Something all our clients have in common is a love of beautiful things, inspired design, excellent craftsmanship and customer care. This particular client also needed something quite outside of Roger’s life experience.
Steven said he wanted “something really out of the ordinary”, as a surprise gift for a special birthday celebration for his wife. He knew she had often remarked that she would have loved to have her late grandmother’s gold mezuzah pendant to pass on down the generations, but it had not come to her. For those without knowledge of Jewish tradition (which included Roger when he began this commission!) the Mezuzah is a religious talisman – a prayer handwritten by a rabbi on a parchment scroll and normally mounted in a simple case fixed to the owner’s doorpost. However, the case is sometimes worn as a pendant when it may be developed into a piece of precious jewellery. Steven searched the top London West End shops and the relevant Jewish websites for such a pendant, but failed to find the quality he sought.
He finally found Roger. He viewed an initial selection of diamonds and under Roger’s expert guidance, decided on a Marquise cut stone as the most elegant for the intended piece and insisted he must have the very best quality. However ‘D’ flawless diamonds of over one carat in the marquise cut are not the most readily available. Roger instigated an international search, rejecting several for poor proportions or imperfect cut and finally sourced the ideal stone.
Admitting to possessing little aesthetic talent, the client left the design to Roger – and was ecstatic on seeing the result. “I am delighted with the imaginative elegant simplicity of the form, so beautifully finished – this far exceeds my expectations.” He could not have hoped for a better reaction from his wife. “After years of hinting to an apparently deaf husband I finally get a Mezuzah pendant beyond my wildest dreams – a truly wonderful heirloom”.
“Thank you so much for the exquisite diamond Mezuzah. It stunned Maggie – and my daughters and grand-daughters also thought it magnificent. And thank you also for the trouble you took in researching the details required for this article by tradition. ‘Above and beyond’ I would say – but simply gorgeous. The several other diamond and sapphire pieces we have since asked you to produce have been uniformly magnificent. We have been particularly impressed by your design interpretation given the vagueness of our requests.”
Maggie and Steve Hills