Summary

Gold 'Forget-Me-Not' brooch, part of a demi-parure, attributed to Lamborn & Wagner, Melbourne, circa 1875.

This brooch and its matching pair of ear pendants is attributed to Lamborn & Wagner, due to the fine execution and their distinctive style that often incorporates botanical and bird-themed elements as well as the use of gold and paste.

The original definition of a parure is a complete set of matching jewellery intended to be worn together. They are often comprised of a tiara, necklace, bracelet, brooch and ear pendants. A demi-parure is still a complete set but with fewer pieces, 'demi' being the French term for 'half'.
Demi-parure sets are typically comprised of three pieces; most often a brooch with matching earrings or a neckpiece with matching earrings.

Physical Description

Oval ring brooch in pseudo-rustic twig frame, ie, with two stem nodes worked at top and bottom, and two applied on the sides. Springing from the two side-nodes are the curly stems of four serrated leaves, set in the four quarters of the ring frame; the leaves are stippled and engraved with veins. The upper pair of leaves sits just over the frame; the lower pair are fixed within the frame. A small dove is fixed to the upper two leaves, wings spread; it flies downwards, with a card engraved 'Forget Me Not', in its beak. The back of the brooch ring is enclosed in gold sheet metal, unmarked. The steel brooch pin is secured by a tube hinge at the top and a C-clasp at the bottom. A small gold ring is fixed to the R proper side for suspending the brooch as a pendant. The brooch is unmarked by a maker. (This description reads the brooch vertically, though most of its kind are usually read as horizontal.) The brooch has repairs to two breaks in the frame. One, at the lower proper left of the frame, is filled with a silvery metal visible from the front but not the back; the other repair, at the upper proper left (just below the pin hinge) is visible only at the back, where the shaped node on the brooch frame is a little bent out of shape, probably from the same accident.

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