Horner Winged Scarab Brooch
This small but spectacular sterling silver brooch featuring an enamelled winged scarab was made c.1908-1910 in the Art Nouveau Egyptian revival style. Created in Yorkshire by the renowned jewellery company Charles Horner of Halifax, the initials CH stamped on the reverse along with the shield silver mark of Chester, Charles Horner himself had founded the business in the 1860s. Then at his death in 1896, his sons James and Charles continued the business, among their output enamelled Art Nouveau pieces such as this superb scarab brooch.
Inspired by the ancient Egyptian scarab beetle, these were regarded as symbols of new life and rebirth whose flight upwards represented the rising sun each dawn – indeed, as the pioneering Amelia Edwards herself pointed out, “no insect has ever had so much greatness thrust upon him” (1). The earliest scarab amulets date back to the First Intermediate Period (c.2100 BC) and usually worn around the neck or finger, they were often made of bright blue glazed ‘faience’, a colour suggested by the vivid enamel work here.
Thereafter used throughout pharaonic history and into the AD C.4th, some were also used as seals (2) while in burial rites a large ‘heart scarab’ amulet was placed upon the chest of the mummified body to ensure the soul would pass into a blessed afterlife. In the first millennium BC extended wings were also added to such large scarabs, allowing the soul to rise up too and be reborn (3).
Winged Scarab © Met Museum
Gold and diamond set winged scarab © FD Gallery
By Victorian and Edwardian times it was not only fashionable to collect these ancient scarabs, but to have them mounted in modern settings, with Bram Stoker’s 1903 horror story ‘The Jewel of Seven Stars’ even named after one such ancient scarab mounted in gold for one of the novel’s characters.
Certainly the taste for such ancient pieces in modern settings can be found at least as early as 1860 in the work of Italian Revivalist jeweller Castellani. And while Cartier is perhaps the most celebrated exponent of this (4), they also created entirely new pieces inspired by Egypt’s ancient past, as Horner himself so clearly was.
Dimensions: 4.5cm across
SKU: EM256
References:
- Edwards, A. B. 1888, A Thousand Miles up the Nile, London, p.97
- https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/688614#:~:text=The%20earliest%20scarab%20amulets%20appeared,2030%E2%80%931070%20B.C.
- Ancient scarab at https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/552816 with 2nd example set in modern gold frame with diamonds at https://theadventurine.com/culture/jewelry-history/the-eternal-appeal-of-egyptian-revival-jewelry/)
- https://thejewelryloupe.com/jewelry-revivals-egyptian-style/ & https://theadventurine.com/culture/jewelry-history/the-eternal-appeal-of-egyptian-revival-jewelry/
