Another extraordinary and delicate picture agate. This looks so like a leaf that it’s hard to imagine that it is a random marking - another example of pareidolia, which means the illusory perception of meaningful or familiar images in random or amorphous objects. Think of clouds that look like dragons, the man in the moon, faces emerging from patterned wallpapers. The most extraordinary of all these are picture and landscape agates and this one is certainly remarkable. I think of the person who cut the stone and how they would have seen a leaf, just as we do.

Most of the agate is clear and, as we always do with agates, it is thinned to 0.5 of a millimetre and backed with gold leaf which gives a sense of depth to it. It is surrounded by pearls, diamond beads and sea urchin spice ends. The dark diamond drop is surrounded by the tiniest of seed pearls. I wanted a chain as you see in Elizabethan portraits and so have used the smallest silver snake chain and oxidised it black.

Silver; 18ct gold; oxidised silver snake chain; pearls; diamonds; sea urchin spines; agate; 24ct gold leaf.