French Panther Brooch

$95.00 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Unique gifts for her. This elegant brooch evokes a Bacchian scene of panthers feasting on grapes, made around 1719–20 by Alexandre François Desportes. The original oil sketch, Panthers of Bacchus Eating Grapes , served as a study for a six-panel folding tapestry screen, or paravent, woven at the Savonnerie Manufactory's workshops in Chaillot, Paris. (The Chaillot workshops were housed in a former soap factory, hence the name Savonnerie, which is derived from the French savon , meaning "soap.") Desportes…