Spanish Day and Night Moon Brooch

Art jewelry inspired by The Met collection.

The celestial motifs defining this brooch are adapted from a type of print called a broadside depicting 48 allegorical figures pertaining to the sun and the moon. The original, now in The Met collection, was printed about 1860–70 by Juan Llorens (Spanish, active ca. 1855–70), an active publisher of broadsides in Barcelona. Broadsides were issued by the thousands and sold on the street or in publishers’ shops beginning in 16th-century Europe. These inexpensive sheets of small images, made to entertain the buyer with depictions of current news, children’s games, popular tales, and so on, were so well received that certain printing presses made them their specialty. Many early broadsides have been lost due to their ephemeral nature, but…See More