culture in northern France made jewelry in similar segmented or open-work shapes of wheels or whorls, which were worn as gem-decorated disk-shaped brooches or gold-caged rock...

Between the first ad campaign that couturier Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973) commissioned from internationally admired Paris-based multimedia artist Marcel Vertes (1895-1961) for her blockbuster perfume "Shocking" in 1937, and in 1940 when they left France after launching her perfume "Sleeping" shortly before the Nazi occupation during WWII, the illustrator-cum-ceramist distinctly handmade--while traditional materials for couture costume jewelry were scarce in Paris--this whimsical red glazed ceramic brooch. It depicts a duck holding an umbrella dripped with dashes of turquoise and black glaze to appear wet. Significantly, the trombone clasp of the pin, the long-pronged gilt frame, and the text stamped on its back plate "Made In France" match a similarly sized glazed ceramic brooch of a decoratively chained bear that was published in the book Bijoux (page 146). The author Deanna Farenti Cera dated that likewise unbranded unsigned brooch to 1938 when it was commissioned for one of Schiaparelli's themed fashion shows "Circus". The invitation to that show, which was illustrated with circus characters and performing animals by Vertes' Parisian peer Christian Berard, included a domesticated white duck--notably not holding nor wearing a fashion accessory. Unusually, Schiaparelli had commissioned couture umbrellas from other artisans in the 1930s--a couple of which were acquired by TheMet museum. Another relevant Met acquisition of one of the designer's couture evening gowns, which it dates to Summer 1940, features three large glazed-ceramic fasteners in a contrasting color matching our brooch. The like findings, materials, construction, text, object and palette aside, accessory-adorned ducks were among the figurative animals commissioned by Schiaparelli for that last collection before the Germans dominated Paris by June 1940, which is evidenced by the photo of the dated gilt hatpin depicting a bejeweled bird head with a bill that appears in the book by Patrick Mauries about another Schiaparelli-associated French parurier Lina Baretti (pages 124-125). See our other listing for one of Baretti's uniquely feathered designs, which likewise has a pronged gilt frame with trombone clasp like ours, but whose partridge subject best suits an earlier Schiaparelli collection for Fall 1938 titled "Pagan". For us, distinguishing our brooch from other one-of-a-kind ceramic pieces created for Schiaparelli couture...

Demonstrating the epitome of miniature decorative art by Renaissance European goldsmiths who fashioned quatrefoil and cruciform jewelry with heraldry or religious symbols, this centu...

This Art Deco period French carved, lathe-worked, sculpted and red-painted black-galalith figural brooch depicts a pair of long-limbed dogs, which may be gazelle hounds, wolfhounds, ...

With the Coro signature "script-no-angle" since 1919 and "PAT.PEND.", this early Art Deco vermeil lady bug beetle brooch features a red enameled face and mixed-cut bezel-set red and ...

Weiss rhinestone brooch, c.1960s, of square shape arranged in a square within a square, each composed of rectangular stones on all sides centering square crystals at the corners and ...

Signed "Made in France", this Parisian couture poured and lampwork glass flower-like spray brooch has its artisan-wired construction concealed by a decorative gilt filigree scalloped...

Remarkably more expressive than iconic phoenix brooches by Jean Schlumberger or Marcel Boucher, this unique Georgian-style three-dimensional bird bar brooch by an artisan silversmith...

In the style of Elsa Schiaparelli couture costume jewelry and one of her paruriers beginning in the late 1930s, Jean Schlumberger, this hand-crafted highly textural glass and crystal...

Grosse brooch from 1968 composed of an open network of gold tone crownlike elements, each point terminating in a textured drop, and each circular groupin...

