DATE: Art Deco c.1920

Delightful Art Deco good luck medallion with colourfully enamelled violet pansy flowers along with the words GOOD LUCK. It's crafted in sterling silver with Birmingham hallmarks from the year 1926, M. S. M. LD. maker's mark and a registered design number. Per Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers (1884) the symbolic meaning behind the pansy was Thoughtfulness. Indeed the word itself, pansy, has a French root pensée meaning 'thought'. 

Today, pansy is used more-or-less interchangeably with viola and violet when describing flowers of the type Viola tricolor var. hortensis. One distinction occasionally cited is that plants considered to be pansies have four petals pointing upwards (the two side petals point up), and one pointing down whereas violets have two petals pointing up and three pointing down. Another, used by the American Violet Society, states that pansies differ from violets/violas by possessing a "well-defined 'blotch' or 'eye' in the middle of the flower'. Wild pansies are known by a variety of weird and interesting names such as: heartsease or heart's ease, Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me, three faces in a hood, pink of my john, heart's delight, tickle-my-fancy, and the aforementioned love-in-idleness (don't ask me about any of the rest...).

MEASUREMENTS 

2.2 x 2.1cm

WEIGHT 

4.2g

MARKS 

English hallmarks for sterling silver, Birmingham 1926
M.S.M. LD. maker's mark

CONDITION 

Very good, light patina commensurate with age. Enamel is in near pristine condition.