Frankish disc brooch with an applied repoussé sheet set with pastes and semi-precious stones..

A Frankish disc brooch or fibula. The gold face is inlaid into a bronze disk and is decorated with filigree work. The brooch is set with nine circular blue pastes, five large and four small, and four garnets set into rectangular fixings. The back is roughly hatched.

Purchased by the British Museum from Mr Rollin and Mr Feurardent for £30, from the Forman sale 1899, Sotheby's Lot number 441. Transferred from the British Museum to the Victoria & Albert Museum 1939 (BM number 99,7-17.1)

Historical significance: The Franks, alone among the migratory peoples established a political unity that survived the disintegration of the Roman Empire and laid the foundations for the Carolingian Empire. In maintaining a political structure and distinct culture, the Franks provided an essential link between late Roman art and the Carolingian art that laid the ground work for the splendid metalwork of the medieval period.

Most of what survives of Frankish art consists largely of personal adornments and objects for daily use such as this disk brooch. Frankish decorative work occurs on ornamented weaponry, buckles and jewellery, the majority of which has been discovered as grave goods. Jewellery was essentially portable wealth and was often buried with the owner as a conspicuous expression of their wealth, rank and status.

In western Europe the wearing of single disc brooches replaced the use of paired brooches in the late sixth and seventh centuries, as costume fashions changed under Byzantine influence through diplomatic, religious and trade contacts. Disc brooches also noticeably increased in size over this period. These large gold disks brooches are the most characteristic creations of seventh century Frankish goldsmith's work and are striking for their polychromy, an effect achieved through the use of glass and or semi-precious stones. This brooch follows a common decorative arrangement with a number of studs surrounding a central stud. The use of garnets and other precious stones to stud gold jewellery is thought to have originated in the Greek colonies on the north shore of the Black Sea where that they were encountered by Goth tribes in the third century and later transmitted through migration to the Franks. Another common feature of the Frankish disk brooch is the use of filigree (twisted gold or silver threads applied directly to the surface of the brooch): certain designs, such as the 'S' shape, elaborated into the figure eight on the present example, demonstrate a continuation of a Roman decorative tradition.

Possibly dating to the second third of the seventh century.

Large gold disks brooches are the most characteristic creations of seventh century Frankish goldsmith's work and are usually set with glass and or semi-precious stones. This brooch follows a common decorative arrangement with a number of studs surrounding a central stud. The brooch is also adorned with filigree (twisted threads of gold applied to the surface) Certain designs in the filigree on Frankish brooches, such as the 'S' shape, elaborated into the figure eight on the present example, show a continuation of a Roman decorative tradition.

M.119-1939