This is an unusually large and colourful example of a late 19th century hand brooch, with pink cuff, flesh-coloured hand, vine in two colours of gold, and a blue flower centred by a diamond. The blue flower speaks the language of love, and the diamond claims eternity.

Hands have played a rich part in the history of jewellery design. Clasped together, they have been used in fede rings since Roman times, and, in Italian traditional jewellery, a hand clenched as a fist has long been worn to ward off the evil eye. In the early decades of the 19th century, hands frequently acquire cuffs and become an expression of Romanticism. In France in the reign of Louis Philippe they hold pendants and watches, and form links in chains. Cuffed hands, made of gold, ivory, coral and jet became brooches in their own right, just as single hands were used in seals, paper clips, a pair of brass curtain tie backs made by John Hands (1845; an example is in the British Galleries of the V&A; Museum. no. M.29&A-1925), or a cast iron paperweight offered in a German foundry catalogue of 1848. Hand brooches continued to be popular throughout the century, not least in jet, where a hand might hold a small wreath of yew in mourning, a fashionable and amorous fan, or a sporting tennis racket with ball. In the twentieth century, hands remained in fashion: a hand, cuff and flower brooch by Cartier from the 1930s is among the jewels given to the V&A by the Patricia V. Goldstein (Museum no. M.217-2007).