Vespers Lavalier No. 2

A sautoir in 18-carat yellow gold, citrines bright at arm's length, quiet up close. Whoever made it favoured sculpted goldsmithing. It is the kind of work that took a bench jeweller a full week, and it has survived a century without a loosened stone. It had spent two generations with a Karlsbad collection before it found its way to us, passed hand to hand and never once sold until now. Where it came from, such a piece is simply 'grandmother's' — to the rest of us, it is extraordinary.