Enameled pansies

Enameled pansies
070

Viola × Wittrockiana hybrid

Pansy

Brooch and earrings

Made in Newark, New Jersey, USA

Approximately 1900

A.J. Hedges & Co

Enamel, 585/1000 gold 14 k, old single cut diamonds, natural pearl

Brooch 31,6 x 30 mm. Earrings 20,5 x 12,9 mm

 10,10 grams & 4,05 grams

Good. Hooks altered

Sold

 

 

“You are always on my mind”,  immortalized by a poetic set of polychrome enameled golden pansy flowers.

Such a sweet message spoken through the language of flowers. In Victorian England, flowers were often used for secret messages to potential romantic partners. Hidden in a tussie mussie ; some greenery wrapped in a doily with the relevant flowers in the middle. The pansy flower was used to express amorous thoughts like “You are always on my mind, I’m feeling amorous towards you, I am thinking of you”.

Pansy, the name of the pretty flower, indeed comes from the French word pensée; a noun derived from penser, “to think or “ponder over something”.

 As penser also means to consider, to take measure of a situation, to take everything into consideration, the pansy flower was also embraced as a symbol by the Free Thinkers Society, a group of people who decided to adopt a mode of logical thought that was free from societal constraints, expectations, emotions or dogma.

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