Ludovica, 1824

A small Edwardian thing, and a serious one. The old-cut diamonds is catching the light along one edge and nowhere else, the knife-edge galleries unmistakable. The detail is built up bead by bead, a technique half-lost by the time this was made. It reached us out of a house in Turin, unworn for a lifetime and none the worse for it. You can tell it was worn, not kept — the highest thing we can say of a piece.