So, what do you do when you double your winnings? Add another dozen charities!

Ms. Safra announced today that she had an extra 12 charities in her back pocket, bringing her publicized list of 20 charities to 32 in all. Each institution received an unexpected million. Oh, happy day for them! And for Ms. Safra, who received a standing ovation after the sale.

“From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank everyone who participated in this evening’s success. I am overjoyed, knowing that so many people in need around the world will benefit,” Lily Safra said after the sale. “Like the jewels sold tonight, these extraordinary organizations make the world a more beautiful place, and it is a great privilege to be able to support them.”

This is what happens when a billionairess decides to liquidate a jewelry collection that contains not only a 32-carat Burmese ruby ring designed by Chaumet – which sold for a double-estimate world record $6.7mil – but 18 custom-designed pieces by Joel Arthur Rosenthal. That ruby camellia brooch I posted about last month sold for $4.3mil, three times the low estimate and the most ever paid for a JAR jewel at auction.

Today, Safra’s collection became not only the largest single-owner collection of JAR jewels ever seen at market – Ellen Barkin sold the second largest – but also the most valuable. Altogether, those 18 jewels went for $11,473,920.

I showed highlights from the sale last month and will update them with sale prices. Let’s have a look at some of the others.

JAR’s 1992 precursor to stacking rings – of multi-colored sapphires and diamonds – sold for $113,304 on $30-40k estimate at Christie’s Geneva May 14, 2012 (Christie’s Images)

Charm ring by JAR with diamond-set hoop and two taviz-cut diamonds of 16.98 and 15.31 carats in platinum, 2004, sold for $974,417 on $310-500,000 estimate (Christie’s Images)

Ear clips of moonstone, quartz and diamond by JAR, 2001, sold for $93,881 on 40-59k estimate at Christie’s Geneva

Set of three diamond eternity bands by JAR, 2001, sold for $158,626 on $30-40k estimate at Christie’s Geneva

Ring by JAR of pavé-set diamond hoop suspending 54.32-grain natural pearl, 2007, sold for $391,709 on $40-59,000 estimate at Christie’s Geneva

Pearl and diamond fibula brooch by JAR, 2002, sold for $339,913 on $140k-162k estimate at Christie’s Geneva

Ring of colored sapphires and diamonds by JAR, 1989, sold for $106,830 on $30-50k estimate at Christie’s Geneva

Just for the record, here are the institutions that benefited from today’s sale:

Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, Rwanda • ALEH: Caring for Israel’s Disabled • Alfredo J. Monteverde School, Brazil • A Window to Tomorrow – A Computer for Every Child, Israel • Children Action, Geneva • Claude Pompidou Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease, Nice, France • Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem • Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital, Tel Hashomer, Israel • Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD • Elton John AIDS Foundation • Fight AIDS Monaco • Henry Street Settlement, New York • Hope and Homes for Children, Romania • Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève • Imperial College, London • Institute for Brain and Spinal Cord Disorders, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris • Israel Philharmonic Orchestra • Jordan River Village Camp for seriously ill children • Keren Shemesh, Israel • King’s College, London • Le ballet de l’Opéra national de Paris • Les Restaurants du Coeur, France • Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research • Museum of Jewish Heritage, NY • NYU, Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center • Royal Opera House, London • UNICEF • Université Joseph Fourier, Institut des Neurosciences, Grenoble, France • University of Toronto • Water Treatment Program, Amélia Rodrigues, Brazil • Yad Veshem International School, Israel • Yahad-In Unum France

Related posts:

JAR in full flower: 18 rare jewels on the block

Season of JAR: a connoisseur’s approach to gems

JAR: designer jewelry as calling card

Sex & the City: the jewelry

Back on the block: JAR topaz earrings

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Ring of 10.67ct oval-shaped and two 6ct diamonds by JAR, est. $2.5-3.5 million at Chrisite's HK May 29 (Chrisite's Images)

One thing that sets the designs of Joel Arthur Rosenthal apart is his approach to stones. He always chooses the very best, but it’s more than that. The Bronx-born designer who became known as “JAR of Paris” proved what a designer can achieve by going against convention when it comes to cut and color.

