French Art Nouveau stick pin, the heart shaped head worked in repousse with the profile of a maiden among irises, her hair flowing into the flowers, struck FIX to the reverse, circa 1910.
The head is the whole Art Nouveau vocabulary compressed into an inch and a half: a woman in profile with her eyes lowered, her hair loosened and running down into a mass of iris flowers and blade leaves that fill the rest of the panel. Where the woman ends and the plant begins is deliberately left unclear, and that dissolving of one thing into another is exactly what separates Art Nouveau from the Victorian work in front of which it arrived.
The iris was one of the movement's favourite flowers, along with the orchid and the poppy, chosen for a stem and petal that already draw the whipping curve the style was built on.
The panel is worked in repousse, struck up from behind over a steel die so the relief is raised in the metal itself rather than cast, which is why the detail stays this sharp at this size. The reverse is left hollow.
The reverse is struck FIX in an oval. FIX is the trade mark of the French rolled gold industry, a sheet of gold rolled under pressure onto a base core and sold as double or lamine. French makers used it for good quality decorative work of this kind from the 1890s onward, and the rolled layer is thick enough that these pins survive a century without wearing through.
Dimensions -
Length: 6.5 cm
Width: 1.5 cm
Weight: 1.7 g
Specifications -
Metal: Rolled gold on a base core
Mark: FIX in an oval
Period: Art Nouveau, circa 1910
Origin: France
Decoration: Repousse maiden among irises
Fitting: Stick pin
Condition :
Very good antique condition.
French Art Nouveau stick pin, the heart shaped head worked in repousse with the profile of a maiden among irises, her hair flowing into the flowers, struck FIX to the reverse, circa 1910.
The head is the whole Art Nouveau vocabulary compressed into an inch and a half: a woman in profile with her eyes lowered, her hair loosened and running down into a mass of iris flowers and blade leaves that fill the rest of the panel. Where the woman ends and the plant begins is deliberately left unclear, and that dissolving of one thing into another is exactly what separates Art Nouveau from the Victorian work in front of which it arrived.
The iris was one of the movement's favourite flowers, along with the orchid and the poppy, chosen for a stem and petal that already draw the whipping curve the style was built on.
The panel is worked in repousse, struck up from behind over a steel die so the relief is raised in the metal itself rather than cast, which is why the detail stays this sharp at this size. The reverse is left hollow.
The reverse is struck FIX in an oval. FIX is the trade mark of the French rolled gold industry, a sheet of gold rolled under pressure onto a base core and sold as double or lamine. French makers used it for good quality decorative work of this kind from the 1890s onward, and the rolled layer is thick enough that these pins survive a century without wearing through.
Dimensions -
Length: 6.5 cm
Width: 1.5 cm
Weight: 1.7 g
Specifications -
Metal: Rolled gold on a base core
Mark: FIX in an oval
Period: Art Nouveau, circa 1910
Origin: France
Decoration: Repousse maiden among irises
Fitting: Stick pin
Condition :
Very good antique condition.
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