Suite of cloisonné enamel jewels, comprising necklace, earrings and brooch by Alexis Falize, Paris, 1867- ca. 1880, in silk case bearing retailer's name of Hunt & Roskell, London

Bequeathed by Lady Lane

The silk inside the case is printed with the name of Hunt and Roskell, pre-eminent London jewellers and goldsmiths, who exhibited in Paris in 1867. One of the partners in Hunt and Roskell was John Hunt, father-in-law of Henry Makins who bought Falize enamel jewels at the 1867 exhibition and later gave them to the Ashmolean Museum. Henry’s brother, Sir William Makins, 1st Baronet, barrister and Member of Parliament, had a daughter Mary whose son, Sir Gerard Leslie Makins Clauson, was the father of Lesley Anne Clauson, Lady Lane, who has bequeathed the jewels to the V&A. Lady Lane’s husband was Sir David Lane, Member of Parliament for Cambridge and first Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality.

The suite, comprising necklace and earrings, has particularly fine gold masks and is unique among the four known necklaces by Falize in this style in being set with small cabochon rubies and rose-cut diamonds, which are set back to back. The brooch is in the same style and is also set with rubies and diamonds, but cannot have been original to the suite in that it does not have a fitted place in the case. Its reverse shows an interpretation in enamel of driving rain, characteristic of Japanese prints. Nineteenth-century photographs of jewels exhibited by Falize show similar rain, but it is rarely found, and there is no example in the enamels in the V&A.

Writing in 1869, Philippe Burty recorded the impact of the new Japanese-inspired jewels by Falize. ‘Leading the way in bold experiments are the cloisonné enamels of M. Falize senior…He has leafed through Japanese albums and has found there an endless source of ready-made subjects and motifs. These jewels harmonize perfectly with the bright colours women are wearing today. This must be the reason for their success, since they are very costly…M. Tard excels in this work’ (Katherine Purcell, Falize, a Dynasty of Jewellers, London, 1999, pages 58-60).

Burty’s admiration for the cloisonné enamels initiated by Alexis Falize and made by Antoine Tard was shared by the South Kensington Museum. The first examples were exhibited in the Paris Exhibition in 1867 and the South Kensington Museum took on loan a necklace and two pendants which it was able to buy in 1871 (accessioned as 1043 to 1045-1871: 1043 and 1045-1871 are still in the V&A collections). In 1869 the Museum received as a gift from Alexis Falize a design and three models to show stages in the art of cloisonné enamelling.

The models came to the South Kensington Museum in a silk case, of which the lid survives. Other Falize jewels enamelled in this style have similar silk cases, including jewels retailed by Tiffany.

This suite of jewels is a superb example of the cloisonné enamelling which Antoine Tard executed for the Paris goldsmith and jeweller, Alexis Falize. Alexis Falize asked Tard to take his inspiration from Japanese prints. The first pieces in this style were shown at the Paris Exhibition in 1867. In 1869 Philppe Burty described Falize's jewels as 'bold experiments...He has leafed through Japanese albums and has found there an endless source of ready-made subjects and motifs.'

M.5:1to5-2016