On top of the record-size private collection up for sale in May at Christie’s Geneva, Christie’s Hong Kong just announced they’ve got a little JAR of their own. How’s this for a sparkler?

Those are all D color, flawless diamonds, of course, so you can imagine the flash that gives off. That center oval-shaped diamond is 10.67 carats and it’s flanked by two diamonds of 6.04 and 6.07.

Note the setting of blackened metal lined with accent diamonds – typical JAR. (See what I mean in the amazing diamond thread ring pictured below.) This three-diamond ring is expected to fetch between $2, 500,000 and $3,500,000 at Hong Kong Magnificent Jewels sale on May 29.

Before it left for Asia for the rest of its pre-sale tour, many got to admire it stateside last week at Christie’s New York, Rockefeller Center, where it was on display with the 18 JAR jewels from the Geneva sale.

I’m not sure where Rosenthal got the diamonds in that ring, but the New York-based diamond dealer William Goldberg & Co. has been working with him for at least 25 years. I spoke a few years ago to Saul Goldberg, before the much-publicized Ellen Barkin sale, about what it’s like working with Joel Rosenthal – and what he looks for in diamonds. “He would expect a flat, cushion cut or an unusual rose cut, a special pink or blueish-green diamond – something exotic, always exotic,” Goldberg said, adding that it’s extremely difficult to predict JAR’s taste, even after two decades.

JAR diamond thread ring from the 2006 Ellen Barkin sale (Christie's Images)

“Something I might think he would like, I could be so off base. And something I don’t think he’ll like, he loves,” Goldberg said. “My father had that relationship with him also. We thought of him for special pieces that would come along, but we could never seem to predict his taste. The tone of pink might not have been his tone of pink, or the tone of blue might be beautiful but we wants it more gray than blue.”

In terms of shape, the Goldbergs learned to avoid showing him the angular cuts that were in fashion long after Rosenthal began rejecting them. “He definitely likes flat stones, not your conventional, traditional cuts. He likes soft things – a cushion or an oval, nothing with hard edges,” Goldberg said.  “Give him a pointy stone and he’ll say, ‘Cut off the points, then show it to me.’ Or show him a pear shape and he’ll say, ‘Cut off the point at the bottom.’ He can dictate those things because it’s him. He’s the designer. He is a great artist.”

If you want to see an interesting example of the JAR approach to topaz, you can find it here. Since we’re talking rocks, let me show you a couple more of the JAR-picked beauties you’ll find at the Christie’s Geneva sale next month:

Ring of Colombian emerald, natural pearls and diamonds, 1988, est. $500-700,000 at Christie's Geneva in May (Christie's Images)

Pendant brooch of garnet, ruby and diamond by JAR, 2001, est. $170-220k at Christie's Geneva in May (Christie's Images)

Camellia flower brooch of rubies and diamonds by JAR, 2003 (Christie's Images)

Jewels for Hope will be on view at Christie’s Hong Kong April 27-28. Viewings at Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva begin May 11. Sale: 8pm, Monday, May 14.

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Jar in full flower: 18 rare jewels on the block in May

JAR: designer jewelry as calling card

Sex and the City: the jewelry

Back on the block: JAR topaz earrings

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Like Jean-François Fichot, Carolyn Tyler and Penny Berton both found a haven and outlet for their creative expression in Bali. Both invested a chunk of their lives developing a little design industry there, and both have since retreated somewhat to their roots.

Tyler (far right) maintains a home in Santa Barbara and Berton (left) resides on Salt Spring Island, off the coast of Vancouver.

Snake earrings of 22kt gold and pearl by Penny Berton

Both did their time with the snake. Tyler’s are chunky, sensual, well-fed. Berton’s are lean, hammered, ready to pounce or slither away quickly.

Earrings of Tahitian pearls and 22kt gold by Carolyn Tyler

Penny Berton comes from gold prospectors who met up in the northern Wild West at the turn of the century. Her grandmother met her grandfather during the Gold Rush. They never found gold, but instilled their quest and restless spirit in their offspring.

Blue emerald snake necklace by Penny Berton

Two generations later, Penny found gold herself, when she wasn’t even looking. Born in Kleinburg, Ontario, she stumbled into Bali in 1976 with a pack on her back and dreams of becoming a filmmaker.

