One more piece from the Annoushka Fantasie Jubilee collectio, the Prince Charming Ring. 14,000£ gets you an 18kt gold frog set with diamonds, sapphires and garnets clutching a pearl-studded crown, all as a ring.
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From Theo Fennell comes a collection of rather bland, if nice, pieces. I think the rings, particularly the white-gold one, are nicer then either the earrings or the necklace.
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Results tagged “jewelry”
Since it's the diamond-jubilee year of Queen Elizabeth, some of the jewelry brands, particularly those with some, no matter how tangental, connection are putting out themed collections. To be fair, we've seen much sillier reasons for a themed collections!
The first pieces were all designed by Wendy Yue for Annoushka, all are 18kt white gold and set with diamonds, rubies, garnets and sapphires. The collection ranges in price from 11,000£ to 16500£.
| Serpent Ring | Lizard Ring |
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| Lion Ring. The coral-colored part of the crown is, in fact, cut and polished coral. | |
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From Stephen Webster (previously mentioned) and Garrard comes a more obviously-connected collection. Garrard, apart from being the oldest jewelry house in the world, has a long-standing connection with the House of Windsor, including being the maker of most of the currently used crowns. There are 12 items in the Diamond Jubilee collection, each including the eponymous birthstone. June has an additional pearl in the orb set atop the crown.
| January pendent, set with Garnet | September pendent set with blue sapphire |
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From Theo Fennell comes a collection of rather bland, if nice, pieces. I think the rings, particularly the white-gold one, are nicer then either the earrings or the necklace.
| Yellow gold and amethyst } White gold and blue sapphire | |
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| Chandelier Earrings, set with rubies and pearls | Necklace set with a large, heart-shaped briolette-cut amethyst. |
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Finally a collection from Solange Azagury-Partridge(previously mentioned), the Regalia. It's an interesing melding of a couple of traditional elements, the ribbon from the "Order of the Garter" (the highest current order of chivalry) done in guilloche enamel and surrounded with rose-cut diamonds(an antique, low-facet-count cut rarely seen since the early 20th century). In the context of enameling, guilloche refers to the engine-work done under the surface of translucent enamel. It was perfected by, and most commonly seen, Fabergé's workshops.
| Regalia Ring in white gold and blue enamel, set with brilliant-cut diamonds | Cushion ring, white-gold and blue enamel set with a large cushion-cut diamond, with brilliant-cut diamonds as accent |
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| Regalia earrings, in the usual white gold, blue enamel and diamond | |
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A second part of this collection has a series of "titled" rings, all in enamel, gold and diamonds. The Duchess is my favorite, with the deep purple-blue and the central rose-cut stone.
| Countess | Duchess |
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| Princess | |
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There are a few other brands with Jubilee-themed pieces, Backes & Strauss (the oldest diamond house still in business), Georg Jensen and even the rejuvinated East India Company(previously mentioned), but they'll have to wait
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In the middle of May, Sotheby's auctioned off 60 lots, part of a collection of jewelry by Suzanne Belperron (1900-1983). This is one of the largest collections of her designs in private hands. She worked continuously from 1930 until about 1970, a rare female designer in a predominantly male business, selling to all the usual celebrities of the day, from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Colette, Jean Cocteau and Gary Cooper.
| Rock-crystal ring set with a diamond in a thin gold chaton | Rock-crystal broach set with small brilliant-cut diamonds |
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| Yellow-gold ring set with an emerald-cut diamond. This was her personal engagement ring, made in 1923 | Platinum broach in the form of a branch, set with diamonds and both cut and cabuchoned sapphires. |
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In this it isn't the sort that of caning that Hermes used for their designs, but the sort that covers furniture in the Napoleon III style. This collection, christened My Dior, is part of their ready-to-wear jewelry collection, with prices starting around 2,000€. A representative piece is this cuff bracelet, in yellow gold set with colored stones. Since the press release made no mention of the stones, I expect that they are Topaz, Citrine, Peridot and Amethyst, they'd have named the stones if they weren't semi-precious.
If you're interested, they should be available in May 2012 from the Dior boutique in Paris.
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For spring 2012 Louis Vuitton(previously mentioned) has a new collection of haute joaillerie designed by Lorenz Baumier(previously mentioned): Escale à Paris (a stop in Paris). Not all the pieces are announced yet, but eventually there will be 7 famous landmarks of Paris represented. For the first three we have the Champs Elysees, the Tuilleries garden and the Place de la Concord (really the fountain at the center).
