Victorian Aesthetic Movement Japonisme Butterfly & Ivy Gold Band

An American aesthetic movement gold band, designed in the japonisme taste, and chased throughout with ivy leaves flanking a butterfly. A closely related ring, bearing the same circular patent mark for Aug. 26 1879, is illustrated on page 275 of Diana Scarisbrick’s “Rings: Jewelry of Power, Love and Loyalty”. This 1879 patent (no. US219008A), issued to John Obrig of Newark, NJ, relates to improvements in the manufacture of patterned jewelry. According to the patent application, the ornamental designs on the present ring was made by punching, sawing, or cutting the shape aperture through a sheet of gold, and then soldering that sheet to a second piece of gold of a different color. Finishing details such as leaf veins would then be engraved. He wrote: “A very pretty and novel effect is produced by this construction. The polished surface of the plate A, in one color of gold, affords a strong contrast to the dull depressed surface of the underlaid plate B, which is of a different color of gold.” Obrig was a jeweler for the firm A. J. Hedges & Co.

According to Victorian lore, the butterfly symbolizes the soul, while ivy represents fidelity and eternity. A fervor for all things Japanese dominated European and American design throughout the 1860-70s, in part encouraged by the increased importation and availability of Japanese goods in the West (the 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa had ended Japan’s isolationism), and in part influenced by a pre-Raphaelite impulse to seek new sources of artistic inspiration.
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