Designed as an ornate tiered fountain, set with old-cut brilliant- and single-cut diamonds, embellished with step-cut diamond accents, circa 1925, recent Swiss assay importation marks for platinum and gold.

Fountains were a source of inspiration for many artists in the Art Deco period. Great feats of mankind harnessing the power of nature, the purpose of the fountain to provide essential drinking water meant there was a great statement of power and wealth to create elaborately decorative examples (think Renaissance Italy) that rendered any functionality defunct ...

At the famous International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925, visitors were greeted by the spectacular vision of René Lalique's 15 metre high glass fountain (image above), lit up at night as it was it must have been quite an emotional sight. Lalique's stand also used fountain-imagery to suggest cascades of perfumes (image above). Mauboussin created an incredible diamond-set 'Grande Fontaine' tiara and metalwork artist Edgar Brandt a hinged screen called 'L'Oasis' (images above).

This little brooch is a lovely diminutive ode to the beauty of a man-made waterfall. Note the baguette diamonds to righthand side to elude to sun light catching the water as it falls. Henri Lavabre made an almost identical model for Cartier and we once owned a Marzo diamond fountain of the same genus, this one is unmarked and unsigned but undoubtably issue of one of the great Parisian houses.