A metamorphosis must always begin with a goodbye. When a caterpillar has grown to a sufficient size, it spins itself into a chrysalis. This chrysalis is translucent as stained glass, swaying slightly when a breeze stirs the delicate silken threads that suspend it in the air. Then, the caterpillar inside it dies. The caterpillar, as it once existed, is no more. It dissolves, and out of its dissolution there is life: a butterfly, made from the caterpillar but different from it in almost every single way. It is a thing reborn, a thing anew. The act is both farewell and greeting, a letting go of the past that allows the future – beautiful, radiant, full of hope – to emerge.

For Asian jeweller Cindy Chao, this image of eclosion constantly informs her work. In the period after launching her brand, Chao was adrift, finding it increasingly difficult to continue creating art that was both meaningful and financially viable. ‘I was constantly torn by the dilemma of following my passion or chasing the market trend to keep business afloat,’ she explains. Her artistic journey, it seemed, was over before it had truly begun. There seemed to be nothing left to do.

Chao decided to sculpt one last piece, a butterfly, which she describes as ‘putting up a last fight and shouting my heart to the world’. It was intended as a goodbye; to the company she had worked so hard to build, to her artistic practice, to the business of jewellery in general. She sat alone in her studio hand-sculpting the wax mould: ‘I thought to myself: This might be my last piece…’ If this was to be her farewell, it needed to be perfect. This became the Ruby Butterfly Brooch, the first of her Annual Butterfly brooches.

Today, the piece is located in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, where its wings glow like burning coals in the low light of the gallery. Dominique Forest, Chief Curator at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, lavished praise on the brooch, identifying its ‘continuity of animal themes dear to the history of jewellery, while renewing this theme,’ and the ‘very refined and complex scaling of the rubies and diamonds paving.’ The butterfly brooch signified something monumental to Chao: a goodbye to her past as a jewellery designer, and hello to her future as a jewellery artist.

Over the past 19 years, Chao has created 10 Annual Butterflies, each more ambitious than the last. These include the Royal Butterfly Brooch, which sits on display in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum. Wings inflorescent with over 2,000 sapphires, rubies and diamonds, it’s a fully realised objet d’art, made to be appreciated from every angle – the curator of the museum's Gems and Minerals collection, Jeff Post, called it ‘awe-inspiring’.

There’s something palpable, almost sentient, about the work, as if any minute it might stretch out its wings and flutter away. It’s this unique quality that has made the Annual Butterfly pieces beloved by collectors, who have pre-ordered collections until 2028; those that do go to auction fetch record sums.

It seems oddly fitting that the word ‘chrysalis’ is derived from the Greek ‘khrusos’, meaning ‘gold’ - something precious, something rare, something hard won. The origin story of the first Annual Butterfly demonstrates how the act of eclosion can allow us to transform into a more authentic, more valuable, self. This is part of what makes the Annual Butterfly so special for Chao. It’s a series of works that symbolise her ‘inner world, an accumulation of steadfast moments of my creative journey, an embodiment of each metamorphosis and transcendence I’ve gone through.’

They are, she says, ‘the essence of my life.’ Seen through this lens, the act of goodbye is less of a jettisoning and more a necessary act of renewal. It’s an awareness that sometimes, the act of letting go is what enables us to truly soar.