Jewellery, Watches, Antiquities and Objects of Vertu

A Victorian diamond ‘en tremblant’ dog rose brooch, the realistically modelled spray with a five petal flowerhead mounted ‘en tremblant’ and set amidst foliage with a single rose bud above, the brooch set throughout with old-brilliant-cut and cushion-shaped diamonds, with rose-cut diamond highlights, gold and silver mounted, length 8cm.

£4,000-£6,000

The dog rose - or ‘rose canina’, also known as ‘eglantine’, was said to represent ‘pleasure and pain’ in the ‘language of flowers’.


Floriography (the language of flowers) reached a zenith in Victorian England in the 19th century, as well as enjoying huge popularity in France and the United States. Gifts of blooms and specific floral arrangements were used to send coded messages to the recipient, allowing the sender to tacitly express their feelings which could not otherwise be spoken.

Hundreds of publications were dedicated to the subject. Joseph Hammer-Purgstall’s Dictionnaire du Langage des Fleurs (1809) appears to be the first published list associating flowers with symbolic definitions, whilst the first dictionary of floriography appears in 1819 when Louise Cortambert, writing under the pen name of Madame Charlotte de la Tour, wrote Le Langage des Fleurs.

The subject was to remain popular until the 1880s.