AN ART NOUVEAU PINK ENAMEL 'CALANTHE VEITCHII' ORCHID BROOCH, BY TIFFANY & CO
AN ART NOUVEAU PINK ENAMEL 'CALANTHE VEITCHII' ORCHID BROOCH, BY TIFFANY & CO

Details
AN ART NOUVEAU PINK ENAMEL 'CALANTHE VEITCHII' ORCHID BROOCH, BY TIFFANY & CO
The pink matt enamel petals with darker pink detail to the diamond collet centre and emerald stem, mounted in gold, circa 1890, 5.0 cm long
Signed Tiffany & Co., New York

Lot Essay

Tiffany first displayed their exquiste enamel orchid hair and corsage ornaments at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Created by chief designer Paulding Farnham and using the enamelling technique developed by Edward C. Moore, another designer for Tiffany, these flowers merited Tiffany's the grand prize gold medal for jewellery.

Gustave Stickley, a leader of the Arts and Crafts movement in America wrote in The Studio, 'The copying of flowers in jewelry is, of course, no new thing, and many exquisite productions of this sort have been seen in our shops of late years, but the orchids of Mssrs. Tiffany are the first that we have seen, and it would be impossible to surpass them, whether for cleverness of imitation, or for perfection of workmanship.' (ref. J. Loring, Tiffany Jewels)

Cf. J. Loring, Tiffany Jewels, Harry N.Abrams Inc., 1999, p. 110.
Illustrated on this page is Tiffany's Orchid Brooch no. 4, a Calanthe veitchii, a cross of Calanthe vestita by Calanthe rosea, both tropical Asian orchids and the same type as lot 95

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