Chalcedony, sapphire and diamond flower brooch by Suzanne Belperron, £38,000 at Tennants.
Estimated at £5000-7000, it made £38,000.
The brooch was the property of a lady who was given it on her wedding day in 1952 by the Italian noblewoman Marchesa Maria Nunziate di Mignano.
Belperron began her career in jewellery design in 1919 at the House of René Boivin, the famed Parisian jewellers, before leaving to become the chief designer at Bernard Herz in 1932. After Herz’s death she took over the company, renaming it Herz- Belperron.
Like others of her generation, she favoured working with ‘semi-precious’ materials such as agate, rock crystal and the chalcedony used here to such great effect. She never signed her pieces, famously quipping ‘my style is my signature’.
