Yellow diamonds shine in Lily Gabriella's capsule collection for Sotheby's Diamonds
Lily Gabriella isn’t one to be phased by gems of tremendous value. The Brazilian-born, London-based jeweller is the granddaughter of the wealthy socialite and philanthropist Lily Safra, whose personal jewellery collection raised $38 million for charity when 70 pieces were auctioned at Christie’s in 2012.
These included 18 pieces by famed French jeweller JAR, who, not-so-coincidentally, acted as Lily Gabriella’s mentor while she was developing her eponymous brand. Safe to say, she knows her way around an important stone.
Even so, like most independent designers for whom the bulk of work is bespoke commissions which take into account a client’s wishes and personal style, it’s rare that she gets carte blanche to design around a stonking 21.15-carat yellow diamond.
So it was with great excitement that she agreed to design a collection of nine one-off pieces for Sotheby’s Diamonds, the private jewellery salon within Sotheby’s auction house.
It’s the first time Sotheby’s Diamonds has invited a named designer to create a capsule collection based around its rare stones, and follows the company’s collaboration with artist-jeweller Eliane Fattal, in which it supplied modern diamonds to highlight exquisite antique jewels.
The company’s founder and chairman, Patti Wong, came across Gabriella’s work and, impressed, invited her to browse Sotheby’s Diamonds’ ‘inventory’ of stones. The only constraint was that her designs should highlight the diamonds’ natural beauty and colour, and the resulting capsule collection does so in strikingly contemporary fashion.
That 21.15-carat yellow diamond is the centrepiece of the hinged Solar Cuff, grasped between grooved curves of yellow gold, amid yellow and white sapphires. The Halcyon earrings are similarly architectural, with a pair of radiant-cut yellow diamonds within a concave starburst of blackened gold and pavé-set white diamonds.
“It’s not every day you are able to work with such incredible stones; it’s a rare privilege as a jeweller to be given access to such a palette of diamonds,” said Gabriella as she presented the pieces within the intimate Sotheby’s Diamonds salon on Bond Street.
Rather than designing with any specific client in mind, she took inspiration from cubist art and art deco architecture - she likens the geometric lines of the Halcyon earrings to sunlight reflecting off New York’s Chrysler building.
Yellow diamonds feature in five of the nine pieces: in the mismatching Holi earrings, two five-carat cushion-cut stones are suspended from tendrils of pave-set pink sapphires, punctuated with white diamonds and hoops of white enamel, while the Orbit earrings see a pair of oval diamonds top hoops of black enamel which are ringed with reverse-set stones: a signature of Sotheby’s Diamonds’ designs.
The Honeycomb ring, meanwhile, is inspired by Jean Nouvel’s Louvre Abu Dhabi, and features brilliant-cut diamonds embedded in a bombe-like structure, topped with a 6.12-carat Fancy Intense yellow diamond pear.
Three more rings complete the collection: Gabriella complements a chocolatey orange-brown diamond with carved carnelian in the Optic ring, while the Cubist ring sees a stone whose colour sits somewhere between brown and orange set amongst rubies in rose gold.
Her artist’s eye for colour is most evident however in the Infinitas ring, in which a sculptural double swirl of green garnets surrounds a 6.78-carat Fancy Intense Pink diamond. The unexpected colour combination both serves to intensify the diamond’s delicate hue, while adding a playful touch to what is a supremely valuable stone. Gabriella’s grandmother would surely approve.
The Lily Gabriella x Sotheby’s Diamonds collection will be on display alongside Impressionist and Modern Art at Sotheby’s Bond Street from 22 February until 5 March; sothebys.com
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