Elizabeth Gage’s Agincourt Ring at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Elizabeth Gage has been a major figure in British jewellery since the 1970s. She is admired for her distinctive interpretations of a wide range of historical and cultural styles, and for her ability to create jewellery which is both glamorous and subtle, and which remains highly wearable despite its bold scale.
She studied at the Sir John Cass College in the 1960s, and in 1968 designed a collection for Cartier, New York. In 1972 she won the De Beers International Diamond Award. Her business expanded rapidly during the 1980s and by 1989, when she was awarded the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement, she employed twenty-five full-time staff.
This flexible style of ring, known as an ‘Agincourt’ ring, is deemed Elizabeth Gage’s most innovative and distinctive contribution to contemporary jewellery by London’s prestigious Victoria & Albert museum. Of the first example, created in 1967, she has written ‘I wanted it to look like a modern drum, but when finished it resembled a Persian carpet. I called it my Agincourt ring’. Many different versions have followed, including one with diamond-set panels of carved gold which won the De Beers International Diamond Award in 1972.
For more information on this piece, on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum visit: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1171296/ring-gage-elizabeth/