Antique Italian Micromosaic Brooch - Remarkable

This stunning brooch was a bit of a mystery to me. I had never come across such an ornate and complicated piece of jewelry in all my forays into precious metals. The individual stone pieces were carved and shaped with such obsessive care that each stone measures just fractions of a millimeter. Plainly, I had to uncover how this beautiful brooch came to be.

The method is referred to as Micromosaic. It consists of tiny jewels or stones, called Tessarae, that are formed and placed into a cement base with such care and detail that these pieces are frequently mistaken for painted works, prior to close examination. This technique was perfected in the Vatican Mosaic Workshop in Rome, Italy in the late 18th century. Many of these pieces were sold as souvenirs and they will depict ancient Italian landmarks. Other themes such as animals or birds can be found as well. This piece was made using a commonly popular theme - flowers. Looking up-close, you can see the phenomenal detail and care that went into the production of this staggeringly beautiful piece. Because of its delicate nature, very few true micromosaics are found in perfect condition – small chips, cracks or odd missing tiles are quite normal. In this case, our piece is, for lack of a better word, perfect. I'm just staggered...

Now, to attribute this stunning piece with an artist, I needed to find a maker's mark or some sort of identification... Sadly, this was not to be. The piece is devoid of any sort of identification. However, having researched the method and history of the art, I'm convinced this is an Italian piece hailing from the late 19th century. Originally, I believed that these pieces would be primarily adorned with gold, but this is not the case. Gold is quite flexible, when it comes to jewelry and given that this piece's tiny tiles are set in concrete, it's of paramount importance that the backing and borders do not flex or move. At best, micromosaic pieces were positioned in 9 karat gold, but more often than not, they were gold plated brass (for strength) and copper (for flexible decoration). In our case, it seems that the backing is brass and the twist elements on the front are gold-plated copper. The detail along the edge and within the twisted borders of the tessarae groupings are simply beautiful and it's very apparent that the entire piece was shaped and crafted by a master's hand. Can you imagine the level of preparation necessary to produce such a tightly-packed finished image? The amount of measuring and planning is just staggering. This is plainly a very high-quality piece and has been well cared-for for over a century!

As always, should you have any questions or comments, I'm very happy to return all messages almost immediately.

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