Pastoral Shell Cameo Brooch in Gold, French, c. 1860

A Longing for the Picturesque

Pastoral Shell Cameo Brooch in Gold, French, c. 1860

€ 1,490.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

Description

This description was automatically translated from German. If you have any questions about this piece of jewellery, we will be happy to help!

Here we see a shell cameo in a picturesque cut set in gold. The presumably French work from the middle of the 19th century shows an Arcadian scene: a stone bridge spans a stream, a female figure stands contemplating by the water, in the middle ground we see a small farmstead with a simple picket fence under a large, seemingly dabbed tree. At first glance, the depiction appears to be a genre scene with no further significance. However, against the background of its time of origin, the piece takes on the character of a contemporary document. With the onset of industrialization in the 19th century, life in France was increasingly changing. Émile Zola's great novels tell of the growing influx of people to Paris. The city was redesigned, the old, romantic parts of medieval Paris disappeared and the large avenues and boulevards took their place instead. Despite all the joy of progress and new luxury, the feeling of the loss of the old France gained the upper hand in large parts of the population. The cameo presented here is to be understood against this background: It once again celebrates country life in a romantic manner, the carefree happiness in the open air, carefree and without the obligations of office, counting house and factory. Similar to the Ancien Régime, a longing for the countryside was also expressed, which in the backward-looking glorification of the countryside could also develop a utopia for the future, to live more freely and in closer coexistence. The cut of the work is wonderful: the landscape is almost impressionistically designed without getting lost in details that are too small. The framing is richly detailed and of high quality: two belts also seem to symbolically capture the scene. This beautiful and rare cameo came to us from a Berlin collection.

Size & Details

A Longing for the Picturesque

€ 1,490.00 ^*

Content 1 piece

Incl. VAT, Shipping

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A Longing for the Picturesque

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