This Art Nouveau butterfly brooch with plique à jour enamel in antique style is crafted in 18k yellow gold, weighs 6.1g and measures 27mm long, 22mm wide and 3mm deep. Butterflies, dragonflies and bees mounted with diamonds and colored precious or semi-precious stones were the craze of the 1890's 'fin de siècle' brooches and optimal motifs. Art Nouveau master craftsmen applied their plique à jour enameling technique to the colorful wings of insects, frequently mounted 'en tremblant' to produce the semblance of flying insects. The wings of this anatomically realistic butterfly are rendered in quintessentially Art Nouveau plique à jour enamel in an absorbing array of translucent pink, blue, and green colors, blended into one another with subtleness and delicacy. The thorax of this colorful butterfly is bead-set with an alluring 0.25ct full-cut peridot, complemented by 0.15cts of full-cut diamonds graded I color and SI1 clarity, mounted in vertical alignment on the thorax adorning the colorful wings within finely mille grained borders. The butterfly antenna are rendered in polished 18k yellow gold while the undercarriage is signed MB'. A hinged pin and a retractable clasp secure this captivating Art Nouveau style plique à jour enamel brooch.
During the Art Nouveau era which encompassed the period 1890 to 1919, renowned enamel effects such as 'cloisonné', 'champlevé', 'plique à jour' and 'pate de verre' were both discovered and revived. This enchanting pin is a vividly colored sample of the plique à jour enameling, probably the single most important technique used by Art Nouveau designers to render their jewelry more appealing. In this technique the enamel work is translucent due to the absence of a metal backing. To achieve this, cells of enamel are surrounded by delicate wires, shaped on a thin sheet of metal. Enamel is fired into the wire cells and after being melted and cooled, the thin metal is peeled away, leaving the translucent enamel suspended in a supporting framework of cloisonné wire.
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