Magnificent Gold Brooch with Spinel, Diamonds, Ruby & Emerald, c. 1890

Rococo, the courtly world of elegance and luxury, did not only radiate from France into the world in the 18th century. Even after the end of the Ancien Régime during the French Revolution, this art of lightness and refined taste continued to experience new fashions. At the end of the 19th century, for example, the rooms of Empress Sisi and Emperor Franz Joseph in the Hofburg in Vienna were decorated in the Rococo style, and an apartment was also built for the same empress in Venice: the KuK royalty was thus able to see itself as the new realm of a Sun King. Rococo enthusiasm was very much alive throughout the second half of the 19th century: People turned with delight to the era in which Marie Antoinette strolled through the gardens of her peasant village in Versailles dressed as a shepherdess. This brooch is a fine example of this revival of the Rococo style in the late 19th century. A solid gold frame is designed as a series of rocailles. They form the frame for a magnificent gemstone setting: a total of nine diamonds are set around a dark blue, natural spinel, like the rays of a sun. On the magnificent frame itself, which appears even richer thanks to an overlay of fine gold, a further diamond is set together with a ruby and a small emerald. The brooch came to us in London. It comes with a detailed certificate from the German Association for Gemstone Evaluation Idar-Oberstein.

Estimate:£4,748.31

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