Lot Essay
This three-piece suite of jewelry epitomizes Louis Comfort Tiffany's interests in color and nature. Gold grape vines, leaves and berries surround the center topaz, accented with colored gemstones to give the effect of the variously colored grapes. Tiffany sought to achieve a representation of a grape cluster in which not every grape was a single color but a variety of hues. The use of a single stone within a naturalistic mounting and the bold design of the brooch and earrings indicate that this suite was designed from 1918 to 1922. The shape of the earrings is in the girandole style in which three pear-shaped drops are suspended from a single section, a form that dates to the 17th and 18th centuries.