What she found instead was an ancient jewelry-making tradition and an unexpected medium for her creative visions. Berton brings to her jewelry an appreciation for ancient Chinese, Balinese and Western mythologies.  She believes in the healing properties of the gemstones and the energy in precious metals.

Spiral snake ring of opal and 22kt gold by Carolyn Tyler

Carolyn Tyler takes a similar approach to her jewelry, but while Berton’s snakes utilize a chain weaving technique familiar to us from John Hardy’s sterling designs, Tyler sticks more to the traditionally opulent granulation of classical gold work. Her snakes are less slinky and more ornamental.

Sterling snake ring by John Hardy

But I’d put either Benton’s or Tyler’s snakes up against this stylized sterling snake ring from John Hardy, the ex-pat designer that took cottage-industry jewelry-making on the island to a whole new level – and possibly lost something in the process?

By the time this ring was produced, Hardy wasn’t doing the designing any more. He sold his company in 2007. The name “John Hardy” now refers to a global jewelry business headquartered in Hong Kong, though its design center remains in Bali.

Sterling snake bracelet with amethyst eyes by Penny Berton

Related posts:

Snakes and stones: Jean-François Fichot, ex-pat designer in Bali

Carolyn Tyler: reinventing a life in Bali

Making art and jewelry on a Caribbean island

                          

Earrings of 22kt gold and peridot by Jean-François Fichot

If you’re ever in Bali, check out Treasures Gallery in Ubud where you’ll find three primary designers – Carolyn Tyler, Penny Berton, and Jean-François Fichot, who died last year but whose jewelry designs are still represented.

Together they tell the story of a generation of artists who rebelled against the pressures and conventions of Western society and set up a jewelry design haven in this Hindu-drenched tropical paradise.

Treasures is next door to Ary’s Warung, where you’re sure to stop for a bite or sip at some point. It’s the perfect place to discover the kind of jewelry you might create if you were surrounded by Balinese temples, tropical foliage, and some of the world’s best goldsmiths.

Judging from Bali’s most successful ex-pat designers, it would probably encompass unusual gemstones, ancient mythology and goldsmithing techniques – and possibly snakes.

I have yet to encounter an ex-pat designer who landed on an Indonesian island and did not, at some point, design snake jewelry. Maybe this has something to do with the ex-pat role in Paradise? Or maybe it has to do with all the actual snakes in Bali and the ever-present possibility of encountering one:

From the tale of an encounter with deadly tree snakes in Bali on The Opinionated Diner

Jean-François was among the first rebel jewelry designers to discover Bali, settling there in 1978, after graduating from L’Ecole des Beaux Arts and roaming the world for a decade. Here is his Balinese haven as I photographed it in 2000:

Garden studio of Jean-François Fichot in Bali in 2000 (photo Cathleen McCarthy)

I went to Bali that year to profile Carolyn Tyler for a magazine and met Jean-François. I’d never heard of him but, it turned out, he had preceded Carolyn by a decade. He showed me the luscious gardens he’d been cultivating for 22 years and the treasures he’d been collaborating on with goldsmiths and gem carvers on the island. Here’s Jean-François’ take on the classic snake bracelet:

Tête à Tête bracelet of 22kt gold, sterling, carved turquoise and Columbian emerald by Jean-François Fichot

One of his collaborators was a Mexican lapidary artist who showed up at the studio while I was there and introduced himself as Pedro. Pedro Michel, famous for carving nearly life-size skulls out of gem-quality material like aquamarine, is a shaman practitioner who, last I heard, was living in Tokyo. Here they are discussing a project twelve years ago:

Jean-François Fichot collaborating with gem carver Pedro Michel in Bali in 2000 (photo Cathleen McCarthy)

(You can find more of Jean-François’ work and images of his tropical gardens on his website.)

Rings of gold, sterling, rock crystal with emerald (left) and baroque pearl by Jean-François Fichot.

