Like most fairs this year, Tefaf New York will be different. As well as moving online, it is only allowing its exhibitors to showcase a single piece during the digital fair, and Wallace Chan has just the masterpiece for the occasion.

The jewellery artist will use his slot at Tefaf Online to showcase a masterpiece that he created back in 2014, his In Love With Spring brooch. It is a design that showcases both Wallace’s gift for storytelling through jewels and his drive to push technical boundaries.

The Wallace Chan In Love With Spring butterfly brooch is a celebration of colour, with his signature titanium heated to achieve a rich red shade. At the centre of this fantastical creature is an 8.24ct imperial topaz, tipped with emeralds. Rubies, emeralds, yellow and white diamonds, orange sapphires and tsavorite garnets create a rich display on the wings of the butterfly.

The setting of so many gemstones on such a delicate design – the wings of the In Love With Spring brooch are angled just so to make it appear as though the butterfly is in mid flight – was a meticulous job. The gems swirl together to create a dazzling show inspired by trees and flowers.

Wallace, who gave a lecture at The Jewellery Cut Live last year, describes the colourplay of his In Love With Spring brooch as “flying colours” – an ode to a childhood memory. “When I first saw butterflies as a child, I did not know that butterflies were called butterflies,” he says. “I asked my mother: ‘What are these flying colours?’. Since then, butterflies have always been flying colours in my eyes.”

Tefaf Online will run online from November 1^st to 4^th, 2020. The digital art fair will showcase 300 masterpieces, each presented by a different artist or dealer, and first vetted by an independent committee to ensure it is a worthy representation of that exhibitor’s expertise.

Also taking place this season, Christie’s Shanghai will host a two-day Wallace Chan exhibition and lecture series on October 24^th and 25^th.