ADAM'S Fine Jewellery & Ladies Watches 12th May 2026

TUESDAY 12 TH MAY 2026 . STARTING AT 4PM 156 155 SONIA DELAUNAY: AN ENAMEL AND BRONZE ‘FLAMENCO’ PENDANT NECKLACE/BROOCH, 1992 The pendant of abstract design applied with vari-coloured enamel, to a rigid golden bronze necklace, signed S. Delaunay, Artcurial, numbered 113/500, with certificate of authenticity from the Artcurial gallery dated March 12th 1992, with Artcurial pouch and case, inner diameter 11.7cm, pendant length 7.4cm € 1,500 - 2,000 Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) approached art not as a discipline confined to the canvas, but as a total environ- ment, something to be worn, inhabited and experienced in motion. Painter, textile designer, couturière and jeweller, she was a central figure of the European avant-garde, sustaining this vision across more than seven decades of work. Born Sarah Stern in the Ukrainian village of Hradyzk, she was raised in St Petersburg in a cultivated milieu that shaped her early artistic development. After studying in Karlsruhe, she settled in Paris in 1905, where she encountered the leading currents of modern painting. Through her partnership with Robert Delaunay, she helped develop what Guillaume Apol- linaire would name Orphism, an approach centred on the expressive power of colour and its ability to create rhythm, movement and depth. From the outset, Delaunay applied the same visual lan- guage across disciplines. In the 1920s she established a fashion atelier whose clients included Gloria Swanson, and her bold geometric textiles became closely associated with the Art Deco period. Jewellery followed as a natural ex- tension, translating her abstract compositions into a more intimate, wearable form. Her work was widely recognised during her lifetime, notably with a gold medal at the Expo- sition Internationale des Arts et Techniques in Paris in 1937, a retrospective at the Louvre in 1964, the first accorded to a living female artist, and her appointment as Officer of the French Légion d’Honneur in 1975. In the final years of her career, she collaborated with Art- curial, producing a small group of designs between 1975 and 1979. These works, executed in enamel on gold, silver and silver-gilt, translate her characteristic use of colour into precise geometric compositions. Among them are two pen- dant-brooch designs, Flamenco and Abstraction, the former developed from a 1977 project with GianCarlo Montebello of GEM in Milan, a studio known for its collaborations with leading artists. Production remained limited, and not all editions were completed, contributing to the rarity of these pieces today, particularly those realised in gold. More than decorative objects, they represent the final expression of an artist who consistently treated painting, textiles and jewellery as equal forms of artistic practice.