Ballerina En Pointe Brooch

She is caught at the height of the movement: one arm lifted, one leg extended behind her, the whole of her poised on the very tip of a single satin shoe.

The skirt carries the piece. Ruby laid across it in four cuts — oval, round, square and a single pear — some nine carats in all, gathering weight and colour as it sweeps out behind her and lifting again to the tiara at her brow. Diamond runs through the bodice and in among the rubies, a little over half a carat of it, catching the light as she turns. Fourteen times more ruby than diamond by weight: whatever the eye takes in first, this is a ruby piece.

At 100 by 80 millimetres she is generous in scale, yet the figure is drawn rather than filled — arms and legs described in a fine white line, the colour held entirely in the skirt, so what the eye receives is a dancer in motion.

The piece belongs to Tchaikovsky’s Treasure Trove. En pointe is the moment at which the technique becomes visible: the dancer’s whole weight carried on an area smaller than a coin, with everything above arranged to make that possible. The design holds the same balance in metal.

This piece has been sold to a private collector.