At Christie’s Paris, JAR’s magnificent silver “Sheep’s Head” clip was sold for \u20ac500,000 (with buyer’s premium): five times its estimate.<\/p>\n
By Sandrine Merle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This clip featuring a sheep’s head with a black face and white fleece was part of the sale of leading collector Marion Lambert. Her friend JAR (Jo\u00ebl Arthur Rosenthal) designed it in 2006.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hyperrealism<\/strong><\/p>\n “This clip has a powerful effect on people: it even disturbed some of our customers,”<\/em> says Violaine d’Astorg, director of the jewelry department in Paris. This is due to its extraordinary realism. The curls in the fleece are achieved with fine micro-pearls of different sizes mounted on “shape memory” yellow gold wire. This produces a relatively tousled effect. The muzzle is made of silver, the jeweler’s favorite material (which is not intrinsically very valuable), and is chased to the nearest micron to render the small, irregularly implanted hairs. Where they are sparser, polishing creates a slight shine. This realism is enhanced by the piercing eyes, made of star sapphires with rutile needles that move with the light.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n