Around the same time Jean-François set up camp on Bali, another restless soul landed nearby – and eventually shared a showcase with him at Treasures Gallery. This one was from Toronto and her name was Penny Berton…

                          

Camellia brooch of rubies and diamonds by JAR, 2003, sold for $4.3mil, 3x the low estimate and highest price ever paid for a JAR jewel at auction, at Christie's Geneva on May 14, 2012 (Christie's Images)

Curiel, then the Geneva-based head of Christie’s jewelry department, was getting ready to sell 17 JAR jewels, at that time the largest single-owner collection of JAR to be auctioned. They belonged to actress Ellen Barkin, who was unloading a hundred jewels after her divorce from Ronald Perelman.

Among the stunning pieces in that sale: a JAR diamond thread ring, a remarkable pair of topaz-and-ruby earrings, and an over-sized gardenia diamond ring that inspired a scene in the first Sex and the City movie. It looked a lot like a bracelet in this sale, made in 1994, in the form of a camellia.

(All photos courtesy Christie’s Images)

Camellia diamond bracelet by JAR, 1994 (left) est. $400-600k, sold for $624,792 at Christie’s Geneva May 14, 2012, and diamond Gardenia ring (right) sold for $486,400 at Christie’s NY in 2006

The treasure trove coming up for sale in May has 18 JAR pieces, beating Barkin’s record by a jewel, and demonstrates, once again, the Bronx-born Rosenthal’s exquisite taste in gems and often unconventional way of putting them together. This time, the jewelry belongs to Lily Safra, a Brazil-born socialite and philanthropist whose four marriages left her a billionaire with a $500 million villa on the French Riviera. It’s no surprise to learn that she’s also a longtime customer of the exclusive, Paris-based JAR. Now 77, Safra is selling off 70 of her jewels, estimated at $20 million (although JAR pieces are famous for selling above estimates).

No, the villa is not going into foreclosure. She’s donating it all to charity – 20 charities, to be precise – as chair of a foundation set up by the late Edmund Safra, a banker and her fourth and final husband. Safra, who was suffering from Parkinsons, died several years ago. Lily Safra has donated millions to emergency relief efforts (including Katrina), medical research (including AIDS and Parkinsons), and higher education. Now she’s liquidating some jewels to donate more.

Poppy flower brooch of diamonds, pink and green tourmalines by JAR, 1982, est. $500-700k, sold for $1,273,320 at Christie's Geneva on May 14, 2012

Lily and Edmund Safra began commissioning JAR jewels in 1981. Before the Barkin sale six years ago, Curiel explained that Joel Rosenthal works closely with his customers (which, by the way, included Elizabeth Taylor).

“Say you have a wedding anniversary coming up and you’d like something special and your husband goes there,” Curiel said. “If JAR knows you and your family, he will think of something you like, some kind of flower, something that reminds you of your children or happy pieces of your life. He will incorporate that in an understated way that only the people who owned the piece would recognize.”

Judging from her jewelry, I’m guessing Ms. Safra loves flowers, particularly camellias and poppies – two of the most beautiful. One is soft and feminine, the other bold and exotic. I think the fact that she loved and wore both says something interesting about her – perhaps that she’s multifaceted and both JAR and her husband (when he commissioned the jewels) recognized that. Then again, maybe she just has good taste in flowers.

For more background on JAR and the Barkin sale, see my first post on JAR. Here are a few more clues to the mysterious JAR, outtakes from my 2006 interview with François Curiel for a feature that ran in JCK magazine:

Why is Joel Rosenthal’s work so desirable?

François Curiel: Because the jewelry is not advertised, because it is not easy to buy, because it is so rare. He only produces 60 or 70 pieces a year. He doesn’t work very hard. His shop is open from 10 am to 12:30, then he goes to lunch, then reopens from 2 to 6. The shop is closed altogether from July 10 to September 15. People get frustrated by the fact that they have no access because he’s not there like any other jeweler.  If someone important, a major client, wants to see you Sunday at 10 am, every other jeweler runs to meet them. Not JAR. If you want to make an appointment with him, you do it between 10 and 12:30 or 2 to 5. He doesn’t work Saturday or Sunday.

