Léontine, 1899

The whole point of this Belle Époque three-stone ring is restraint — sapphires, carrying a soft royal blue that seems to come from inside, and nothing more than fine millegrain. 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 on the Danube; 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.