£2,500
Animal jewellery. A fine Victorian gold and Hummingbird's head pendant, of tear shape, the bird with gold bill and glass eyes, 60mm overall, in the original shaped maroon morocco case signed for [Rowland] WARD & CO NATURALISTS 158 PICCADILLY
A rare and superbly preserved example of the Victorian fashion for birds, insects, shells or fish jewellery in the 1870s. Heads of birds, usually from South America, were bizarrely mounted as brooches, bracelets and earrings. Two honey creepers in their shimmering blue iridescent plumage worn as earrings are in the Victorian & Albert Museum. The present brooch by the best known taxidermist of the 19th c, Roland Ward is very similar to the chief exponent of animal jewellery the London jeweller Harry Immanuel whose bird's heads featured gold beaks and tiny glass eyes. Seven such heads in a row form a necklace of his in the British Museum, the gilt of R C Kwok. These are illustrated in Gere (C) and J Rudoe, Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria, pp 225-231, figs 182-184
A Private Collection of Jewellery, lots 300-345
In excellent preservation and quite possibly never worn. Exterior of case slightly scuffed
Fees apply to the hammer price:
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28.80% inc VAT*
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30.6% inc VAT*