During the Art Deco period when Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel was at her peak as a Parisian couture designer in the early 1930s and working closely with her favorite jewelry parurier Fulco di Verdura, for one of her clients, she commissioned this unique handcrafted gem-fringed medallion brooch with a yellow-gold circle rope of flexible thick chain that dangles from an unseen ornate open-work curvilinear yellow-gold base. Marked only "FRANCE" on the bar pin with a trombone clasp, like some early 1930s Chanel couture jewelry collected by TheMet museum, its artistry reflects the colorful organic-form starburst sketches of Verdura, which you can see from our photo of one of them. The Sicilian duke began creating fabric patterns for Chanel in 1927, which shortly expanded to executing fine jewelry beginning with custom pieces for the house founder. These included the iconic Byzantine-influenced gem-adorned cuffs referencing the Maltese-military cross, which the French designer can often be seen wearing in circa-1930s photos. Chanel reproduced some of Verdura's originals for her clients, but those variations featured faux gems. This softly-shaped abstract brooch design suits goldsmith Verdura's early anti-Art-Deco aesthetic that was considered a radical departure from 1920s silver-tone geometric jewelry, which otherwise featured linear designs or figurative representation. The deconstructed bouquet of gems mixes amethyst and rose-quartz beads with natural Keshi pearls and intricate tiny gold leaves, which are discreetly wired to a Baroque-motif frame that dangles a round gem surrounded by a chain halo. Significantly, Verdura was credited with re-introducing since Victorian times the rope motif to fine jewelry. Since 1930, Verdura's unique style was influenced by travels with Chanel to explore Byzantine art, Baroque architecture, and the exotic flora-and-fauna among his native Italian aristocratic estate. The legendary fashion editor Diane Vreeland and American entertainment stars were among the first Chanel clients to acquire couture real-gem-adorned jewelry made by Verdura, while one of the two brooches treasured by Vreeland was titled "Theodora". See our photo of the Byzantine mosaic of Empress Theodora, whose image--with an abundance of teardrop pearls and colorful gems above her chest, and with a gold halo surrounding her head--could have inspired the design of our brooch. As one of the most important modern-design collaborations, Chanel's close relationship with Verdura lasted largely undocumented years in Paris, until he launched his first outside jewelry venture with a Hollywood designer-boutique after emigrating to the United States in 1934. Within five years, as a financially-backed in-demand goldsmith in the States, he founded the namesake fine-jewelry company Verdura in New...

Strongly resembling the Harry Bertoia Foundation's archived c.1947 unsigned small brooch (D.JE.27) that is essentially an elegant hammered silver curvilinear three-humped squiggle by...

This early Miriam Haskell lacquered shell and brass-and-wood-decorated clip brooch was created by Frank Hess, her first designer since 1926. The circa 1930 brooch features three seas...

This couture French Maison Gripoix fabricated faux-sapphire-topped-pearl glass cluster brooch and clip-earrings set dates to around WWII, when Parisian fashion designer Elsa Schiapar...

During the Art Nouveau period while German-born Vienna-based silversmith, niello master and entrepreneur Georg Adam Scheid (1837-1921) was prospering from a related refinery business...

From the Art-Deco period, this signed French couture set of yellow-gold pave-crystal brooch and earrings is marked in the manner of one-off costume jewelry commissioned...

Henry Schreiner, the Austrian-born blacksmith founder of Schreiner in New York in 1932, handcrafted this demi-parure of prong-set colorless crystal stylized-foliage sprays after he b...

With distinct handmade glass by French Maison Gripoix for a faux amethyst 25mm domed open-back oval cabochon poured into a forged wire ring topped with a serrated-bezel setting, this...

Accented by delicate emu feathers, this couture French silk chiffon flower brooch or hat pin was painted, cut and appliqued by hand to appear like a large rose. It was acquired in Fr...

Made in 1962 by Swedish Rune Tennesmed, this modern minimal sterling silver geometric brooch features a faux ruby poured-glass red cabochon, concave sheet metal, and openwork that forms two corners of the two-tier triangular brooch. This simple abstract design is characteristic of the rounded geometric shapes that framed his silvery pieces, while his early work sometimes included a pop of brightly colored glass. Tennesmed (1929-2011) was a 20th-century studio metalsmith, who changed his given name Carlsson to reflect his craft and his business name, which means "pewtersmith" in Swedish. This unusually elegant and sleek piece was made for Scandinavian Atelje Stigbert, which was recognized for producing modern jewelry designs in sterling silver and gold. The brooch was likely commissioned by the Stigbert workshop founder Stig Engelbert who died in 1962, before his artisan sons evolved the family business to be known as Engelbert. Recognized as one of the most significant and popular Scandinavian artists of the mid-20th century, Tennesmed revived ancient Viking...

This antique Art-Nouveau period American signed metalsmithed set features intricately etched, chased, chiseled and pierced curvaceous peacocks in unusual copper-gilt silver. "Sterlin...

