Summary

Gold brooch with vine leaves on a branch, made by William Lamborn, Melbourne, circa 1855.

The brooch is finely worked in the form of a segment of grapevine with three leaves and three tendrils. Golden grapevine jewellery is among the most frequent motifs in Victorian-made jewellery. This piece is comparatively rare (in this collection) in following the popular English 'naturalistic' style of plant-themed pieces as nature's beauty. Considered as imagery, the grapevine represents labour that yields nature's abundance.

Stamped on the back plate is: '[bird] / W.L / [crown]'?. This looks like a mark of Lamborn & Wagner, but without their usual ampersand: W & L. 'Lamborn and Wagner', in Cavill, Cox & Grace, Australian Jewellers: Gold and Silversmith: Makers & Marks, 1992, 143-5. The authors note that Lamborn & Wagner's jewellery of the 1860s-80s was 'in style, comparable to European botanical jewellery of the period', p.143. The brooch was identified by the seller as made by William Lamborn. As noted, neither the full mark nor the initials WL matches any individual entry in Cavill, Cocks & Grace, or in their list of unascribed marks. CC&G note that Leopold Wagner (Lamborn's partner from 1858) arrived in Melbourne in 1854 and worked with Samuel Woollett, using a 'W&W' stamp.

Comparitive items

Brooch of similar design in Australian Jewellery 19th and 20th Century by Anne Schofield and Kevin Fahy, p. 211, and Australian National Gallery, Canberra.
Mossgreen 17.10.2016, lot 921.

Physical Description

Gold brooch in the shape of several grapevine leaves on a branch. The vine branch is composed of an ogee-curved segment of vine interrupted by a small stump and two leaf nodes; a second stump is visible from the back of the brooch, carrying the hook of the pin. At the front, the whole branch is finely etched with diagonal lines suggesting woody texture. Three tri-lobed grape leaves are attached to the branch and to each other by tendrils of curly wire. The leaf shapes are die-stamped, repoussé, textured with a dotted finish, and engraved with curving veins. The brooch has a conventional tube-hinge, C-hook and elongated pin. The back of the vine branch is fitted with a flat cover, in polished finish. The leaves are hollow-stamped pieces, with a repair on the back of the lowest leaf, where the bottom lobe appears to have broken and been reattached.

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