For the Champs Elysees we have a matching necklace and ring, both in white gold set with diamonds and red spinels, a red stone so close to ruby that many famous "rubies" are actually found to be spinel with proper testing. According to the press release, the necklace represents 1650 hours of work.
Addendum
I had noticed the small Arc de Triomph at the neckline, which I thought was a cute little detail, but it wasn't until I thought about it a bit that i realized that it really represents the Champs Elysee as seen from the river. The spinels on the right are the brake lights, and the diamonds on the right are the headlights of the constant traffic one sees there, any time of day or night. The loop of the necklace around the neck is the massive rotary which surrounds the Arc.
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For the Tuilleries gardens we have 2 pieces in an Art Deco vein, a pair of earrings and a ring, both in white gold set with emeralds and chrysoprase. The earrings have an interesting book-matched symmetry to them, reminding me of a piece in Chanel's 2011 collection.
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Finally for the Place de la Concorde, we have a overwhelming ring depicting the fountain at the middle of the circle. Unusually the press-release includes 2 pictures of it, which give a good feel for just how closely matched to the original it is. It is also of white gold, set with small diamonds and sapphires for the lower tiers, and a large sapphire on top. The support-structure is a piece of carved onyx, a clever way to "darken" the interior.
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And completely unrelated collection, also from LV, was also announced, Defile (translates probably to parade). The pictured piece is the "Charm" bracelet, version XXL, in multiple colors of gold and diamond. It is only available as a custom order in gold and lapis lazulie, gold and malachite or the pictured gold and diamond. Price ranges from 50,000-60,000 Euro.
All of these pieces, one assumes, will be available at Louis Vuitton's soon-to-open jewelry boutique in Place Vendome
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Unlike the usual eponymous color, the Turquoise of Turkmenistan is a deep, almost alge-like, green color. A new collection by Parisian jeweler Lydia Courteille, "Amazonia" takes full advantage of the unusual color and texture of the stone.
First a pair of flower rings with the turquoise embellished with green garnets, chrysoberyl and diamonds set in 18kt gold
| Two Flowers, | One Flower |
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My favorite of the rings is this nameless under-sea themed piece (yes I know that hasn't been the "in" motif for several years), also using green garnet and diamonds, with the addition of ruby eyes
The collection also includes a matching trio of bracelet, necklace and earrings with the same arboreal pieces over large slabs of variegated stone.
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Wallace Chan will be the first Asian jeweler to display his work at the Paris Biennale des Antiquares this coming September 2012. He's not new to the industry, though, having won the Hong-Kong Jewelry Design Grand Award for his 1987 invention, the Wallace Cut. This is basically an intaglio cut on the reverse side of a faceted stone which is carefully calculated to appear "complete" only when seen through the facets.
In the early part of this century he caught the Titanium trend(see previous), and presented a collection in 2007 as Baselworld
He's recently pre-presented several of pieces to the press:
| A pair of elegant, if somewhat severe, earrings in diamond and rock-crystal (a traditional European material that he seems to use somewhat often) | "Innocent Heart" ring. The center stone is a 25ct star-ruby, and it is surrounded by smaller star-rubies and yellow-green diamonds |
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| A Butterfly broach in titanium set with precious and semiprecious stones. The wings are verigated rock-crystal |
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| Necklace of aquamarine, sapphires, amethyst and diamonds set in titanium. The settings of the aquamarine deserve special note, they are titanium shells, anodized to match the color of the stones nearly exactly and set with tiny diamonds, giving them the appearance of just sticking to the outside of the large stone unsupported. |
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In 1932 Gabrielle Chanel, known to all as Coco, announced her first collection of diamond jewelry. To commemorate that, the current incarnation of Chanel Joaillerie, which was formed in 1993, will be releasing a large collection (80 pieces in total) in July entitled, simply, 1932. The designs take their inspiration, so the press-release says, from the motifs and symbols held dear by the eponymous designer. The first 4 pieces released all have celestial themes.
The first three pieces are all from the same family, the Etoile Filante, or shooting star. All are 18kt white gold set with white diamonds.