This colorful prong-set crystal spray brooch by Schreiner New York was made to compliment luxury clothing by a U.S.-based fashion designer, such as Pauline Trigere, in the late 1950s. This piece is special because it shows the unique decorative technique that Schreiner used for a period of several years in reaction to the limited availability of the first aurora-borealis (AB) stones by Swarovski in 1956, which had been designed for Christian Dior. In response to the availability of only the initial AB color that mostly reflected bright blue and the high demand from other designers, Schreiner's creative family soon applied transparent glass paint to create additional colors, such as the light-green painted AB crystals on this brooch. According to Henry Schreiner's late daughter who took over the business with her jewelry-designer husband, this enabled them to become the first to produce costume jewelry with AB stones in different colors, while Swarovski took several years to introduce similar colors. All original painted AB crystals are intact in this brooch, which is significant since a lost stone...

Recalling the recent Parisian Haute Couture Dior women's fashion show runway where most looks designed by Jonathan Anderson were accented by large flower brooches, the Dolce & Gabbana S/S 2000 ready-to-wear show was likewise distinguished by an oversize silk-flower accessory, which in this case was the rose motif of the Italian luxury house's design duo. This pale-peach seven-inch-diameter rosette jewelry was worn by models in various ways (see our snaps of FirstView coverage). With a brand label sewn to the back of this jewelry that was made in Italy in 1999, its unusual "cufflink" rectangular hardware enables it to be looped through a scarf or neckerchief, narrow belt...

Wreath-shaped brooch of various pearls, rhinestones, crystals, and micro gold beads by Robert, c.1960. Hook in addition to pin, so can be worn as pendant. Some of the Original by Robert...

Inspired by folk embroidery, filigree jewelry during the Georgian period transformed in the early 1800s into labor-intensive cannetille, like this antique handmade intricately woven ...

Like the pendant collected by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, this bezel-set lava rock was handcrafted in 1994 as a one-of-a-kind modern sterling-silver brooch by studio-artist Joan Parcher...

This chased 14k-gold almost-abstract whimsical ostrich bird with a shiny textural plume features prong-set round cabochons of turquoise and chalcedony with smaller colorful cut gems ...

Vendome semi-parure of dome-shaped brooch and clip-on earrings composed of large round green crystals, each surrounded by small lime-colored crystals in a floral manner, and each wit...

Vendome parure comprising a brooch, bracelet, and earrings, each composed of aurora borealis and green crystals of varying sizes, and each accented by s...

Christian Dior mid-century brooch crafted of bright and shiny silver-tone metal composed of five square elements, each of deep square and concave shape, four arranged in an off-cente...

Henry Schreiner, the Austrian-born blacksmith founder of Schreiner New York in 1932, handcrafted this multi-color prong-set Bavarian-crystal, stylized-flora spray, gold-gilt brass br...

This antique Victorian white-gold bar-brooch or tie-pin from the Edwardian period with Faberge-style elements features bezel settings with three square-cut 10mm sugarloaf aquamarine ...

Epitomizing the organic subjects and hand-craftsmanship spanning the Arts-&-Crafts to Art-Nouveau movements that were led in The United States by Louis Comfort Tiffany, this comm...

Vendome brooch and earrings set, the brooch of star shape consisting of large pear-shaped green crystals interspersed with sapphire blue round crystals ...

In the late 1940s for Trifari, its French-born artistic director Alfred Philippe, who had earlier created fine jewelry for Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, designed this flora-mot...

This early 16th-Century Renaissance silver-repousse round medallion "lovers" pendant depicts a romantic encounter in a rural landscape between a man and smiling woman wearing Europea...

