Featured Sterling Fish Brooch With Amethyst Stone

I've only had this a few weeks but it has quickly become one of my favorite additions to the box of jewelry I have in the closet that never gets looked at except when I am adding new favorites...

I haven't been able to find the maker or ID those hallmarks. I am assuming that chunk of purple rock is amethyst?

Whatcha think?

 

Google Images brings up John Hart as the maker. Hallmarked for Iona, Scotland. Sterling and amethyst.

Debora

 

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/163...how_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

Debora

 

oh wonderful! Thanks, @Debora

 

The sea monster looks a bit like Renaissance depictions of dolphins.

 

With also a JH monogram.

 

It's a lovely piece. Don't doubt it's giving you pleasure.

Debora

 

and indeed

 

I' drawn to odd-numbered things, like the 9 prong setting for that stone...Thanks!

 

Looks like it was hallmarked in Glasgow, the tree on the left. Iona doesn't have its own assay office, none of the islands do. The Glasgow office was the closest assay office to Iona.

It does have the "IONA" mark which Iona makers often use, but that is not a hallmark, it just means it was made on Iona.

 

It took a bit of time to find the hallmark info, as I kept looking for hallmarks with a horse head and/or a bat

 

They are very blobby, even my Glasgow tree could be wrong. In which case the bat/thistle could be the Edinburgh towers.
There was still an assay office in Glasgow when the brooch was made, and that was the closest one. Nowadays they would have to go to Edinburgh, on the east coast.