Good Fortune
A 19th Century lizard, symbolic of divine wisdom, is set with demantoid garnets and a line of diamonds highlighting its serpentine spine. His demantoid legs with golden hands, ruby eyes and tapering diamond tail, encircle the neck in a graceful curve as he edges towards a 5.07ct FVS2 diamond.
The discovery of demantoid garnets in the bed of the Bobrovka river in the Ural mountains during the 1860s, added a new vibrant green gem to the existing repertory of coloured stones, inspiring the creation of jewels showing off their fire and brilliance.
The most successful motif invented by the Victorian designers was the grassy green lizard, the least fearsome of all reptiles. Here, with Ruby eyes flashing, the lizard, quick as lightning, seems caught in a blaze of sunlight as it edges itself towards the diamond.
Close to nature, the English poet John Keats and Percy B. Shelley associated the lizard with the arrival of summer, as did Byron.
Fantastically tangled; the green hills
Are clothed with early blossom, through the grass
The quick eyed lizard rustled, and the bills
Of summer – birds sing welcome as ye pass.
From Childe Harold’s CXVI
POA