A stunning silver, turquoise and coral necklace made by Bernard Cuzner around 1904.

This is a very early and unmarked piece of Jewellery by Bernard Cuzner but thankfully this design, possibly even this necklace, was exhibited at the Dress Designers Exhibition in 1904. The necklace was illustrated by the Arts and Crafts periodical in July of 1904.

The style is typical of Cuzner at the time with quite an intricate design of overlapping strips of planished silver. As was common with many of the arts and crafts jewellers of the period, the necklace is set with semi precious stones, in this case a central turquoise and two coral beads.

The necklace was particularly called out in the Arts and Crafts periodical write up of the exhibition. They stated that “Each of the three silver pendants of the bottom row is admirable: the left hand one is set with a large pearl blister and two turquoises : the right hand one, beautifully wrought and beaten and set with turquoises and coral beads, is based on a grape hyacinth”.

It’s often hard to give real provenance to an unmarked piece of Arts and Crafts jewellery so I am delighted to be able to give this necklace back its history.