Notes

Stuart Devlin trained in Melbourne and London before establishing his own workshop, rising to international attention in 1964 when he won the competition to design Australia's new decimal coinage, its kangaroo, platypus, lyrebird and other native animals still in circulation today. He went on to become one of the most inventive silversmiths of his generation, known for combining textured, hand-finished surfaces with bright, jewel-like enamel work, and was appointed Goldsmith and Jeweller to Queen Elizabeth II in 1982.

His surprise eggs, produced in limited runs of just one hundred, are among his most playful work: a plain, textured silver-gilt shell opens to reveal a small, enamelled scene inside, frogs on lily pads, rabbits beneath a flowering bush, bees at work in a hive, with no purpose beyond the moment of opening it. Devlin himself described them as objects with no function except to delight, to surprise, and to intrigue. This example, numbered 85 of 100 and made in London in 1980, predates his royal warrant by two years but belongs to the same period of inventive design that built his reputation.