Céleste, 1842

The whole point of this Victorian festoon necklace is restraint — almandine garnets, holding a steady wine red even in shade, and nothing more than hand-chased repoussé. It is the kind of work that took a bench jeweller a full week, and it has survived a century without a loosened stone. The last owner was a house in Haarlem; with a note in the box naming the woman who first wore it. Where it came from, such a piece is simply 'grandmother's' — to the rest of us, it is extraordinary.