A Russiandiamond-set gold & guilloché enamel retractable pencil, wearable as a pendant, A. Kaushe, St. Petersburg, 1899-1904. The cylindrical body enameled rose pink over a wavy, engine-turned ground, the top with a band of diamond-set scrolls, a collar of opaque white champlevé enamel, the pull-off pencil with cushion form terminal, complete with suspension loop marked with 56 standard mark indicating gold purity equivalent to 14K. Length: 2 in. (5.1 cm) (open).

Pencils like this were intended to serve as personal adornment as well as a pencil. Like miniature pendant eggs, they were meant to be worn on a necklace. This jeweled pencil would have been particularly suitable for use at a ball. The St. Petersburg firm of Adolf Vasilyevich Kaushe (1837-1899, birth name Georg Julius Christian Adolph Kausche) was located on the fashionable Nevsky Prospect at house 88 from the 1870s to 1917. After Adolf Vasilyevich’s death, the company was managed by his widow, Karolina Ivanovna (Carolina Adelaide, 1845-after 1917) & son Hugo Adolfovich.