Gem set and diamond brooch, 'Tutti Frutti', Cartier, 1929

14 mai 2016

Gem set and diamond brooch, 'Tutti Frutti', Cartier, 1929

Lot 399. Gem set and diamond brooch, 'Tutti Frutti', Cartier, 1929. Estimate 145,000 — 195,000 CHF (132,518 - 178,214 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

Of garland design, set with carved rubies, emeralds and sapphires, single-cut and baguette diamonds, signed Cartier, numbered.

Note: Europe first came into contact with Indian jewellery at the time of the first Great Exhibition in London in 1851. In 1876, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, and from 1880 Indian jewellery enjoyed a vogue in both England and France. But it was only in 1900, after the Exposition Universelle in Paris, that Cartier created an ‘Indian’ ring with two cabochon emeralds set in platinum using the standards of French jewellery. Then in the summer of 1901, Pierre Cartier was summoned to Buckingham Palace and was commissioned to create an Indian necklace from various pieces of royal jewellery for the new Queen, Alexandra, to wear with three Indian gowns sent by Mary Curzon, wife of the Viceroy of India. Important contacts with Maharajas were consolidated during the celebrations of George V’s coronation at the Delhi Durbar in 1911, and in the same year Jacques Cartier embarked for his first journey to India. The local Maharajas were instantly fascinated by platinum jewels of Western style and did not hesitate, in the following decades, to hand over their family treasures for reworking into the fashionable European style. The most important of these commissions came from the Maharaja of Patiala in 1925; the redesigning of his collection took three years and the result was a combination of completely modern jewels in Western style and ornaments where the traditional Indian decorative vocabulary had been re-interpreted in a fresh and original way. These jewels combining carved coloured stones, diamonds and platinum mounts with Indian and European influences were called ‘Tutti Frutti’.

Sotheby's. Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels, Geneva, 17 May 2016, 10:00 AM