Moghul tulip flower ear clips of rubies, sapphires and diamonds by JAR, 1987, est. $250-500,000, sold for $275,168 at Christie's Geneva (Christie's Images)

I heard a story that somebody from Texas was in his shop once and said, “I like them all. How much for the lot?” That is not JAR. You won’t get a discount because you buy four pieces. He said, “I can’t sell to you.” The person left unhappy. This is not a place where you can negotiate the price. That is the price. Some people get a bit annoyed by that.

If I was in Paris and tried to make an appointment, would I get in?

FC: You would probably not. He gets a lot of mail, as an American who lives in Paris, letters from students, from people who would not necessarily be buyers. He might answer if he doesn’t see it as a journalist trying to go through the backdoor. He’s very amenable. He talks to everybody, he’s not a snob. He’s not a high flier.

So, what is it that makes JAR’s  jewelry so desirable—the design, the rarity, the inaccessibility?

FC: All of the above.

Jewels for Hope will be on view at Christie’s London March 29-30, Christie’s New York April 14-17, Christie’s Paris April 19-20, and Christie’s Hong Kong April 27-28. Viewings at Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva begin May 11. Sale: 8pm, Monday, May 14.

Related posts:

JAR: designer jewelry as calling card

Sex and the City: the jewelry

Back on the block: JAR topaz earrings

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This bridge swings open to let ships through Santa Anna Bay, then back again to allow foot traffic – which increases substantially when the mega-cruise ships stop off twice a day …

… releasing thousands of tourists into the historic streets of Willemstad in search of souvenirs:

Jewelry is a big favorite, judging from the variety of shops that line the streets of Punda:

Here is the smallest but one of the most charming jewelry shops I found, run by a young woman who sells her own and friends’ jewelry made from organic materials, mostly carved seeds.

By the way, I spotted an unfilled niche for rock-star skull jewelry, à la Célèbrités Gallery in Maui. There is obviously untapped potential here, given the taste for a good skull evident everywhere you look, from the tattoo parlors…

…. to popular dives like Jaanchie’s, where I tasted a local specialty, iguana (judging from this guy’s face, he tried it too):

… to this stone engraving on display at the oldest synagogue (in continuous use) in the Western Hemisphere, Mikvé Israel-Emanuel, built in Punda in 1732:

Is that not the most fabulous depiction of a skull you’ve ever seen? Complete with phallic crossbones that resemble the coral you find washed up on the beaches of Curaçao. But then, I do love a good skull.

All photos are mine, © Cathleen McCarthy

Related posts:

Making art & jewelry on a Caribbean island

Carolyn Tyler: reinventing a life in Bali

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You can move to Bali and become a jewelry designer or set up in Maui and become a jeweler to the rock stars. Or you can do what jewelry and ceramic artist Evelien Sipkes did and move to the Caribbean island of Curaçao. That’s her (right) with one of the necklaces she makes of shell-like porcelain.

I’m just back from Curaçao where I discovered a thriving ex-pat art scene, and Evelien’s studio on the island’s west end. Yep, Curaçao is where they make that blue liqueur. The fact that you don’t know much more than that is why you can probably afford to set up there. It’s still a relatively undiscovered creative paradise, about 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela. Your Curaçao getaway could look something like this:

Evelien settled here in Curaçao 15 years ago and set up a home studio open on all sides to let in those island breezes while she’s making her ceramic art. Sometimes it comes out modern and abstract, other times the island’s flora, fauna and sea life find their way into her psyche:

She also makes jewelry from porcelain, like this necklace (below), firing the buds three times in a 1200° kiln, then lining them with gold lustre. I ask if these necklaces were inspired by the local sea life. “Yes, very much,” she said. “It’s all about the coral.” Evelien also makes cluster necklaces with buds of silk, velvet, copper, Swarovski crystal, and porcelain in the red and pink hues of the island’s coral reefs.

Bling Bling Blue, 2006, by Evelien Sipkes

She also makes necklaces of beads carved from the seeds of mahogany trees, highlighting some with gold leaf (above left). That particular piece was designed to be worn by a woman with only one breast (shown left).

Evelien hales from Holland, as do most of the ex-pat artists I met on the island. Curaçao is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Dutch is spoken by almost everyone, along with English and papiamentu, the local Dutch/Spanish/African-flavored patois.

