page_title: Brooch of Lorn
section_title: Description and context
hierarchical_section_title: Brooch of Lorn / Description and context
caption_attribution_description: English: National Museum of Scotland A copy (by the electrotyping, or galvanoplasty method) of an elaborate 16th century, West Highland brooch, which would also contain a tiny relic of a saint in a small compartment behind the central crystal. The eight pillars are tipped with pearls and coral.
context_page_description: The Brooch of Lorn or Braìste Lathurna in Gaelic, is a medieval "turreted" disk brooch that was supposedly taken from Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Dalrigh in 1306. However the brooch is today dated long after this period. The brooch is centred on a large quartz charmstone, and it is not implausible that this stone had belonged to the Bruce; the brooch also acted as a reliquary. The brooch is owned by the MacDougall of Dunollie Preservation Trust. It was rarely seen in public until it was loaned to an exhibition in the British Museum in London in 2012.
context_section_description: The brooch is one of three West Highland 16th-century silver turreted brooches centred on charmstones, though the brooches are thought to be resettings of stones which already had reputations.  The others are the Lochbuy or Lochbuie Brooch in the British Museum, and the Ugadale or Lossit Brooch, also still in private hands.  All three were exhibited together in the British Museum's exhibition Shakespeare: Staging the World in 2012. In the following months a replica made in recent years was exhibited in six local libraries in Argyll.
  The silver disc at the back of the brooch is about 4.5 inches across, and the brooch is secured by a hinged pin (a later replacement) and catch behind it. Underneath the central stone is an empty compartment (said in 1905 to contain fragments of human bone), probably designed to hold a relic; the stone is set well above the base disc, and is surrounded by eight detached chatons or turrets, about 1.25 inches high, and each topped by a Scottish freshwater pearl.  There is "a profusion of filigree work in the form of stellate appliqué ornaments and cabled borders". The style of decoration appears influenced by European workshops, and the brooch lacks the post-Insular motifs seen in the Lochbuie Brooch, and other late medieval West Highland objects in various media. The use of "turrets" as decoration was popular in late medieval jewellery, but usually in far less elaborate forms, with brooches having a number of small projecting turrets around a ring forming the brooch.
  The dating of the Brooch of Lorn varies somewhat, though all contemporary specialists are clear that it is from well after Robert the Bruce's lifetime. The British Museum describes it as "dated on stylistic grounds to late 16th C but incorporating earlier rock crystal charmstones in which there was revived interest in the 16th C.", and dates its own Lochbuie Brooch, which it believes was by the same hand, to "1600 (circa)". David Caldwell, curator of the Scottish medieval collections at the National Museums of Scotland, is quoted as saying, "It is a very important piece of west Highland art, but it dates from the mid 15th century, so cannot be Bruce’s. Maybe the original brooch fell to pieces and this one was substituted for it". Findlay in 1999 preferred the earlier part of the 16th century, and Catherine Gillies, curator for the clan, says, "The re-setting has been narrowed by style and historiography to roughly the third quarter of the 16th century", but still uses the description "medieval".
caption: Modern copy of the Ugadale or Lossit Brooch, a 16th-century "turreted" brooch, which also contained a relic.
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