RETIRED James Avery Spring Butterfly Solid 14K Yellow Gold Charm Pendant

Retired James Avery solid 14K yellow gold charm in the Spring Butterfly design, marked AVERY and 14K on the reverse. The butterfly is drawn entirely in line rather than mass, each wing built from a curling scroll that spirals inward to a tight center, the upper and lower wings mirrored across a narrow body that runs down the middle and splits into a V at the base. Two short antennae curl outward at the top on either side of the cast eye. Every space between the scrolls is open, so the charm is as much air as gold.

Reducing a butterfly to scrollwork is a harder problem than it looks, because the shape has to stay legible once you take away the body and the wing pattern. This one solves it with the spirals. The eye follows each curl inward and the four of them together read unmistakably as wings in motion, while the central stem gives the whole thing the symmetry a butterfly needs without drawing an actual insect. In solid gold the open form also keeps the weight down, so the charm swings freely on a bracelet rather than hanging dead. The Spring Butterfly is retired and no longer in production.

Hangs on a James Avery charm bracelet or on a chain as a pendant. Comes with the James Avery box and pouch.

Details:
Designer: James Avery
Metal: Solid 14K Yellow Gold
Hallmarks: AVERY, 14K
Design: Spring Butterfly
Type: Charm Pendant
Status: Retired
Includes: James Avery box and pouch
Condition: Excellent estate condition

Fun Facts:
The butterfly has been a symbol of the resurrected soul in Christian art for centuries, drawn directly from the chrysalis. Renaissance painters put butterflies into paintings of the Christ child for exactly that reason, and the association runs old enough that it predates most of the floral symbolism people assume is older.
What happens inside a chrysalis is stranger than metamorphosis usually gets credit for. The caterpillar breaks down into something close to a cellular soup before rebuilding as an entirely different animal, and yet laboratory work has shown that moths can still retain things they were trained to avoid as caterpillars. Something survives the dissolution intact.