Forget those dusty old bandages: King Tut’s treasures have found a new home at the Grand Egyptian Museum, and elsewhere, Ancient Egypt has been immortalized in high jewelry. Now, trace the roots of Van Cleef & Arpels’s latest homage to the Land of the Pharaohs.
. Militarily, the French dictator’s 1798 invasion of Egypt was a disaster. But culturally, says Peter Der Manuelian, Barbara Bell professor of Egypt ology at Harvard University, the bungled operation inspired an entire field.
The French scientists and scholars who flocked to the Nile’s shores led to Champollion’s deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, Dubois’s illustrations of Egyptian deities, and the creation of the actual book on Egypt—one that led Westerners to regard the ancient civilization as a repository of vast riches and sophisticated culture, the whole “pharaohs marrying their own sisters” thing notwithstanding.. There was a frenzy for sphinxes, sarcophagi, and hieroglyphics.
Excavations in the Nile Valley, Middle Egypt, and Tanis unearthed antiquities that inspired artisans and collectors alike. Van Cleef & Arpels was among many who took note. Back in the 1920s, the French jeweler was still in its infancy—at least relative to some of Paris’s more staid jewelry houses. But its modern approach, bullish technique, and imaginative design quickly helped it climb to the zenith of the Place Vendôme.
Shortly after the discovery of, Van Cleef & Arpels created its Egyptian Pattern jewelry, deftly crafting Art Deco–style diamond and onyx pieces that used rubies, emeralds, and sapphires to represent gods and artifacts. A century later, the house has returned to this font of creativity: the symbols, the colors, the pantheon, the wrists bent at a 90-degree angle.
This summer the brand will unveil its Fascinating Egypt collection, featuring 180 pieces that pay homage to the region’s culture and craftsmanship as well as Van Cleef & Arpels’s own history. The release follows the opening of the new Grand Egyptian Museum—in, yes, the actual Egypt—which hosts the artifacts of Tutankhamun himself. The discovery of his tomb sent Egyptomania to a fever pitch and had influenced the maison when it designed its first related pieces.
Take the newly designed Paysage éternel bracelet, a piece that reads more like a detailed painting made of rectangular gold panels set with sapphires, rubies, and diamonds instead of oil on canvas. Its imagery is drawn from the Egyptian craze of the early 20th century. Items from King Tut’s tomb eventually traveled the world, finally arriving in America in the 1970s and transferring that original European excitement farther west.
“That was really the first blockbuster exhibition that started this whole tradition ofgoing on the road and people lining up around the building. It was Tutankhamun that was the beginning of all of that,” says Der Manuelian.
Van Cleef & Arpels’s continued interest in Egypt may have something to do with real estate: The company’s headquarters is essentially in the backyard of the, where an impressive Egyptian department houses many of the antiquities excavated over the years, like the Great Sphinx of Tanis, the Dendera zodiac, andamong other treasures. On a sunny day in Paris last fall, I watched as a few Fascinating Egypt pieces were formed in the firm’s high jewelry workshop.
Miniature figures of goddesses cast in solid gold were being intricately carved and polished, ready to be set with fine gemstones. A Mystery Set cocktail ring was so technically complicated that it required a pit crew of five artisans toiling at once. One of the Paysage bracelets that has become a signature of the brand was taking its final form.
These three pieces are hallmarks of a Van Cleef & Arpels high jewelry collection—one that, like Isis reassembling her husband, Osiris, after he was chopped to pieces by his wicked brother, Seth, takes hours upon hours of painstaking diligence. The Mystery Set, a technique patented by the house in 1933, refers to the way stones are slid onto rails, concealing the structure of the piece so that it appears they are held in place by sheer will, or maybe magic. The deities who adorn the pieces in this collection build upon the house’s century-long history of creating lifelike miniature ballerinas and other characters to illustrate collections pulled from narrative inspirations like“There is always an artistic dimension that will be the base of inspiration.
And like art in general, it is meant to be very universal,” says Van Cleef & Arpels CEO Catherine Rénier.
“It can be literature; it can be the ballet. Here, it’s a specific culture and paying tribute to the artistic expression of that culture. ” After a visit to the workshop, a prowl around the Egyptian collection of the Louvre, and subsequent trips to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s own recent exhibition “Divine Egypt,” it becomes clear that from King Tut’s age to our own, at least one thing hasn’t changed: humanity’s appreciation for shiny objects.
Gold has been soaring in price due to geopolitical strife. But according to our sources, at least, that isn’t discouraging buyers—it’s counterintuitively increasing their desire. The Egyptians, of course, were known for their apt use of gold in statuary, funerary articles, and, of course, jewelry.
Van Cleef & Arpels draws on the Egyptian use of color—and Dubois’s use of it in his illustrations for Champollion’s book. Fascinating Egypt digs deep, but not so deep it could be accused of making off with another culture’s precious artifacts. Where once “every well-to-do Victorian wanted to own a mummy, or a piece of a mummy,” says Kathryn Howley at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU, there’s now a less taboo option for the modern aesthete.
It’s enough to make anyone feel like the prince of Egypt. At just 21 years old, Hutton inherited a fortune, which she eventually squandered through one ill-fated marriage after another. Here’s what became of her famous jewelry collection. What Happened to Princess Diana’s Most Famous Jewels?
From her sapphire and diamond engagement ring to her yellow gold Cartier Tank Française, some of the late princess’s most beloved pieces have ended up with her daughters-in-law, while others haven’t been seen since Diana’s death. On her wedding day to Nico Macauley, the Duchess of Kent’s granddaughter paid tribute to her late grandmother by wearing a pearl-and-diamond tiara with a long, mysterious history.
A History of the Most Fabulous Royal Engagement Rings, From Princess Diana’s Trendsetting Sapphire to Grace Kelly’s 10-Carat Sparkler Royal marriages were once brokered through ambassadors and diplomats, but now, the promise of a lifetime together can come with rare gems, colorful stones, and family heirlooms galore. From gowns by Karl Lagerfeld and Giorgio Armani to a concert by The Eagles, the Grimaldi wedding brought the glamour of the old French Riviera back for one long weekend.
The estate, which has hosted several prominent figures from the British and international elite of the 20th century, can be yours for just over $5 million. Princess Eléonore’s Sparkling Tiara, Armani Privé, and More Royal Fashion From the Belgian Royal Banquet King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium hosted a gala dinner for Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako at the Palace of Laeken in Brussels.
The Oscar winner’s latest is a Trojan horse of a film: a rip-roaring blockbuster secretly carrying a sober meditation on civility and intolerance. And Elon Musk is going to despise it. A Hong Konger, a Saudi, and the Indian contingent. Haute couture is one of France’s most treasured practices, but the names making waves at Paris Haute Couture Week hail from unassuming places.
At Althorp, Princess Diana Could Be Herself: Dancing, Cooking, Hanging With Staff. Now Her Brother Is Keeping the Estate Alive The story behind Althorp, the 13,000-acre Spencer family estate with an awe-inspiring art collection and priceless library that became Princess Diana’s final resting place. At the exhibition celebrating Rainier III and Grace Kelly's legendary wedding, their daughter Caroline wore a gold heart engraved with her parents' names entwined with her own.
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