Claude Lalanne

Louisa Guinness Gallery, London

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Madeleine Chapsal, Claude Lalanne: Bijoux, Sacs-Bijoux et la Montre-Oignon, Artcurial, Paris, 1996, 'Hortensia'

Lalanne's 'Hortensia' (Hydrangea) Necklace is iconic of her work for

Artcurial in the 1970s, for which she created a series of collections that each focused on individual parts of a variety of florals including anemone, ginkgo, and hydrangea. The collection that this piece comes from is strikingly unique among the series, however, as Lalanne usually emphasizes asymmetry and the overlapping petals

here form an unusually consistent and symmetrical whole that showcases the beauty of a singular petal in formation.