Elegant Déco Brooch with Diamonds in Platinum on Gold, c. 1930

The "new woman" was the ideal of the 1920s and early 1930s. She had won the right to vote, moved confidently in her profession and society and was a natural part of the vibrant nightlife of the Weimar Republic. What had seemed unthinkable barely a decade and a half earlier now became a reality. Articles in influential German fashion journals such as Die Dame bear witness to how this new self-image was also expressed aesthetically. The women portrayed there wore bobbed heads and heavily made-up lips, loose-fitting dresses and yet embodied far more than mere style icons - they were also authors, artists and designers of their time. The new woman, on the other hand, was also looking for a new design language. Clear-lined and geometric, deliberately free of anything sweet, a cool, precise elegance emerged that characterized the jewellery of those years. This brooch is a beautiful testimony to this development. Slender and horizontal, it is still reminiscent of the bar pins of earlier decades, but is already wider and offers space for a contemporary, strictly structured design. Fine sawing work and precisely executed milgrains structure the surface, which is worked in the combination of platinum on gold typical of the period. The centerpiece is an old-cut diamond, whose vivid light immediately catches the eye. Six calibrated, deep blue sapphires form an elegant navette around it and lend the design a clear, exciting contour. These are typical Verneuil syntheses of the time, which were produced in the laboratory and were considered extremely modern at the time. Six further rose cut diamonds set fine points of light and enhance the play of contrast and brilliance. The glow of the diamonds appears all the brighter and clearer against the dark blue of the sapphires. The brooch is in very good condition and has survived the past century wonderfully. We found it here in Berlin.

Estimate:£1,241.92

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