I ended up buying a bracelet from another Dutch artist, Wyke van de Witte, who knits cuffs from silver wire and sells them at Gallery Alma Blou, oldest and largest gallery in Curaçao. Mine (on my arm, below left) is made with pearls and glass beads. Wyke is holding another made with agate and demonstrating how you can pull the ends to make the bracelet fit snugly. I prefer wearing mine like a sleeve, the snugger the better. Looks a bit like fishing net, doesn’t it?

No doubt it was sea-inspired, like much of the island art. Several artists on Curaçao, including a couple who moved from Colorado two years ago, told me they swim for inspiration every day.

Along with its sweet liqueur, Curaçao is known for its scuba diving. Divers like to explore the coral-lined wall that drops dramatically into the sea at the island’s coastline. Speaking from personal experience, the part of that wall you can see snorkeling is plenty awesome. What artist wouldn’t be inspired here?

You can find more of Evelien Sipkes’ art and jewelry here.

All photos except the model shot are mine, © Cathleen McCarthy

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Invented in the early 20th century, Bakelite was the first completely synthetic plastic. Cheap and pliable, this material could take on almost any color and shape (molded or carved), allowing a new creative freedom that revolutionized costume jewelry. Bakelite jewelry first caught on in the 1920s and remained popular through the Depression and WWII, evolving constantly with fashions of the day. Pieces like these serve as a time capsule, an example of affordable elegance and the spirit of fun that carried our ancestors through some dark days. Here are a few highlights from the sale:

(Photos courtesy of Bonhams)

Top to bottom:

Bakelite “bowtie” bangle, est. $1,000-1,500

Two Bakelite elephant brooches one with googly eye, one with metal enhancement, est. $500-700

Bakelite gazelle brooch, est. $500-700

Three Bakelite terrier brooches, est. $900-1,200

Two stretch Bakelite bracelets with diagonal rectangles, est. $600-900

Two striped laminate Bakelite bangle bracelets with two similar rings, est. $500-700

Preview will be held May 18-19, 2012, at Bonhams Los Angeles. Look for the online catalog in the weeks before the sale.

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6.01-carat (left) and 8.01-carat fancy vivid blue diamonds (Sotheby’s Hong Kong)

Both are lovely jewels – and I’m sure much lovelier in real life, the magic of diamonds being impossible to capture in still photos – but they don’t hold a candle to the most famous blues, most notably the Hope Diamond. What makes natural blue diamonds so rare and so… blue? Something very unglamorous: boron, the stuff you find in flares and nuclear reactors, not so much in diamonds.

Hope Diamond, 45.52 carats, in 1910 Cartier setting (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History)

Happily for all of us, a couple of the rarest and most dazzling blue diamonds can be seen, free of charge, whenever you happen to be in Washington, D.C. And, when we’re not looking at them in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, scientists can access them, in an endless effort to explain the phenomenon of blue diamonds.

They just performed another test on the Smithsonian’s blue treasures, including the Hope Diamond and the Blue Heart, to find out exactly why blue diamonds are blue. They knew it had something to do with the presence of boron, which is extremely rare in natural diamonds. Their question this time: Does the amount of boron in a blue diamond account for its color?

Every now and then, the Hope is removed from its display case and its 1910 Cartier setting, then inserted into various high-tech apparatuses, poked, prodded, and irradiated. But somehow it always defies analysis and ends up back in its showcase, mystery intact.

Hope Diamond glows vivid red under ultraviolet light (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History))

In 2010, for example, when the Hope shared the spotlight with the Wittelsbach-Graff, both historic gems were put under the microscope and exposed to infrared light. Both glowed brilliant red under ultraviolet light – though not in quite the same way. This bizarre ability of natural blue diamonds to emit a phosphorescent, glow-in-the-dark red, even after the light is turned off, is a tool gemologists use to separate real blue diamonds from fakes. Due to its particular boron mix, the Hope turns fiery red, as you can see in the photo at left.

Other tests were performed as well. Everyone, especially Laurence Graff who had just dropped $23.4 mil on the Wittelsbach, was hoping to discover they’d been cut from the same stone. Alas, while it was clear they’d been found around the same time (mid-17th century) and in close proximity in the Golconda mines of India, the famous diamonds were not, in fact, separated at birth.

