The Verdigris Solitaire

A Georgian solitaire, the foil-backed garnets deepening to wine red under candlelight. 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 came to us from an English country house, still in the fitted box it was put away in. Where it came from, such a piece is simply 'grandmother's' — to the rest of us, it is extraordinary.