Persian Palace Lion Studs

More than two thousand years ago, the palaces of the Achaemenid Empire were filled with an extraordinary language of carved stone.

At Persepolis, monumental stairways, gateways and ceremonial buildings were covered with carefully ordered reliefs depicting delegations, guards, animals and elaborate decorative forms.

Among the most powerful of these images was the lion.

Carved with muscular bodies, powerful jaws and flowing manes, lions appeared repeatedly within Persian visual culture. Their forms brought movement and drama to the stone surfaces of the imperial complexes, contrasting with the carefully ordered architecture surrounding them.

These images were not small.

They belonged to monumental buildings designed to impress visitors arriving from across an empire that stretched across vast parts of the ancient Near East.

The Persian Palace Lion Studs take that monumental visual language and reduce it to the scale of a jewel.

Each sculpted lion head preserves the distinctive mane, powerful face and commanding presence of the animal while transforming the form into something intimate enough to be worn.

From carved palace stone to polished gold, the lion becomes a miniature reminder of the extraordinary craftsmanship of ancient Persia.

The lion of ancient Persia, reimagined in gold.