Mens

Antique figural brooch featuring donkey and cart walking along a road in 9 carat gold and silver, meticulously detailed with the donkey’s silver engraved body set with natural seed pearls and a garnet eye while the harness and the cart are finely delineated in gold, the cart filled with vegetables of larger pearls with seed pearl leaves and a coral carrot, while one vegetable –possibly a turnip - fallen out next to the cart is also depicted with a larger pearl and seed pearl leaves. Secured with a gold safety chain.

People were fascinated with natural history, animals and insects at the close of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Animals, birds and insects- some quite ugly- were often finely and realistically featured in jewellery and were particularly popular as subjects for brooches. Animal brooch jewellery remained popular throughout the twentieth century– in a variety of metals and colourful gems. As the century progressed the animals became increasingly quirky, whimsical and cute, sometimes almost cartoon like.