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| A photo by André Kertész for Vogue Paris from the original 1932 expo "Années Folles Rappelons" (roughly "remember the Roaring 20's") where the initial pieces were displayed. This motif was the inspiration for the star-themed pieces above | |
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My favorite piece of the initial release was this broach, the Céleste, centering on a massive 79ct blueish baroque Austrailian pearl.
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Barneys of New York is now carrying the jewelry of Sevan Bicakci (previously mentioned). It means you no longer need to travel to Istanbul to see the pieces in person, but on the downside, you no longer get to go to Istanbul. One of his rings, with a large Topaz back-carved with doves, is on the cover of their Christmas catalogue, and here's another piece with the same theme.
24k yellow gold and sterling silver ring with double dove carving in smoky topaz surrounded by white and yellow diamonds. 2.41ct.
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At the recent Christie's auction on the 24th of November in Paris a bracelet by Suzanne Belperron (1900-1983) set a record for her work with a final gaveled price of 247,000€. The piece is of yellow gold set with tourmalines, peridots, emeralds, beryls and sapphires, all similar shared of green.
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Ornella Iannuzzi is a French-born and educated, but London-based jeweler. Though her website is painful to use, her actual work is quite lovely, working from naturalistic forms, but more geological then floral, and the occasional Art Nouveau curl.
Her newest collection is called Lucy in Wonderland and is based around the recently-discovered Wello Opal from Ethiopia.
First three pairs of earrings, the first two with a honey-theme to the design.
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| A Drop of Tej 6ct of opal set into 18kt gold with diamond accents | Sweet Honey 11ct of opal set in 18kt gold. |
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| Holy Water 5.5ct of opal set in 18kt gold with diamonds for accents |
Also in the collection are some rings, including these three "Coral" pieces
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| Wello Coral rings. Top ring is in black rhodium plated silver with a diamond on top and a Wello opal sphere, price from £1,100. Left ring is in vermeil with blue silver with a diamond on top and a Wello opal sphere, Price from £1,550. Right ring is in yellow gold with a diamond on top and a Wello opal sphere, price from £2,500. |
And my far-and-away favorite piece, this Axum ring. The massive 18kt gold body, styled into possibly the rays of the sun, but strongly reminiscent of some ancient Egyptian designs, encloses a 7ct hand-carved opal
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Ever wanted Damien Hirst's For the Love of God, but cheap and tacky and devoid of even the passing interest of controversy? Franck Montialoux has got you covered with these vaguely-skull-like pieces cast in silver, some even set with real semi-precious stones!
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| Napoleon ring, with "real" sapphires for the eyes, 625€ | Edmond Dantés ring in silver and blackened silver, 440€ |
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| Marie Antoinette necklace set with semi-precious stones and fresh-water pearls, 625€ | Sitting Bull necklace, set with garnets and semi-precious stones, 685€ |
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Well I'm sure I've seen worse...
In celebration of the 80th birthday of Mickey Mouse Disney has teamed-up with Chopard to release a series of jewelry and watches. The Watches are of the usual "happy sport" style, but with a little black-and-white diamond mickey head instead of the fish. It is interesting to see them working with Chopard and not Bulgari since Disney and Gerald Genta had a long relationship for Mickey (and occasionally Goofy) themed watches.
Specs:
The Happy Mickey pendant, in white, rose and yellow
gold set with black, white, yellow and pink diamonds, rubies, onyx
cabochons eyes, with one mobile diamond; on a white gold chain set with
blue and pink sapphires, emeralds, rubies and amethysts. Retail will be £132,00
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Starting on December 13th, Christies will be auctioning off Elizabeth Taylor's collection of jewelry with proceeds to benefit her AIDS charity ETAF. The preview show has started and is making its way around the world before coming to rest for the sale in New York which means that photos of the pieces have started trickling out. I'll start with just the previewed necklaces.
