No. 21 Masquerade Jewelry Watercolor Archival Print

An archival giclée print of an original watercolor painting based on an 18th-century English masquerade brooch. The original brooch, a late-Georgian miniature of a masked face bordered with pearls. Miniatures like this were worn as witty and seductive emblems of disguise and desire, combining flirtation with anonymity beneath the mask. 8" × 8".

THE HISTORY: Masquerade portrait jewels were an 18th-century fashion (c.1750–1820) of rings, brooches, and pendants set with tiny close-up portraits of masked faces, sometimes with glinting gems or paste for the eyes. Unlike Lover’s Eyes, these miniatures show the whole upper face behind a domino mask, leaning into the era’s culture of anonymity, flirtation, and carnival play. They were frequently executed in enamel (vitreous enamel painted on copper or gold), though examples also appear on ivory; mounts often featured additional black or colored enamel. Worn as witty tokens of intrigue (or as keepsakes of a particular ball), they balanced daring theatricality with refined craftsmanship.