Chatelaine * in finely chiseled metal, with inset decoration of the profile of King Louis XIV as Roman emperor, head encircled with a laurel wreath, vintage late seventeenth-early eighteenth centuries.
This chatelaine is in good condition.
A note: some traces of oxidation, wear of time, see photos.
accessory-jewel worn at the waist, attached to the belt, which has for ancestors the clavandier and the troussoir of the fourteenth century. It consists of a large hook whose front is decorated and several chains completed by charms, scissors and / or a watch. In the first part of the eighteenth century, the chatelaine became fashionable; at the end of the Ancien Régime, it is worn by both men and women, sometimes double, symmetrically, on both sides of the panties or the skirt. When the neoclassical fashion, which raises the waist up under the chest, settles down, the chatelaine disappears almost completely, but it returns from 1820, when the size resumes its place. Jewel of clothing in many regions and accompanying the traditional costume, the silver chatelaine offered for the wedding served to suspend the sewing instruments: that is why it is sometimes called scissors hook. After 1850, with neo-gothic style, the heraldic armorial castles appear.
See the site of the National Museum of Malmaison Castle