Last month, after visiting hours were over and doors carefully locked, a local jeweler removed the Hope from its setting once again and four experts – Eloise Gaillou and Jeffrey Post of the Smithsonian, Detlef Rost of the University of Manchester, and James Butler of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC – brought the Hope, the Blue Heart, and 76 other natural diamonds to the lab. One by one, they were inserted into an ion mass spectrometer which shaved off millions of atoms from tiny patches of each. These atoms were then sorted by weight. The goal: to discover how many of those atoms were boron.

Once again, the Hope glowed brilliant red under infrared light and proved to have an extremely high concentration of boron. While type Ia diamonds showed no detectable boron, natural type IIb blue diamonds such as the Hope and Blue Heart, revealed significantly higher amounts than previously reported. Not surprisingly, the Hope had the most by far: as much as 8.4 ppm in spots, compared to as little as .08 in other natural blue diamonds. And yet, the boron content of the blue diamonds did not, in the end, entirely explain the variety or depth of their color.

“The samples in this study are all gem-quality diamonds, including some Intense to Fancy-Deep blue diamonds; color intensity, however, only loosely correlates with the boron content,” reads the abstract published in American Mineralogist last month. “The exact nature of the phosphorescence processes is still not fully understood.”

When museum visitors arrived the next morning,  the scientists were back in their offices scratching their heads, while the Hope spun slowly on her carousel, as though she’d never left. Someone probably trotted around the case like I always do, following it like a nail to a magnet and emitting mews of delight. If you’ve ever seen the real thing, you know it’s nothing like looking at the photos.

The Hope Diamond in a setting designed by Harry Winston in 2010. This necklace now holds a different stone and is being offered for sale.

When I saw it last, it was out of its glitzy white-diamond Cartier setting. If you ask me, they should leave it in its unadorned, naked glory, but I guess we’re all accustomed to seeing it in that white diamond halo its been wearing for a century. They replaced that 1910 Cartier setting with a sleek Harry Winston design in 2010, but after a year on display, it’s back in its familiar setting and the Winston piece is being sold off with a different center stone, proceeds to benefit the Smithsonian.

I swear, looking at the Hope makes you feel drunk. What causes this giddy reaction? The color? The phosphorescent emissions? Scientists are pretty sure the boron content causes the phosphorescent emissions, but frankly, they just don’t know what causes that particular shade of blue. It’s officially described as “dark grayish blue” – same designation given to the Wittelsbach-Graff before Graff had it recut to “fancy deep blue.”

But while these terms mean something to gemologists, they don’t come close to capturing the reality. The Hope Diamond is the color of the ocean when you’re out really far, looking into miles and miles of water, Titanic deep. And from that dizzying blue come those full-spectrum rainbow sparkles of a really fine diamond. That is one giddy combination.

Scientific explanation? Frankly, they haven’t entirely figured it out, but you can be pretty sure they’ll keep trying. In the meantime, we all get to admire it and catch a free buzz. No admission or cocktails required.

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Wittelsbach-Graff diamond debuts

Smithsonian jewels for the masses, courtesy QVC

Elizabeth Taylor auction and Elizabeth Taylor auction’s 12 world records

Beware of glass composite rubies

A celebration of really expensive tiaras

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Elsa Schiaparelli

The spotlight is on Elsa Schiaparelli, once again. She closed her shop in Paris almost six decades ago, yet her whimsical creations look as cutting edge as ever. Lady Gaga or Madonna could wear her shoe hat on stage and no one would bat an eye.

Schiaparelli, or “Schiap,” as she was known (pronounced Skap), was well ahead of her time. You can find her iconic creations in two exhibitions in New York City: Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: On Fashion opening on May 10, 2012, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones now through April 15, 2012, at Bard Graduate Center Gallery.

Those shoe hats she designed from a sketch by Salvador Dalí are at both exhibits. The Met also has Schiaparelli’s insect necklace (below) and the tear dress (as in “rip”), another famous collaboration with Dali. The shoe hat, which first appeared in her 1937/1938 collection, has inspired at least one recent imitation, a collaboration between Manolo Blahnik and hat designer Stephen Jones, milliner to the stars, who curated the exhibit at the Bard.

