Pleiades collar. Gold, Power and Allure. Goldsmiths Hall.18ct yellow gold.
Pleiades collar. Gold, Power and Allure. Goldsmiths Hall.18ct yellow gold. Photograph by Jim Fenwick.

Pleiades collar – Gold: Power and Allure at Goldsmiths Hall, London 2012

We were invited by the World Gold Council to create the centrepiece of a landmark exhibition at Goldsmith’s Hall in London, Gold; Power and Allure.

We were powerfully moved by the earliest piece in the collection, a luminous circular gold lunula from 2,500 BC. Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters, was a constellation known to Bronze Age man. Our seven concentric collars of beaten 18 carat gold orbit each other with delicacy and grace, like enfolding leaves, echoing the fundamental desire to adorn. Each arc is inscribed with eternal signs and symbols (Star, Sun, Hand, Branch, Eye, Flower and the Zodiac) together with a magical stanza from Wordsworth.

“… with an eye made quiet by the power
of harmony and the deep power of joy,
we see into the life of things.”