First a pair of shots of an emerald and diamond necklace by Bulgari originally given to Taylor by Richard Burton
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| REUTERS/Fred Prouser | AP Photo/Richard Drew |
More Necklaces
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| Sapphire and diamond necklace by Mouaward with matching earrings AP Photo/Misha Japaridze | A gold and ivory necklace which was a gift from the estate of Edith Head. The Ivory disks are 19th and 18th century opera passes. AP Photo/Richard Drew |
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| One of a suite of Kunzite, amethyst and diamond "Triphanes" jewelry by Van Cleef & Arpels. It is estimated at $70,000 - $100,000. AP Photo/Richard Drew | "The Taj Mahal Diamond," (c. 1627), on a gold and ruby chain by Cartier, was a gift from Richard Burton for her 40th birthday in 1972. The central diamond is engraved with the words "Love is Everlasting" in Parsee. It is estimated at $300,000 - $500,000. AP Photo/Richard Drew |
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| A ruby, diamond and pearl necklace by Cartier with the La Peregrina 60-carat natural pearl pendant The necklace is expected to bring $3 million at auction. REUTERS/Fred Prouser | The so-called "Grandmother's Necklace", with matching earrings, by Van Cleef and Arpels in front of a Warhol "Liz Taylor" screen-print (not owned by Ms Taylor). The necklace and earring set were a present from Richard Burton to commemorate the birth of Taylor's first grandchild. AP Photo/Misha Japaridze |
(source note that that page is a nightmare of ads and javascript pain, and the second image in the slideshow is Hank Williams Jr.)
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A new collection from De Grisogono was announced today (apparently they do their press releases on Sunday) with just a few pieces, all fruit. I don't usually like his work (see previous examples), but these aren't awful. They're well rendered, not overly gaudy and taught me a new French word: Pastèques means watermelon, the first pair of pieces.
Watermelon
| Watermelon Earrings - White gold set with red and black sapphires, emeralds and peridots. As he's always so proud of being one of the first jewelers to use black diamonds, I'm surprised Fawaz Gruosi didn't use them here. | Watermelon pendent, of the same materials |
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Melon
| Melon Earrings - Tzavorite and Peridot set in yellow gold form the melon. The flower scar at the bottom of each is a single yellow sapphire, a nice little touch | Melon Necklace - same materials as the earrings |
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Orange
| Orange Pendent - cabochon orange sapphires represent the segments and faceted ones are the skin. The white pinth is done in diamonds | Orange ring - same materials |
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(Photos by Monique Bernaz, source )
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While in New York a few weeks back I wandered through what has become the high-end jewelry district, Madison Ave from 55-75. I spotted these two pieces in the windows of DeGrisogono, a brand as famous these days for managing to not go bankrupt as anything else. Both are dolphin-motif bracelets, but I know very little else about them
| Dolphin cuff - Sapphire animal set on a wide shagreen (tanned and polished stingray-skin) cuff | Hinged Dolphin Bangle - pink sapphires(?) and diamonds set on yellow gold with cabochon sapphires for eyes |
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The images are mine
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Earlier this month Boucheron presented their newest collection, Dolce Riviera, at their main Paris boutique, in the Place Vendome. The collection is intended to reflect the sweetness of the French Riviera, and each of the families is named for one of the famous beaches on the Mediterranean coast: Isola Bella, Capriccioli, Beau Rivage, Paraggi and Aiguebelle. As with so many of the Haut Joaillerie collections, there's always a theme and it usually has only a tangential connection to the actual design
| Bracelet from the Capriccioli family, set with cabuchoned emeralds as well as faceted sapphires and diamonds. The bracelet centers on a large cabuchoned sapphire | Aiguebelle ring, centered on a large (black?) opal and surrounded with blue and purple sapphires and emeralds. |
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| A ring from the Isola Bella collection, several colors of sapphires set into yellow gold. This one is very reminiscent of the colors in several of the Cirque du Soliel necklaces they released in late 2009 | One of a strange pair of seemingly renaissance-inspired earrings named Paraggi. It is cultured pearls, turquoise and coral (don't try to bring those outside the EU!) set in 18k Rose gold |
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By far my favorite pieces from the collection are these two unstructured necklaces.
| First is the Isola Bella necklace from which the right side can be detached to make a shorter necklace and a matching bracelet. The press release doesn't give materials, but I would guess that at least the pink stones, and possibly the green as well, are tourmaline and the yellows are sapphires to match the ring (above) in the same family | My favorite piece is the Beau Rivage necklace. Centering on a emerald cabochon, it is 18k white gold set with blue sapphire beads and faceted diamonds. Like the Isola Bella piece and most of the other necklaces, this one is convertable, with the set emerald removable to wear as a broach |
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This is just a sample of the collection, each of the families has a bracelet, necklace, ring, pair of earrings and some add in a watch. There are plenty more pictures over at The Jewelry Editor, as well as a short video from the opening party in Paris.
