Summary

Oval ring brooch of finely textured gold, enclosing a stylised five-petal flower set with a round red paste stone, surrounded by six gold-knobbed stamens. Below the flower are two trefoils, two tendrils and a small grape leaf.

The brooch is unmarked, but the previous owner attributed it to Lamborn & Wagner, Melbourne.

Physical Description

Oval ring brooch of finely textured gold. The oval framing the brooch is repoussé-worked in patterned-ribbon segments. The central flower is a single piece repoussé; its billowing, peaked petals are finished with an unusually linear texture, each petal with a graved edge. A round red paste is set in a collet with eight claws in the middle of the flower, over a well of bright gold. The collet is supported by six prominent stamens composed of gold wire topped by tiny balls. The lower third of the brooch design is filled by somewhat heraldic trefoils with peaked tips (which makes them neither shamrocks nor clover). They are carried on curved wire stems, together with a very small grape leaf and two corkscrew-twisted tendrils. On the back of the brooch can be seen the big flower stem, slightly curved, of larger gauge wire; it is the primary fixing of the flower. The half-tube profile of the brooch's oval ring is only three-quarters enclosed at the back, with small, flat, gold plates, which stabilise and strengthen the otherwise fragile frame. The steel brooch pin is fixed to the top and bottom plates with a conventional tube hinge and C-clasp. The brooch is unmarked.

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