by (unknown) French (?) jeweller
a Black Opal and Diamond Cluster Ring
circa 1919 (?)
Auctioned by Christie’s South Kensington in September of 2012, this jewel (both realistically and metaphorically speaking) reached the hammer price of nearly 3’000 British Pounds - only a few hundred shy of its initial estimate. What caught my eye at the time, while perusing the catalogue at hand, is the unusual and breathtaking natural swirling of the cabochon opal’s speckled face. My instant impression was that of the universe, wonderfully bottomless, ordered and dimension-less, being somehow cupped and stirred within the face of our moon, like a sweet and dark cup of tea handled and de-riddled by a mystic or Seer. Crowned with a complete mane of white diamonds, each like a ray of sun collected as a weightless dew drop, the opal face nestles comfortably inside a nearly-blinding scintillation of moist stars, drawing out further the stone’s splattered and stained skies belonging to the outer realms beyond Earth. And with an extra stretch of imagination, the ring’s face evolves into a curious and wondrous chasm, or an open un-speaking mouth, equal to that of the Indian god Krishna when asked by his mother to prove his innocence against the unwise act of eating soil.
