231027 Collection Digital Cover 1 - Flipbook - Page 93
BENTLEY & SKINNER
“Its signature piece is the bespoke solid gold signet
ring, which is die-stamped (meaning sheets of gold
are pressed into a mould using a hammer) and hand
forged – a synonym for traditional goldsmithing
of the highest quality.”
A diamond tiara for the Duchess of Devonshire, Evelyn Cavendish,
in 1893; a gold, jewelled casket for Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German
emperor and King of Prussia, in 1907; and a gold and diamond-set
crown for King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho in 1972 – this is but a short
list of significant pieces commissioned to Bentley & Skinner. More
recently, British artist Damien Hirst even asked the Royal Warrant
holder to create his diamond-dusted cast of an eighteenth-century
human skull, which is titled For the Love of God.
To achieve next-level precision, the process involved a laser welding
machine, a rarity for the Royal jeweller, whose expert goldsmiths
customarily use the same inimitable tools and techniques applied
a century ago. Back then, the company lived as two separate entities:
Skinner & Co, born in 1881 (tiaras off to them for supplying beautiful
bijoux to Queen Victoria’s household), and Bentley & Co, pioneered
in 1934 and overseen by John Sheldon, a fine gemstone collector
of Russian descent and the late uncle of Bentley & Skinner’s present
managing director, Mark Evans. The two businesses joined forces
in 1998, before which time Skinner & Co held its Warrant without
interruption since its first appointment to King Edward VII.
Today, the shop, an exemplar of Edwardian elegance and one of the
last in Mayfair to have in-house workshops, carries pieces dating back
to the Hellenistic period through to the post-war era, including gold
earrings created circa 300 BC in Eastern Greece (possibly Kyme, Aeolis),
and a gold-mounted, guilloché-patterned, enamelled desk clock from
Russia’s celebrated jewellery house, Fabergé, in St. Petersburg, from
approximately 1900.
Fabergé is one of Bentley & Skinner’s specialisations, alongside silver
and fine antique jewels – the shop even features arguably the most
significant nineteenth century Egyptian Revival jewel: a pharaoh
portrait brooch from around 1870. Its signature piece, though, is its
bespoke solid gold signet ring, which is die-stamped (meaning sheets
of gold are pressed into a mould using a hammer) and hand forged –
a synonym for traditional goldsmithing of the highest quality.
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