1920s Sterling Austrian Sea Foam Green Guilloché Flower Basket Necklace

There's something mesmerizing, almost hypnotic about guilloché. Those intricate, repetitive, overlapping spirals draw you in until you get lost in its delicate beauty.

Invented in the 18th century, guilloché is a decorative technique in which a precise, repetitive pattern is mechanically engraved into metal through engine turning on a rose engine lathe.

This new mechanical technique was more efficient and less time consuming than the previous hand engraving techniques and allowed artisans to create more complex and delicate designs. However, the craft itself was still quite expensive, which made guilloché pieces only attainable for the wealthy.

To showcase these exquisite spirograph patterns, designers, jewelers and artists, such as Feberge, would often coat their designs in powdered enamel and then heat treat them transforming them in to colorful works of art.

Guilloché began to fall out of popularity in the late 1940s, however Norwegian jewelry company David-Andersen kept the 200-year-old tradition alive well into the 1950s with their wildly popular guilloché butterfly and leaf brooches.

This exceptional necklace hails from the 1920s.  A soft shade of sea foam green guilloché frames a sterling flower basket.  A delicate silver frame and marcasite stones finish off the pendant.  We absolutely love the soft feminine look of this necklace.