Collectors shop for world’s finest jewels at Paris Biennale
PARIS, September 20, 2014 – The Biennale des Antiquaires 2014 opened its doors to ultra-wealthy collectors searching for the finest jewels from the world’s top brands and designers.
Wallace Chan Jewellery
The biennial exhibition, held in the vast Grand Palais from Sept. 11-21, showcased some of the best current and vintage jewellery from the likes of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Bulgari.
Some of the world’s leading jewellery designers, such as Wallace Chan and Giampiero Bodino, exhibited their latest creations.
Wallace Chan Jewellery
Chinese collectors had flown in, many of them by private jet, to support Wallace Chan, who presented intricately crafted insects, flowers and fish sculptures, using carved coloured titanium, jadeite and colour gemstones.
Chan said he brings a sense of love to his work, enabling him to work tenderly with precious materials to bring out the best effect in terms of the use of light and the look of the piece of art-jewellery that he is creating.
Wallace Chan
“I feel that each gemstone has a life, and that metal has a life,” Chan said in an interview with Jewellery Outlook at the exhibition.
Chan, one of the great names in contemporary global jewellery design, exhibited at one of the most popular booths, visited by collectors, artistic directors of the leading jewellery houses, and up-and-coming designers and artisans seeking inspiration for their own work.
The leading Parisian houses presented striking pieces that reflected their past and defined them as brands – Cartier’s panther; Van Cleef & Arpels’ gem-encrusted fairy clips, inspired this time by a well-known fairy tale, Peau d’Âne; and Bulgari’s Serpenti collection, showcasing snakes, an icon of Bulgari design since the 1940s.
Dior presented jewels inspired by its own heritage as a couturier.
MAGNIFICENT DIAMONDS
Graff showed off extraordinarily rare diamonds including the Royal Star of Paris — a mesmeric brooch featuring the Graff Sunflower, a 107.46 carat fancy yellow cushion cut diamond and the Graff Perfection, a 100.00 carat “D flawless” pear shape diamond drop.
Graff Jewellery
The world has seen very few diamonds that exceed 100 carats, so it is unprecedented that two stones of such quality and carat weight have been brought together in one jewel.
Laurence Graff, the “king of diamonds”, and an art lover, blended into the affluent crowd weaving between the booths.
While jewellery took centre-stage, the exhibition featured art too.
London art dealer Richard Green presented works by French impressionists, including Camille Pissaro, and by other leading artists including Pablo Picasso.
Vintage jewellery was a big draw for collectors.
Siegelson presented outstanding Art Deco pieces, including an aquamarine, diamond and enamel bracelet by Jean Fouquet, for Maison Georges Fouquet, Paris, dated 1926, and a Tutti Frutti bracelet by Cartier, circa 1928.
Art Deco influences permeated the contemporary designs at the show, for example in the tassels seen on some Piaget, Chanel and Van Cleef & Arpels jewellery.
Rome-based jeweller Bulgari showed off pieces from its heritage collection, including a necklace in platinum and emeralds, received by Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor as a wedding gift from her husband Richard Taylor in 1964.
Visitors to the Biennale included jewellery designers seeking inspiration for their own work, such as Paris-based Jothi-Seroj Ebroussard, of the Atelier Ebroussard, a young artisan who has worked on pieces for some of the leading Parisian maisons.
He came to the show to gather ideas for his own work, to admire the combinations of precious materials used in the jewels, the transformable applications of the pieces, and to network with prospective clients.