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Chanel has tried to cram a great deal of symobolism and story into their current jewelry collection. It is called "Contrasts" but has as a secondarytheme Orpheus in the Underworld, and I've not been able to figure out quite how the two are connected. On the other hand, some of the pieces are quite lovely, and are using some stones rarely seen in jewelry these days, including moonstone and rock crystal. The Jewelry Editor has a little video of her visit to the announcement party in Paris last week.
| North Star Broach: white gold set with a 2ct brilliant cut central diamond1.5ct of pear-shaped, 4.5 ct of baguette and 399 tiny brilliant cut diamonds. Most of the large flat areas are set with moonstone, there's 43ct spread across the 6 stones and 10 white opals for the ends of the petals. 7 Pearls round out the piece. | Perle de Risée ring: The press release lists diamonds, black and gray spinel and moonstone for this piece along with pearls, but I can't actually identify most of those stones. It's always possible the caption ended up with the wrong picture |
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| Crystal Rain Bracelet: Rock Crystal and diamonds. Both this piece and the matching necklace use Rock Crystl, a material that pretty much disappeared from jewelry by the beginning of the 20th century to represent water. Not my taste, but an interesting choice | Crystal Rain necklace |
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| Perle de Rosée earrings. I believe this is the picture that should go with the caption from the Perle de Risée ring, diamonds, black and gray spinel and moonstone for this piece along with pearls. In any case these earrings and the matching necklace (I'm still tracking down a picture for that) are my favorite pieces of the collection. | Autumn Sun cuff bracelet in white and yelloe 18kt gold. The main stones are white and yellow diamonds of 3ct each. |
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Not straying far from their recent haut joaillerie lines, Dior has released another collection, in collaboration with Victoire de Castellane, of flower-themed jewels. Entitled "Ball of Roses", it has contains 12 pieces, all with rose designs.
| May Ball Necklace | Romantic Ball Ring |
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| Venetian Ball Ring | Summer Ball Ring |
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| Garden Party Ring | Vintage Party |
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| Blue Night Ring | Parisian Ball Ring |
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Note that there are exhaustive lists of materials on Paris Joaillerie, the source of the pictures, but I didn't bother to transcribe them.
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From Feb 18th until July 4th (sorry, you've probably missed it)the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (the NYC branch of the Smithsonian Institute) has had a large exhibit of jewelry by Van Cleef and Arpels (previously mentioned) entitled Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels. As I've tried once before, this will be a review of the exhibition which I was able to attend last weekend.
First of all, the collected works are fantastic, from the coronation jewels of Princess Grace through the many pieces commissioned by the Duchess of Wales to their current works, a massive cross-section of VC&A's work was on display, probably more then in any one place before. The exhibit itself was separated into 6 areas, each with a theme, a more sensible way to organize the jewels then by date or by material. The themes were somewhat vague to cover all the pieces, but useful conceptually: Inovation, Transformation, Nature, Exoticism, Fashion and Personalities (a catch-all for pieces owned by famous customers). These tied into various associated displays, including a video of the mystery setting in the innovation room, pre-production sketches in the Transformation room and photos of celebrities in the Personalities room. The entire exhibit was labeled by number, everyone got a guide book on entering which provided all relevant information, a much better solution then what would have been an excessive number of captions for the displays.
The display of the jewels was not all that satisfactory. The pieces were mostly set as a long row on a table, which made for moderately good traffic flow, but the cases were problematic. Some were single cases with the all the pieces, but most were smaller domes with a few pieces. These, for some baffling reason, appeared to be blown glass and were rife with irregularities that distorted the view of the pieces. The guards were also very insistent that one could not lean or even place the guide on the tables, which made getting a close look an excise in careful balance. The occasional nose-print testified to failures. There were also some baffling displays, like the illusionary ones based on parabolic mirrors that caused the piece to appear to float at the table surface, but also dimmed and distorted it due to the poor condition of the mirrors. As has become common with this sort of exhibit, photography was prohibited.
I don't wish these complaints to give the impression that I didn't enjoy it a great deal, it would have been worth the trip by itself, but such small changes could have made it much more enjoyable.
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ps yes it is pathetic how overrun by spammers the website is, it looks like no care was taken to secure it at all, nor has anyone from the museum bothered to look at it since it was launched.
