Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

A track-link bracelet, by Louis Osman, 1977, the openwork bracelet of rectangular silver and gold links, with swivel locking clasp, the bracelet unmarked, accompanied by an original receipt dated 20/1/1977 for “Designing and making a bracelet in Britannia Silver and 22 carat gold (Electum)”, on Canons Ashby headed paper, bracelet length 18.5cm. £3,000-£5,000

This bracelet was a private commission made by Louis Osman for the vendor of the lot.
ARR will apply to this lot.


Louis Osman (1914-1996) was “an architect, goldsmith, draftsman, art historian and art patron; most of all he was a creator of genius” - Graham Hughes, Art Director of the Goldsmiths’ Company.

Osman began his career as a boundary-pushing architect making his name when he rebuilt the bomb damaged Convent of the Holy Child Jesus on Cavendish Square in London, and with his ‘architectural tour-de-force’ neo-renaissance plate glass palazzo Principal’s Lodgings for Newnham College, Cambridge.

In the early 1960s, however, “Osman moved out of masonry and into precious metal with grace and apparent ease”. Graham Hughes was, from the first, a champion of Osman, and it was under his direction that the Goldsmiths’ Company commissioned Louis first, to design a new treasury for Lincoln Cathedral, and then, in 1969, to make the crown that the Company presented to the Prince of Wales for his investiture at Caernavon Castle - “the best-known piece of new British gold of [the] century”. In 1971, the Goldsmiths’ Company held the ‘Louis Osman Gold Exhibition’ at Goldsmiths’ Hall, comprising 105 pieces, mostly new and modelled in gold. Besides the pieces produced for exhibitions, much of Osman’s work was undertaken on private commissions.

Whether designing a building or a bracelet or a bowl, Osman loved to test techniques and methods to their limits and revelled in the distinctive properties of precious metals, only choosing to work with them in their purest forms.