A pair of antique earrings

enamelled, gold, silver and steel in the form of hens nesting with eggs in woven gold baskets. The hens, affectionately as ‘cocottes’, date from the period of the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

An identical pair of earrings forms part of the jewellery collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and is illustrated in Henri Vever’s La Bijouterie Française au XIXe siècle’ (1906-8), Vol. II p.87 (translated edition p.553 and in colour p.610).