Brooch
Category
Jewellery
Date
1800 (circa) - 1819 (circa)
Materials
Gold, turquoise.
Collection
Calke Abbey, Derbyshire
NT 288868
Summary
A gold circlet brooch dating from before 1819. The small polished gold roundel with raised wavy decoration is set at the four cardinal points with a turquoise collet. There is hook fitting attached to the frame back with the later addition of a gold safety chain. Together with a paper fragment stating: 22 carat gold. This gold and turquoise brooch belonged to by g[ran]dfather Sir Henry Crewe Bt. My father also wore it he gave it to me when a very small child. I began to wear it about 14 and it dropped off on the beach at Filey. I was in despair but a sailor found it embedded in stones and sand. M.A. Crewe. I then had a safety chain put on - not often wear it.
Full description
This brooch was worn by three generations of the Crewe family. It belonged first to Sir Henry Crewe, 7th Bt. (1763-1819) and thereafter his son Sir George Crewe, 8th Bt. (1795-1844) and granddaughter Mary Adeline Crewe (1834-1930). Mary Adeline described it an associated handwritten note as ‘This gold and turquoise brooch belonged to my g[ran]dfather Sir Henry Crewe Bt. My father also wore it he gave it to me when a very small child. I began to wear it when about 14 and it dropped off on the beach at Filey. I was in despair but a sailor found it embedded in stones and sand. M.A. [Mary Adeline] Crewe. I then had a safety chain put on - not often wear it.’ Sir George appears to have worn the brooch to pin his cravat for both his portrait by Ramsay Richard Reinagle (1775-1862) and his portrait miniature, which is set as the centrepiece of a bracelet (NT 290438 and 290333).
Provenance
Brooch, dating from before 1819 and worn by Sir Henry Crewe, 7th Bt. (1763-1819), Sir George Crewe, 8th Bt. (1795-1844) and Mary Adeline Crewe (1834-1930) by whom it was returned to Calke Abbey with a handwritten note. Thence by descent to Henry Harpur-Crewe (1921-91) and transferred with Calke Abbey and its contents to the National Trust by the Treasury in lieu of Capital Transfer Tax in 1985 with an endowment provided by the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Marks and inscriptions
This gold and turquoise brooch belonged to my godfather Sir Henry Crewe Bt. My father also wore it he gave it to me when a very small child. I began to wear it when about 14 and it dropped off on the beach at Filey. I was in despair but a sailor found it embedded in stones and sand. M.A.Crewe. I then had a safety chain put -- not often wear it. (inscribed note)