Mastery of Design: A Steel Butterfly Brooch, 1875

Cut-Steel Butterfly Brooch
French, 1875
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This butterfly brooch is an excellent example of the cut steel wares which were exported from France throughout Europe and America in the second half of the nineteenth century. These types of accessories were largely worn during periods of secondary mourning (an interim period between full and semi-mourning in the Victorian era).  The most popular of the steel brooches were those shaped like butterflies, like this one.  In fact, a London publication in 1882 reported that “steel butterflies had begun to perch on bonnets.”

The cut-steel butterfly’s wings, with curved tips, are encrusted with small faceted steel studs with three larger flat-topped studs mounted on the upper sections and two on the lower sections. The body of the insect is made of a long tapered stud with diagonal facets at the bottom. A pin runs horizontally across the upper part of the wings.

The piece was made in France around 1875.