The early manufacture of cut-steel jewelry was painstaking work: each individual stud was faceted by hand and then riveted to a base plate made of silver or brass. The brilliant "gems" were intended for evening wear, as their adamantine luster was considered to be the most spectacular under candlelight. These jewels were in great demand for the last half of the eighteenth century and nearly all the way through the nineteenth. This Georgian brooch is fashioned in the shape of a butterfly with rose cut steel studs affixed to a brass base.