Featured Turquoise brooch

Hello all, I'm normally good with both British arts and crafts jewellery and fairly ok with Native American too when buying and selling over here (UK) but this one has me scratching my head a little. When I first saw it I though NA due to the style and the large turquoise with black spider webbing. But the back has a tube hinge and C clasp (more 19th early 20th) rather than a safety clasp and round hinge. It's made from sheet silver too and lighter in style than I would think of with early NA work. So, i'm thinking British made using American Turquoise dating early 20th? Or, has the back been re-used I wonder.
One stone has cracked and been stabilised using resin I think.

Any thoughts?

 

Same thoughts as yours
Arts and Crafts probably using American turquoises as the shape is particular.
Puzzling piece!

 

I hate the really head scratching pieces, love a good research hunt but when it's all down to a few slight clues....arghhhhhh! I'm glad your thoughts went along the same road as mine though, was starting to doubt my own sanity for a while there

 

nice turquoise .............

 

Thanks! It's such a vivid blue. Shame one is cracked though.

 

Hard to tell where the stones are from,it is not spider web more like matrix. Examples of American turquoise,but nothing can be exact even from the same mine............. https://waddellgallery.com/pages/turquoise-materials

 

That's a link I'd not seen before, thanks, good explanations of the different mines.
Yeah, unless it's an obvious type, I guess even an expert would hate to identify a mine, unless the piece was physically in the hand I guess.

 

It is puzzling that there are no marks if it was made in Victorian England as the hinge and clasp suggests!

 

Antique British silver jewellery is often unmarked. Only larger items had to have assay marks, so smaller items frequently didn't, or were just stamped 'silver'. Some of the best pieces I've had were unmarked.

 

It is a beauty, and I agree, Arts & Crafts.
As Holly said, it is not spiderweb turquoise, spiderweb has interconnected matrix lines, which look like a spider's web. This has black blotches, for lack of a better word.

It is impossible to be absolutely sure about the origin. Just about all turquoise regions of the world have black matrix turquoise of that shade of blue.
What is important is to look at what kind of turquoise was mined at the time, and where.

As hard as it is to believe now, at the time this brooch was made the US was the most unlikely source of turquoise.
Ca 1800 the last of the rich pre-Columbian mines were all but exhausted, the few stones that were found were extremely expensive and kept for the local wealthy. Ca 1850 they tried to find new sources of native turquoise, but all they found were small areas in places too remote to facilitate real trade.
In 1890 Juan Lorenzo Hubble began to import Persian turquoise into the US because of the lack of native turquoise. The mines which became so popular later on, were only found in the 20th century, often as a by-product of copper mining.
Export in the early 20th century would have been highly unlikely. There is still very little export of US turquoise now, most of it is used locally and exported in ready made jewellery.

Although turquoise had been mined in Continental Europe for thousands of years, and was even found in Scotland at that time, this doesn't strike me as European turquoise.
I think your stones are Persian, just like the ones Hubble imported into the US.
Persia was the main exporter of turquoise in the world. Persian turquoise had a large range of shades of turquoise, not just the colour we now know as Persian blue. They also had matrix-rich stones, although through most of history pure, matrix-free turquoise was preferred.

The Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts period saw an interest in stones that were regarded as 'natural' and 'artisan'. Matrix turquoises became accepted for their natural look. They were often used in the shape they had when they were shipped from Persia, and not matched, for a natural look.
The Persian cutter probably thought the stones would end up in earrings.

 

AJ... Thank you so much for that reply, so much info on turquoise of that date is very much appreciated and I'm happy if they may be Persian, they are beautiful stones. I must admit my normal preference is green turquoise but these are so rich a colour it's impossible not to like them!

 

Pleasure, of course, Smudged. You can tell I love my turquoise, can't you.

I agree, they are wonderful. Persian is still considered the best in the world, and highly valued.

 

That's the time period I was thinking, too...

It's lovely, even with the crack.