The use of gemstones to spell out words – Regards, Dear, Fidelity, Gratitude etc – was common in 19th century jewellery both at home and abroad.

Music brooch
A little more unusual are these two pieces where the code is a little trickier to decipher. The message written in musical notation to a Victorian gold, ruby and diamond bracelet seen at Fellows on September 12 reads D E A and rest or dearest. A popular lot, it took £920.




Pennant brooch
Only those of a nautical bent would recognise the cheeky message concealed within a gold and enamel pennant brooch sold by Woolley & Wallis for £550 on October 24. The sequence of flags reads May I Lay Alongside You Tonight.

Meanwhile, the gem-set flag brooch in blue and white stripes, also pictured, may seem at first just a patriotic piece of kitsch, but it was once the property of the First Lady of Argentina, Eva Perón, Evita as she is now more widely known.

Evita brooch
This matchbox-size flag brooch was fashioned with sapphires, and white and coloured diamonds by Van Cleef & Arpels sometime before 1949. Documentation regarding the commission remains confidential, but no expense was spared in its design and construction: it displays the so-called ‘mystery setting’ technique that Alfred Van Cleef and Jules Arpels invented in 1935. Small gemstones are carefully shaped and bevelled before being slid into a platinum grid that is completely obscured by a carpet of stones.


The brooch first surfaced at auction in 1957 when The National Wealth Recovery Board, a division of the Argentine government formed after Juan Perón’s second term as president, ordered the Peróns’ possessions (including their 63 cars) to be sold. The buyer kept the brooch until 1998 when, estimated at $80,000-120,000, it was sold for a remarkable $992,500 (including buyer’s premium) at Christie’s New York. It returned to the same rooms as part of a sale of Magnificent Jewels on October 15 when this time it was acquired by an Argentinean collector for $461,000 (£301,300), the middle of its $300,000-500,000 estimate.