Serafina, 1926

A small Art Deco thing, and a serious one. The onyx is cooler in daylight than you expect, never showy, the calibré-cut channel setting unmistakable. 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 reached us out of a house near Prague, unworn for a lifetime and none the worse for it. Where it came from, such a piece is simply 'grandmother's' — to the rest of us, it is extraordinary.