An exquisite 19th century ruby and diamond flower necklace.

I stumbled across this beautiful 19th century ruby and diamond flower necklace in the Christie’s auction archives the other week and I was going to just pin it to Pinterest, but I decided that this level of beauty deserves its very own post.

Sadly I don’t know very much about this Victorian masterpiece, so this is going to be a lot of “ooh look, isn’t it pretty?”. But I don’t think you’ll mind. It’s REALLY pretty.

Yeah.

THAT is how you do a diamond flower necklace. Look at those heavy, naturalistic blooms, bursting with old-cut diamonds and accented by richly red ruby buds. Exquisite. This, my darlings, is luxury.

The diamonds are old mine cut: you can see a few beautifully chunky old collet settings around the edges of the flowers that hold diamonds as well as those that hold circular-cut rubies.

Let’s get closer.

I just can’t with these flowers. They’re perfect.

The necklace itself is about 15 inches long, so it’s fairly short. It would wreathe its wearer’s neck in elegant voluptuous blossoms, leaving a wide expanse of collarbone and decolletage bare beneath. (Assuming a low-cut gown, which is what I’m pair this glorious diamond flower necklace with in my mind wardrobe.)

But back to actual information: the settings are a mix of silver and gold. The flowers themselves seem to be set mostly in silver, while there’s a definite use of yellow gold near all of the rubies. You can get a better look at the mix of metals in a detail view of the back of the piece.

Also: the there is so much gold along the base of the necklace, the core circle that goes around the neck, that it creates the effect of glorious diamond flowers blooming on a golden branch with ruby buds. I wonder what those ruby buds would bloom into if they could?

What do you think, my darlings? Do you love this Victorian ruby and diamond flower necklace as much as I do? If not: what would you change?

And the most fun question: what would you wear this with if it were yours?

This 19th century ruby and diamond flower necklace was listed in a 2009 Christie’s auction. All images and info are thanks to Christie’s.