The head of the Buccellati(see previous) jewelry family, Gianmaria Buccellati has died after a period of sickness. It wasn't until reading the notice that I realized that his brother is is Georgio, who has published one of the best modern Akkadian grammars, A Structural Grammar of Babylonian.
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From Chopard's (previously mentioned) 2013 Red Carpet collection comes this oak-themed necklace with a diamond and sapphire spider hiding within. The leaves are Tsavorite and most of the rest of the color accents come from fancy-colored diamonds
And a closeup of the spider photographed by Jamie Beck. Unrelated to the jewelry, when people talk about camera lenses having "confusing" or unpleasent bokeh, the background blur of the branch is a good example of what they mean
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One of the towering achievements of the Baroque jewelers of the early 18th Century, The Throne of Grand Mogul Aurengzeb is an assemblage of 132 figures and 32 other objects in enameled gold. It was designed by Johann Melchior Dinglinger and constructed between 1701 and 1708 by him and his two brothers, Georg Christoph and Georg Friedrich. Despite loosing 391 precious stones over the years it is still set with 4,909 diamonds, 160 rubies, 164 emeralds, one sapphire 16 pearls and 2 cameos. The google art project has a zoomable image of it, though the image isn't as sharp as one might desire at full zoom. It is housed in the historic Dresden Green Vault Museum, itself only recently recovered from damage suffered in WWII.
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The nile crocodile is said to be the inspiration for the new Hermes (see previous) necklace and ring set. It's at least clearly the origin of the name, Niloticus, for Pierre Hardy's newest design. The necklace consists of 112 rose-gold scales, and is set with diamonds, iolites, peridots and tourmalines and has a suggested retail price of $299,500 (clearly that $500 less than $300k makes it much more affordable). There's a matching bracelet and ring (MSRP of $30,000) as well.
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In honor(?) of the release of Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, the Diamond in the Rough company has released a line of Iceberg jewels. All of their work, as their clever name implies, centers on uncut diamonds (see previous), mostly working with the classical octahedral crystal shape. Assume, unless otherwise mentioned that the pieces are 18kt white gold and using briliant-cut white diamonds as accent.
| Earrings, 17.79 ct of rough diamonds and 10ct of cut stones, pavee set | Bracelet, 15ct rough diamond and 16.81ct of cut stones, pavee set |
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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.
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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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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.
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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 |
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| Sable(sand or beach), golden anodized Titanium set with sapphires and black diamonds in rose and white gold |
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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. |
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| 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"* |
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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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