Featured Help identifying/dating an antique brooch with a woman's head/dragons

Hello, I am trying to identify/date an antique brooch with a woman's head flanked by two dragons. Silver metal (no marks) with some white/blue enamel. Size 5cm x 4cm. Missing clasp. Many thanks for any insight!

 

It is a beauty. The style is Renaissance revival, but without marks it is very difficult to find the origin.
Those are not dragons, btw. Mythical beings of some sort.

 

the female sort.......

 

Definitely.

 

A beautiful brooch I would love to own for sure! Looks Art Nouveau (around 1900) to me.

There have been dragons depicted as snake-like or long-tail with wings so that description doesn't bother me. The breasts are a bit weird for a reptile creature, but artists have definitely added them in the 20th c so it doesn't surprise me... Maybe a dragon-sphinx combo? Artistic license I guess!

 

I beg to differ, and I could be wrong, but I don't see Art Nouveau style at all. But I do agree about 1900.

 

Nice! Typical French 1880, silvered metal.
The creature is a "chimère"

 

I remember @Jivvy made an I.D. a similar one here https://www.antiquers.com/threads/p...n-dragons-gargoyle-griffin.40955/#post-869146
It was called a wyvern.

 

how, do you remember that ?????

 

Haha things just stick!

 

How about an amphiptere (also amphithere & other variants) a creature new to me. These would have to be amphiptere-ess-es.

This strikes me as a hodgepodge of styles, not true to any one of them.

 

how about a close up of that mark underneath the pin...? pls

 

Neither do I. The decorative elements are all references to the Renaissance period. I don't see any Nouveau motifs.
Given the style and the pin length, it is older than the AN period.

 

I suspected French, with that gorgeous blue enamel. And I agree with the period.

My mother was a human chimera, she had two sets of DNA. Genetically I am the child of her twin who was never born.
Strange, but she was not the only 'case' in medical history. Human chimera, or just chimera, is the term used for such cases. And I am a 'motherless child'.

 

There’s also chimera cats, which are utterly fascinating.

 

Yes, they are caused by the same quirk as human chimeras, two embryos fused together in the womb. Only in humans you don't see it, but in cats it is very visible and striking, like they are wearing a mask.

 

AJ, you are indeed a mythical person!
The Dragon Lady is the daughter of a Chimera!

 

Hi, Thanks for looking! It just appears to be a dirty mark (unless it has rubbed away).

 

Hi, thanks everyone for your interesting replies, very helpful!