About this piece
Peking glass gets its name from Chinese decorative glasswork, but the term has long since drifted to cover opaque, richly coloured glass more broadly, and here it's doing the job turquoise usually does — a convincing sky-blue substitute, cabochon-cut and set to read as stone rather than glass at any normal viewing distance. Czech workshops turned out a great deal of exactly this kind of glasswork through the 20th century, producing gemstone substitutes that stood on their own decorative merits rather than reading as cheap imitations.
Both the rhombus-shaped brooch and its matching ear clips borrow Art Nouveau's visual language rather than being period pieces themselves — scrolling vine and shell motifs surrounding the central cabochon, rendered in silver-toned metal with the same flowing, organic curves the movement was known for decades earlier. It's a nice example of how durable that aesthetic proved to be, still being reinterpreted well into the 1970's long after the original movement had run its course.
Condition notes
Great vintage condition.
