Results tagged “jewelry”

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.

Earring with a gold Bactrian horn. The horn is from the 1st millenium BCE and decorated with granulations.	Large Phoenix pendent
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.
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
Kwait	Fred Leighton (see previous)
Solange Azagury-Partridge (previously mentioned), $18,200	Graff (previously mentioned) 22.93-carat emerald cushion cabochon ring
Ralph Lauren fine jewelry ring, $5,100	Van Cleef & Arpels (just search for them) ring with 15-carat carved emerald, circa 1962

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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As in previous years, Cartier has put together a Lepoard-themed ad campaign for the winter, which they call Panthere due to the weird differences between French and English. As before there's a over-the-top-cute video, now with two cubs.

Sadly the website for the Winter's Tale promotion has nothing new at all

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Jean Christophe Fouchier, a Parisian jeweler who works as Jean Christophe, has released a new collection of rings, called "Excessive". According to the press release, these are "a cry of hope in the face of our too gray, too urban world". They use bright lines of colored stones, Paraiba Tourmaline for blue-green, Tzavorite Garnet for green and Spessarite Garnet for orange, set in dark flat metal, probably blackened gold.

If you want to grab one in person, he's at 18 rue des Capuchines, in Paris.
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Titanium bracelets this time from the prolific Lorenz Baumier (mentioned frequently before). Apparently he likes the beach, or likes it enough to put together this little, consisting of only three pieces, surf-themed collection of bangles.

Mediterranee, bluish anodized Titanium with a white-gold and diamond decoration	Ocean, in dark purplish blue anodized Titanium set with diamonds in white gold

Sable(sand or beach), golden anodized Titanium set with sapphires and black diamonds in rose and white gold

Prices range from 16 300 € to 22 200 €

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As acts of veneration, Hindu temples frequently adorn their idols with gold jewelry. For obvious reasons, it is extremely rare for these sorts of pieces to make it to the market, but Bonhams is currently selling a 28-piece private collection of 17th-19th Century pieces.

Gold Pendents	Gold Kevacham. The word kevacham (kavacham) means armor, and refers to decorative armor worn by the god or goddess.
Wrought silver necklace	Gold braid in the form of a snake. " On festive occasions, women in South India sometimes wear long linked ornaments (jadai nagam) over the lengths of their braids depicting cobras symbolizing fertility and sexuality"*

A closeup of the snake-braid

The finest piece of the collection, at least from photos in the press-release, is a large gold necklace

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