DU TEMPS PERDU | Victorian Mourning Brooch Brass & Sterling Silver | Etched Bird And Flower | American Aesthetic Movement | Soldered Back

▶Why This Belongs In Your Jewelry Box◀

For the collector who is ever "a la recherche," we present for consideration this gorgeously worked brooch from the Victorian or Edwardian era. The scalloped circle which makes up the thrust of the pin is just over an inch in diameter; the brooch measures 1.5 inches from tip to stem, and its shape brings to mind those paper fans that do not fold.

Depicted on its face is a bucolic scene: a swan splashes radiantly near the shore of a stream or lake, a starlike flower emanating from the splashing water's rounded motion. The swan and the flower are fasioned of etched sterling silver, and indeed, the entirety of the pin is elaborately etched, to extremely charming effect.

But the most remarkable aspect of DU TEMPS PERDU may be the back, where a closed compartment of a different metal (likely bronze) holds some souvenir of a person long lost to this world. Some things are best left to the imagination—also because, to find out, one would have to open the compartment using force, quite possibly destroying the piece. And even if one were to open it very skillfully, what could we learn from the coiled shock of hair or whatever it may be, housed within? The significance is unknowable, etched into the memories of those who too have gone to a mysterious hereafter. Such is the way of the world.

This unique piece—truly, for I have never seen anything like it—has been lightly polished and cleaned, and is ready for wear.

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▶ Components & Details◀

● Gold filled metal

● Sterling Silver

Size: 1.5 inches long, 1 inch wide at widest point

Provenance: Unknown

Era: Victorian, Edwardian, 1870-1905

Aesthetic Categorization: Aesthetic Period


▶Condition/Attributes◀

● Condition: Excellent antique/vintage condition.


▶Collector Notes◀

✪ Victorian—This period in jewelry design takes its name from a time when Great Britain was ruled by Queen Victoria, who presided over an expanding empire from 1837 to 1901. Any jewelry from this period of time, no matter where it was made, can be considered Victorian. As such, Victorian period, jewellery consisted of a diverse variety of styles and fashions, and technological advancement made many new styles possible. Old diamond cuts, such as rose cuts and old mine cut diamonds, were immensely popular; at the start of the era they were set in silver over yellow gold, or in gold. However, the search for the perfect, tarnish-free "white" metal, ideal for setting diamonds, continued, and in the final years of the Victorian era, platinum came into prominence. Rose gold and a rosy yellow gold also became very popular at this time. Moonstones and opals came into popular use, due to colonial and empirical access to these materials in Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka) and Australian. During the tail end of the Victorian period, new aesthetic movements such as Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement began to emerge.

✪ Figural jewelry—An item of jewelry, whether a ring, pair of earrings, brooch, pendant, or more, can be considered figural if it is designed to represent an entity or object, or even a detailed scene, such as the Rebecca at the Well scenes one finds in certain cameos. Specific themes became popular and then fell out of fashion over the decades, such as snakes and swallows during the Victorian era, spiders/spiderwebs in the Edwardian period, cicadas in French Art Deco, and (does anyone remember this?!) pacifier charms in the late 1990s. 


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