Year :
|
c.1860 |
Material :
|
Gold,Glass |
Collection :
|
Private Collection |
Exhibition : |
Crowning Glories : Two Centuries of Tiaras
1 March ~ 25 June 2000
Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston
TIARA Dignity and Beauty
- the story of the Tiara
20 January ~ 22 July 2007
The Bunkamura Museum of Art / The Niigata Bandaijima Art Museum / The Museum of Kyoto
Organizers : Nippon Television Network Corporation and others |
|
<Description>
The gold band is outlined at the base with beading and is centered on two, octofoil medallions surmounted by a smaller one, flanked by another four to each side. The smaller medallions on each side enclose mosaics of plants and flowers within quatrefoils, and that at the top encloses a scarab. Mosaics of doves of peace, facing outward and framed in palmettes, are set in the two octofoils. C. 1860.
<Commentary>
The dove, copied from a mosaic in one of the early Christian churches in Rome, was a favorite choice for jewelry in the mid-nineteenth century. The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) wears a brooch with the mosaic dove motif in her portrait by Michele Gordigiani (now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art), and in a letter to the wife of the sculptor, Mrs. William Wetmore Story, she expresses her attachment to this Christian symbol, “so significant and touching to us all”. The gold setting, decorated with corded wire and beading, along with the use of glass mosaics, is in the “Etruscan” style, made fashionable by the success of the archaeological jewelry pioneered by Castellani of Rome. Since the makers exported unmounted mosaics, it is difficult to attribute a place of origin to the gold setting, but the beading and filigree are also characteristic of Roman work.
Diana Scarisbrick |
