Wings rise in sculptural arcs, feathered forms caught in the instant before flight becomes distance. Colour is set with intention, luminous and alive, echoing the bold spirit of birds and the effortless authority they carry in the sky.
The cockatoo announces itself with its crest. Raised when the bird is alert, curious or displaying, folded away when it is at ease — it is the whole of the creature's expression, and Eve has caught it at the moment it opens, carved in mother of pearl above a pavé head. The wing is where the finest work lies.
The peacock exists to be looked at. Its display is the most extravagant thing nature produces for no purpose beyond being admired, and the earring is built exactly as the bird is: a small, precise head, and behind it a fan out of all proportion to it. The head is enamelled and modelled in the round.
Almost every culture has imagined this bird. The Greeks and Egyptians told of a creature that gathers itself into flame and rises again from the ashes; in China the fenghuang appears at moments of great peace and presides over the empress herself; in Persia the simurgh is said to be so ancient it has watched the world destroyed and made…
The bill of a swan is orange. It is the one colour the bird carries, and Eve has built the entire piece from it. A hundred oval orange sapphires, close to twenty-five carats, carry the form. Orange is an uncommon colour in sapphire and a demanding one to gather in quantity: bringing a hundred stones to a single hue means…
