Art Nouveau Brooch - Can You Help with Any Info?

by Dale
(New Rochelle, NY, USA)

I have a small gold art nouveau brooch/pin. It is hollow cast, with a flat back. The theme is a highly decorated woman with hair, clothing, vines and other high art nouveau styling.

My guess would be French, turn of the century. I have not tested the gold, but the color looks very 18K. It weighs 3.57 grams. The front has been buffed, but the back shows the age of the piece....with various small scratches and insults that you might expect with it's age.


There are two very tiny hallmarks on the clasp. One is the head of an eagle (or possibly a gryphon) looking to the right. The other is a four sided diamond that appears to have the letters A and L, separated by two ice cream cone shaped objects between them. One cone points up, the other is rotated 180 degrees and points down. It is also possible that the A is really an inverted V. But I am going with the A.

The hallmarks are so small...literally around one millimeter wide... I do not have the photographic equipment necessary to take clear pictures of them. I microscope would probably be needed. I know this makes it harder to identify. Hopefully my description will be helpful. Dale

Any info you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Reply

Your description was helpful! There is a lot of reproduction art nouveau jewelry in the marketplace aping genuine art nouveau and antique jewelry investors new to this area, should take extra care however, looking at the image and exquisite details; indulgent sensuality was a dominant force and designs of nature were endowed with the female form, rippling hair, writhing abstract forms, wriggling marine plants resembling tentacles, etc and the additional verification in way of French Hallmarks the initials AL in diamond could be the initials of AUGUSTE LEROY (Silversmiths, Paris, France) - ca 1912 - 1935

best wishes,
Yvonne