In its exhibition “Napoléon et Joséphine – Une histoire (extra)ordinaire”, the jeweler Chaumet presents (among many other jewels) acrostic bracelets that belonged to the empress. By deciphering the initials of each stone, we discover a word or a message, in this case the first names of her children: Eugène and Hortense. These museum pieces are obviously not for sale but this beautiful idea can easily be appropriated. Indeed, Chaumet still makes such sentimental jewelry, in the form of bracelets, in accordance with each person’s story. The unique message is thus known only to the wearer.

Discover the exhibition “Napoléon et Joséphine – Une histoire (extra)ordinaire”

After several months of work, the Victoria & Albert Museum’s jewelry gallery will reopen on April 11, 2019. It has added approximately 80 new pieces to its rich collection, including two must-see items: the diamond and sapphire crown designed by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria in 1840 and Freddie Mercury’s collection of 49 vanity art deco cases, donated by his sister Kashmira Bulsara. However unlikely a match these two collectors would seem to be, the V&A has pulled it off!

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Christopher Thompson Royds at the V&A Museum

Passed down, transformed or survivors, 100 pieces evoke 200 years of the Bourbon Parma dynasty. Even if you can’t buy any, go and admire them in the exhibitions laid on by Sotheby’s.

In the 1980s, Chaumet became one of the first jewelry houses to showcase its own brand heritage. The brand now boasts an extremely rich collection of jewelry, glass plates, order books, invoices and some 80,000 drawings, covering more than two hundred years of history. Thirty-eight of these, based on its favourite theme – the tiara – will be exhibited at the Salon du dessin. A chance to explore the brand’s prestigious clients and its changing styles from the Empire to the present day.

Salon du dessin from 23^rd to 26^th March 2018 at the Palais Brongniart, Paris

From 1959 onward, this American heiress lived in a Neo-Georgian mansion that she conceived as a museum to be bequeathed to the Smithsonian on her death. It is filled with her collection of decorative arts and jewelry.

This ninth-century talisman amulet is in fact a reliquary and is on display in the treasury room of the episcopal residence in Reims, next to the cathedral where the kings of France were once crowned. Its history still contains many dark areas.

It will go on sale for between 800,000 and 1.2 million USD at Sotheby’s on April 25^th in New York. This exceptional green, clear and intense 34.40-carat Colombian emerald is expected to break a record. Another reason for this is the pedigree of its owners, three great American collectors, including the heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean who, in the early twentieth century, had it mounted as a pendant along with the “Star of the East”, a 95-carat pear diamond. She then handed it over to Cartier as the first payment for the “Hope”, that legendary blue diamond that had once belonged to Louis XIV.

Just back from India, here is a collage from my scrapbook which illustrates perfectly the feel and the richness of Indian jewlery.

In the next film by Pablo Larraín, Natalie Portman plays Jackie Kennedy. She wears the exact replica of the watch worn by the first lady of the United States in the 1960s: a Piaget with a jade dial encircled by diamonds and tourmalines. Jewelers can’t abide seeing their former customers wearing any other creations but their own, even in movies: thus in 2011 Cartier recreated the jewelry of the Duchess of Windsor for Madonna, and in 2014, those of Grace Kelly for Nicole Kidman.

For those who missed the Bejewelled Treasures: The Al Thani Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum, this is a chance to catch it. From March 29th, 2017, the Grand Palais will present 230 exceptional pieces from this private collection that retrace five centuries of Indian jewelry history, from the Mughal Empire to the present day.

Among the major jewelry collectors figures Josephine de Beauharnais. “She also launched fashions in decoration,” says architect, Bambi Sloan, who drew inspiration for her for the new JoBo hotel. She’s combined reprints of vintage wallpaper with Jouy fabric designs or striped cocardes, carpets printed with rose or leopard-skin patterns, and portraits of Josephine given a twist with the addition of contemporary accessories. An original and humorous tribute.

© David Grimbert

Among the Crown Jewels Eugenie wore, only a few escaped the disastrous auction organized by the Republic in 1887. Exhibited near Napoleon III’s apartments, they are a testimony to the splendor and virtuosity of the jewelers of the Second Empire.

The Van Cleef & Arpels School continues its mission to initiate the general public by sponsoring cultural projects like a current thesis on Jean-Baptiste Tavernier at the University of Rennes. The latter, the ancestor of all gemstone traders ventured to Turkey, Persia and to an India infested with tigers, to bring exceptional gemstones back for Louis XIV.

March 2, London, Sotheby’s is selling 450 of the Duchess of Devonshire’s personal effects. Family photos, books, friends’ gifts and jewels evoke the personality of this English aristocrat, born Deborah Mitford, the youngest of the famous and very much-talked-about sisters of the Roaring Twenties.

This pearl necklace estimated at between US $4.5 – 7 million is extraordinary for two reasons: the quality of its 38 pearls and its aristocratic origins, from the jewel box of Viscountess Cowdray, Lady Pearson. In the Christie’s catalogue where it appeared in 1937 a description still true today: “There is probably no other collection of pearls as beautiful as this.“