Antique Wing Brooch with Diamonds in Silver on Gold, c. 1895

A new fashion found great favour with the elegant ladies of high society in the 1890s: the so-called Mercury Wings, named after the winged god. They were made of pearls, diamonds and other precious stones and were worn as a brooch on the décolleté or as an aigrette in the hair, the latter being combined with real feathers. As early as 1893, the American journal The Jewelers' Circular reported, 'The Mercury wings are now introduced in jewels and feathers for the hair.' This pair of wings is particularly precious. A total of around 3.59 ct of diamonds in historical cuts set the surface, which is naturalistically designed to resemble real feathers. The three largest diamonds in the cushion-shaped Old Mine Cut are set the center of the brooch in a vertical row. In order to follow this new fashion with such an opulently decorated model, the first wearer of the piece obviously used a method popular at the time, and had diamonds from heirloom pieces repurposed, saving material costs. Many of the diamond cuts clearly date back to earlier decades of the 19th century. The symmetrical design and upward angled wings show that brooches like this one were worn centrally on the neckline, whose line they thus followed. Compare this with the 1904 Portrait of Susannah Pearson by Sir Frank Dicksee. In addition, the brooch pin could once be replaced by a hairpin, which was lost over the generations – as is almost always the case. The brooch is in very good condition. It came to us from France, to where it was imported beforehand; it was probably made in Great Britain. The fashion for winged brooches was international, however, as reports from American fashion journals show. Enclosed is a page from the French design magazine Le Bijou, which showed a very similar brooch in October 1897. The quote is from Elsie Bee, 'Fashions in Jewelry and Silverware', The Jewelers' Circular, November 22, 1893, p. 37.

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