HK$5 million: a super deluxe music box fit for royalty

most often evokes the childhood memory of a beautiful dancer confined for eternity within the walls of her mechanical instrument home. You can only catch a glimpse of her graceful spinning and twirling when the secret treasures of the box's compartments are briefly revealed. But what, as Royal Insignia proposes, if the music box's exterior were the jewels themselves, and nature's motifs and horology were centre stage?

"As the 19th-century naturalist philosopher, poet and author George Santayana said: 'The earth has music for those who listen'," Hoe says.

Royal Insignia has transformed the standard music box into an extraordinary piece of bejewelled art. Graced with swans and butterflies, the box represents the rising of a new day. Making reference to the Hans Christian Andersen tale of a duckling that becomes a beautiful swan, and a caterpillar's transformation to a butterfly, "The Guardian of Time" is conceived to depict the beauty of time, and the metamorphosis that it brings.

The music box features two lily pads carved out of green aventurine. The lily pads rest on a small rock formation crafted entirely out of 18ct gold. Leaves pavé set with a soothing gradient of white diamonds, yellow sapphires and tsavorites twine around the rock formation.

Three butterflies perch at the edge of the lily pads, one of which is a detachable brooch for the owner to discover in their own time. Each is decorated with precious and semi-precious stones, the centrepiece of which is a sliced rough diamond nestled in each wing.

"The use of precious stones in their natural state is a particular preference of Royal Insignia, and our craftsmen seek to bend gold around stones instead of cutting them to fit a mould, and in doing so in this case aim to accentuate the inherent, raw beauty of the butterfly," Hoe says.

The pleasing pink and red tones of the butterflies will demand much care by Royal Insignia's gemsetters when selecting stones of the right shade so there's a harmonious gradient from light pink to intense red. To achieve the delicate wings on the butterfly, the gems need a very fine setting to ensure that the prongs do not distract from the gems. This setting is the greatest challenge in crafting the creature.

Atop the main water feature sits a rose quartz clock case with tsavorite detailing, framing a clock face with white mother-of-pearl inlay. Rows of dazzling white diamonds line the clock bezel and two delicate clock hands designed to resemble the wings of a butterfly.

A rock crystal stream decorated with sprays of white diamonds cascades down one lily pad to another, accumulating with a splash at the bottom. Two swans carved out of rock crystal rest at the bottom of the rock formation, the movement of their wings creating further ripples in the lake.

The entire objet d'art is seated on an elegantly crafted piano-finish black lacquer box. A butterfly latch secures two panels which open to reveal rows of drawers for storing keepsakes and jewellery, lined with soft, black calfskin leather.