Vulcana Cufflinks with Diamond Eyes

18k Yellow Gold / Sterling Silver / Diamond (1.12ct) / 14mm x 23mm

Available for immediate shipping.

As usual, the sculpture we call Vulcana touches on multiple reference points. One of our newest designs, Tony envisioned her as a kind of female counterpart to Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, volcanos, and—appropriately—metalworking. In reality, the sculpture's identity took shape gradually as the clay itself took shape. Her face emerged from the clay, and only then did Tony begin to think about Vulcan's consort, Venus, as she appears both in Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" (standing atop a scallop shell, another Anthony Lent motif) and in the Terry Gilliam film, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," a Lent family favorite. Since Vulcana's features turned out somewhere in between masculine and feminine, Tony decided to merge the mother of Cupid with the father of blacksmithing and create a new goddess of his own. With a visage as mysterious as that of the Mona Lisa, Vulcana conveys all the power of hammer and forge, smoke and fire, but nevertheless retains the sense of humor Tony shares with Gilliam about the meanings and uses of art.