This past Christmas I received an unusual bit of vintage jewelry which I’ve since researched to discover a whole world of such items which, naturally, now I want to collect.
The brooch of sterling silver is faced with glass. Beneath the glass bezel is a luminescent portrait of a Victorian woman. The portrait has been over-painted with details, but, the woman’s gown is so radiant. That’s because it’s assembled from real butterfly wings.
The picture you see above is not the same piece that I received. It’s a similar work by the same maker. The image below is the brooch that I have. Now, I took dozens of photos of it, but, it just didn’t photograph well. Too much shine, too much detail. However, this blurry picture gives you a sense of the impressive color that the piece exhibits. Much better than the above example. These types of brooches were made in England in the late 1910s and 1920s.
It seems there’s a bunch of other types of jewels made with butterfly wings from this era. I find it very charming, and, can only assume that the butterflies lived out their natural lives before being made into baubles.
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