Gold, silver, enamel, ruby, emeralds

A signed design in the Library of the Goldsmiths’ Company, London, shows the V&A brooch as a pendant on a necklace (Records of the Artificers' Guild). The existing fittings suggest the pendant was originally made as an interchangeable brooch and pendant.
The subject of Una and the Lion from The Faerie Queene is a fine example of the Victorian and Edwardian delight in the Arthurian legends. Bonnor has included the shields of the Red Cross Knight and Sansfoy whom he killed in single combat. Una was an exemplar of feminine virtue, a popular subject at the time.

Literature
llustrated in our book:
Beatriz Chadour-Sampson & Sonya Newell-Smith, Tadema Gallery London Jewellery from the 1860s to 1960s, Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart 2021, p. 198

Collections
Purchased for the Victoria and Albert Museum, through the generosity of Geneviève Davies from the collection of Scheherazade Pesante who acquired it in the 1990s from Tadema Gallery.

Ref No   10332

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