Military doctor's belt buckle, consisting of two discs, with caduceus, linked by serpent, in ormolu, French, 1830-1890. Ormolu describes decorative objects, or furniture mounts, made in the 18th and early 19th centuries in cast brass, and then chased and gilded.The term is frequently used wrongly for gilt bronze and recent research has shown that most ormolu objects are of brass rather than bronze.The finest examples of ormolu were made in France in the second half of the 18th century. Some fine ormolu was also produced in Birmingham by Mathew Boulton between 1768 and 1782.