The gallery served as a treasure trove of inspiration for us. When we first started discussing our collaboration with the National Gallery for their bicentenary, I was so excited. It can be challenging drawing inspiration from new and varied themes and ideas, so it was a remarkable opportunity for us to gain in depth access to one of the world’s most renowned art galleries. Whilst designing the collection we tried to draw on subtle, intricate details of the paintings, rather than replicating paintings in their entirety. A dab of colour here, a zigzag motif reflected in water, a particular style of brushstroke or a recurring theme for example.

The National Gallery has such a huge selection of art on display the problem was narrowing down the artworks to base our creations on! We decided to split our designs into four different sub-collections; Play of Light, Perspective, Brushstrokes and Motherhood.

The paintings within the Impressionist section of the Gallery inspired our Play of Light collection. During a tour with the Director of Collections & Research she mentioned that artists strive to capture the fleeting effect of light within nature. This made our designers reflect how this might work on jewellery, which is brought to life through the effects of light reflected by various gemstones and metals, and even more so through the movement of the wearer. It was the perfect foundation for a range of jewellery.

The second collection, Perspective, was inspired by the how perspective is captured within the works of artists such as Canaletto. These artworks are far more precise than those that inspired our Play of Light pieces and the collection therefore has a very different aesthetic, it draws on more lasting, architectural elements.

Another theme that we drew on for inspiration was the brushstroke technique used by particular artists. We found that within some paintings, such as Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, 1888, the brushstrokes employed were very visible- you could literally see the way in which the paint had been applied to paper. This in turn inspired our Brushstrokes suites.

Finally, the last of the four sub-collections was inspired by what I consider to be the overarching theme of the Gallery; namely motherhood. I think it’s rather wonderful that throughout hundreds of years, across different periods, and utilising different styles, artists keep coming back to this as a predominant subject matter. We tried to portray this through our Motherhood collection.

It is remarkable just how reflective diamonds and gemstones can be. In our Play of Light collection for example we used different gradients of the same colour diamond or gemstone to reflect the detailed dabs of colours found in the paintings. We used yellow diamonds, which gradually became lighter until they flowed into white diamonds, or soft pastel blues deepening to a darker blue. In Motherhood we used calming moonstones and feminine pink diamonds. Even the diamond cuts were carefully selected. The Motherhood pieces see pear and oval shaped diamonds nestled together, reflecting the idea of an embrace. And the Ashoka cut diamond was perfect for Perspective, the vertical lines and unique cut worked so well with the idea of an architectural landscape.