Dressing for the big horse races, like the Kentucky Derby, has always been an exercise in eyecatching horror, but almost always limited to womens' wear, i.e. hats. Finally someone is starting to tap the market of hippocentric men and their lack of sense, in this case Theo Fennell (see previous) with this pair of white gold cufflinks. The inside of the binocular-shaped pieces are hand-painted enamels of the winning moment of a race, or something. £7,500 if you're asking
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The New York Times has an article in today's Magazine on the Parisian jeweler Auclert, who I've mentioned before. An interesting detail from the article is that he tries quite carefully to not make permanent changes to the antique pieces he incorporates.
| The man himself, Marc Auclert | |
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| Pink gold and oxidized silver ring. The granulated gold element is probably Etruscan, they don't bother to mention | Gold bracelet. The central element is a bronze-age bull's head from China |
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| Early 19th Century black-glass cameos in a bracelet-in-process | |
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Michelle Ong, who works under the brand name Carnet (see previous), apparently had an exhibit of her jewelry at the Asia House in London in 2011. I'm clearly a bit late to this, but the pieces were striking enough to warrent it. Particularly of note is her use of usually cut stones, like the briolette yellow diamond in the pendent and her ability to blend stones within a single field, for example the pomegranate seeds.
| Pink Cloud pendent: Tourmaline, white diamond, blue sapphire, pink sapphire and amethyst set in platinum, white gold and titanium. | Yellow teardrop pendent: Pale yellow diamonds and white diamonds set in gold and platinum |
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| Precious Plume: White Diamonds and Coloured Precious Stones "Feather" Brooch in Platinum and Titanium. | 'Supernova' broach. Light Brown Diamond and White Diamond set in Rose Gold. |
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| Pear Clip: White, fancy vivid and intense yellow and brown diamonds set in platinum and gold. | Pomegranate broach: White, fancy yellow and brown diamonds set in platinum and yellow gold. |
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Carnet jewelers was started in 1990 by Michelle Ong in Hong Kong. About 15 years ago she started using rose-cut diamonds, an antique cutting style with many fewer facets, 24, then the current modern cuts. This means that the cut only makes sense economically for stones that are very flat in the raw state.
| Palm Tree Broach with white and brown diamonds | Dancing Acorn Broach |
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With one obvious exception, Easter isn't thought of as a holiday for jewelry. That hasn't prevented some companies from releasing some Paschal pieces. First up is Lydia Courteille(see previous) and her Lapin Rose. These are set with pink Tourmaline and sapphires.
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Laurence Graff, eponomous founder of Graff Diamonds(previously mentioned) is not a man known for understatement. At the recent TEFAF (The European Fine Arts Fair, I know you're not supposed to include articles in acronyms, but...), in Maastricht Graff unveiled this peacock-form broach, said to be the most expensive broach made in recent memory.
It consists of 1,305 diamonds, totalling 120.81 ct. Moving out from the central 20ct blue stone (about 1/2 the size of the Hope diamond) is a fan of white and colored diamonds, including pink, yellow, orange and the rarely-seen green. Since even prices need to make a statement, the asking price is $100,000,000 (but I'm sure there's room to haggle)
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With Chinese New Years at hand, all of the jewelry houses are tripping over themselves to release Snake-themed pieces. First off is Damiani (be careful, their website is a nightmare of auto-playing movies and weird custom scroll-bars), who released their "Eden" collection on February 1st, checking the boxes for both East and West. These are not aiming for naturalism, but the distilled idea of a snake. The bracelet below is over 2 meters long, stretched out, and set with over 900 diamonds with a total weight of 94.45 ct.
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Dior didn't give much with the press-release a few months back for this assortment of "Gothic" pieces. The only named pieces are the second necklace, with 2 spinel drops of "blood", called Morsure (Bite) and the diamond-set cross, "La Fiancée du vampire".
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Here are more bits of ancient jewelry remounted by Auclert (previously mentioned). Sadly this press release has much less detail on the pieces, but I'll provide what I have.
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| Earring with a gold Bactrian horn. The horn is from the 1st millenium BCE and decorated with granulations. | Large Phoenix pendent |
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| Bracelet with a Lapis Lazulli seal | Earrings set with 19th century menuki in the form of celestial Lions (called "Shishi"). They're set with dangling rubies of about 1.35ct each. |
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| Pendent in 18kt gold set with a long purple pearl with a dangling 1ct orange sapphire. The pearl is Akkadian, from 2200-2100 BCE |
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I'm not sure why, but the New York Times Magazine Blog decided we needed a selection of Emerald rings.
| Stephen Russell | Aspry |
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| Kwait | Fred Leighton (see previous) |
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| Solange Azagury-Partridge (previously mentioned), $18,200 | Graff (previously mentioned) 22.93-carat emerald cushion cabochon ring |
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| Ralph Lauren fine jewelry ring, $5,100 | Van Cleef & Arpels (just search for them) ring with 15-carat carved emerald, circa 1962 |
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The background for all the pictures is Shagreen (see previous), which apparently Ralph Lauren sells at $166 a yard as wall-covering.
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