Somehow, the contemporary version with its stiletto heel lacks the subtle charm and shock-laugh of the original (left). Schiaparelli’s shoe hat actually looked like one of her distinctively-sculpted hats – following the sleek curve of the wearer’s head – until the moment you realized it was a shoe.

Elsa Schiaparelli shared Dali’s sense of humor and love of visual puns, as well as his desire to shock and entertain at the same time. He supplied the puns and iconic images;  she managed to make them both absurd and chic all at once. Soon after these collaborations, Dalí began to seriously design his own jewelry.

Salvador Dali's ink drawing over photo (by Horst P. Horst) of a model wearing astronomical necklace of Galalith stars from Schiaparelli's summer 1929 collection (Baltimore Museum of Art)

Schiaparelli was born in Rome in 1890 and lived for a while in New York City before settling in Paris, where she and Coco Chanel became famous rivals in the world of couture. She worked between 1920 and 1954, when she closed her Paris shop, but her heyday was the decade before the war.

She drew from all the popular art movements of her day, including Modernism, Futurism, Cubism, Deco, African art, but was particularly drawn to Surrealism. Along with Dalí, Jean Cocteau and Albert Giacometti collaborated on designs with her. Cecil Beaton and Man Ray photographed them. All considered her a friend and equal.

When Elsa Schiaparelli launched her first fashion craze in 1927—sweaters with trompe l’oeil bows—she had no training in clothing design. Two years later, she was outfitting the world’s most glamorous women and rocking fashion conventions with her bold colors and body-conscious designs.

By the mid-thirties she was famously straddling the worlds of fashion and art. “She is responsible for the feeling of spontaneous youth that has crept into everything,” Vogue raved in 1935. Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and Katharine Hepburn wore her form-fitting suits, mannish trousers, and cocky hats. She designed the suits Rosalind Russell wore in The Women (1939).

Elsa Schiaparelli also created some memorable costume jewelry and accessories, including the necklace (left) that made the wearer appear to have a parade of insects crawling around her throat.

Her jewelry designs probably began with the fasteners she designed for her clothes – buckles, hooks, zippers, and buttons. She worked with Jean Clement to design buttons of wood, china, celluloid, glass, crystal, amber, white jade, sealing wax – buttons shaped like shoelaces, snails, tops, padlocks, nuts and bolts, coffee beans, lollipops, peanuts, spoons, fruits and vegetables. In 1935, Albert Giacometti designed a set of metal and clay buttons and surreal ornaments for her new salon.

Some may recall the jewel-like buttons and embroidery on some of her couture, not to mention the ankle boots that sprouted floor-length monkey fur, from Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli, which opened in 2003 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Schiaparelli donated the bulk of her personal collection to that museum in 1969.

Still Life with Head of Nefertiti photo by Madame Yevonde, 1935, with jewelry by Schiaparelli (The British Council, London)

Not even the curator of that exhibit was entirely sure why. “She knew Man Ray and had been to see the Barnes collection and, during the war, was in Princeton,” curator Dylis Blum speculated at the time. “She had one or two clients in Philadelphia and probably knew of the Duchamp collection.” (The PMA has a room full of famous Duchamps, including Bride Descending the Staircase.)

Cristóbal Balenciaga called Schiaparelli “the only true artist in fashion.” Her accessories alone prove that. Some of her collaborations with Dalí were punk statements 50 years before punk was invented. Among the many innovations she pioneered were designer logos, wrap-around dresses, wedge shoes, culottes, mix-and-match sportswear, reversible coats, plunging backs, and richly embroidered evening jackets. She also apparently created the runway show as we know it today: a spectacle with music, art and boyish-figured models.

“The moment people stop copying you,” Schiaparelli once said, “you have ceased to be news.”

Related posts:

Salvador Dalí: bejeweled surrealism

Women who paved the way: Jeanne Toussaint of Cartier

Alexander Calder’s jewelry: going mobile

Man Ray’s jewelry by Gem Montibello

Art Smith & Sam Kramer: heyday of Modernist jewelry

Jewelry by famous artists