In the 1990s when the Dutch collective Droog introduced international leaders of late 20th-Century functional art such as Ron Arad, Marcel Wanders, Jurgen Bey, Hella Jongerius, and Tejo Remy, the Netherlands-based brand was one of the most successful producers of conceptual design. The collaboration was co-founded in 1993 in Amsterdam by the jewelry and product designer Gijs Bakker (b. 1942), who commissioned his protege French artist Frederic Braham in 1998 to create this one-of-a-kind brooch for his young Droog-represented jewelry line "Chi ha paura...?". The Italian phrase means "who is afraid of?". This natural satin-lustre South Sea black-Tahitian 15 x 10 mm baroque thick-nacred pearl, which is bezel-set in oxidized sterling on a sharp silver stud for push-back fastening as a lapel or tie pin, is surrounded by a removable textured gold disk brooch with the Chiapaura maker's mark, artist's signature, abbreviated year and assay symbol. Notably, while farmed pearls from this French-Polynesian region are scarce, it is rarer to find one over 12mm. This dark gray one is also exceptional for its desirable secondary tone of peacock green with minimal surface imperfections. From normal use, the unseen back of the disk is missing chips of ecru enamel where it contacts the fastening knob. This reveals that the disk is solid gold. Like other functional conceptual design represented by Droog, the brooch is more than a beautiful piece of fine jewelry featuring multiple contrasting elements, as it could be a provocative "third nipple" if worn on a tie or scarf. Given the Dutch origin of the brand, we recall the famous 15th-Century oil-painting by Johannes Vermeer, known as "Girl with a Pearl Earring". Who is afraid of girl or boy with a third nipple? We acquired this brooch from a jewelry collector who had purchased it from the Italian gallery...

A mid-century peer of modern jewelry artist Art Smith, studio metalsmith Otto Robert Bade (1921-2019) handcrafted this black-patinated sterling-silver openwork stylized-leaves set o...

In Spring 1941 after French fashion couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel had stopped production of her clothing designs while she remained in Europe during the WWII era, the decades-old American costume-jewelry company Reinad began imprinting pieces in its new retail line, Chanel Novelty Co, with the script signature "Chanel". As this was prior to the use of the sans-serif capital-letter signature "CHANEL" on French-made jewelry that was commissioned by the Parisian designer, as well as before U.S.-copyright protection began in 1955, the House of Chanel that was mostly owned by the Jewish Wertheimer family of venture capitalists (who remarkably still produced Parfums CHANEL and French-vineyard wine via legal proxy while they lived in asylum in The States during the WWII) filed a U.S. lawsuit to demand that Reinad halt the use of its founder's famous last name. As the Werthheimers' quickly won, Reinad only produced the single seasonal collection stamped with the French brand name, and subsequently only imprinted its company name as the sans-serif capital-letter signature "REINAD" without a copyright symbol, which was different that its prior signatures dating back to its founding in 1922. When Chanel herself resumed French-made fashion production in Paris in 1953 (with Werthheimer support leading to their acquisition of all rights to her name despite her post-war eight-year exile in Switzerland due to close association with Nazis), for the first time all of her creations were signed "CHANEL" like the original packaging of the exceedingly profitable "No.5" perfume. While Reinad continued to produced costume jewelry until 1954, in the last decade of this business, the U.S. company continued to try to appeal to potential Chanel buyers by at least making Chanel-style designs. As such, owning an attractive and well-made Reinad piece can be considered a useful investment in fashion history as evidence of a little-known turning-point involving the most famous ongoing luxury-fashion business Chanel, as well as of the impact of that legal judgement had on advancing U.S. design protection for brands that later used the copyright symbol. Like early ArtDeco-style oversized heavy metallic costume jewelry by Chanel, this three-dimensional monochrome silver-alloy polkadot bow brooch imitates a pale polkadot-textured ribbon. Notably, while high-quality ribbon for styling hair or decorating clothing in a non-functional way was still an expensive accessory...

In the 1920s in an Art-Nouveau style, Czech costume-jewelry designer Max Neiger created this brass dangle brooch that features three different shapes of ...

Beginning in 1939, Miriam Haskell asked her first costume-jewelry designer Frank Hess to spare the use of metal during WWII while war materials were needed in the United States. So t...

Antique ArtDeco-period Bakelite rare three-color ribbon bow hand-blended-and-carved brooch. Given the colors, narrow style, texture and affixed brass pin...

Like Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Hattie Carnegie, and Pauline Trigere, Mary McFadden produced jewelry in the 20th Century to compliment her own couture-clothing designs. Unlike those fashion designers, McFadden handcrafted her sculptural jewelry, whereby her studio designs in brass since...

Spring in a basket! Dorothy Bauer was known for her sculptural, whimsical jewelry designs incorporating Swarovski crystals, as exemplified by this br...

Large brooch by Robert featuring both clear and aurora borealis crystals along with pearls composed in an intricate flower design. Similar to the work of Miriam Haskell, Robert's des...

Miriam Haskell unique vintage brooch, c.1960s, incorporating an array of contrasting beads, in black, pale gray, and salmon, each topped by a small crys...