Lot Essay
In the mid 1950's, Van Cleef & Arpels, Paris, opened a Boutique Department offering a limited series of a reasonably priced jewels that were "young in spirit" but executed with as much care as the firm's more expensive pieces.
The story goes that in New York, Claude Arpels saw the door knockers on the Italian Consulate and was inspired to create a lionhead brooch that launched the Van Cleef & Arpels animal style in America.
At the same time, other designers including David Webb, Donald Claflin, Fulco di Verdura and Jean Schlumberger, were producing whimsical animal jewels with great charm and imagination, insuring that a fantastic beastiary would become an indispensable part of every fashionable jewellery collection.
First created in 1962, the present brooch, called the "Lion Ebouriffé", is the most celebrated design from the Van Cleef & Arpels series.
For a similar piece see:
Van Cleef & Arpels, by Sylvie Raulet, Editions du Regard, Neuchatel, 1986, back cover.
The story goes that in New York, Claude Arpels saw the door knockers on the Italian Consulate and was inspired to create a lionhead brooch that launched the Van Cleef & Arpels animal style in America.
At the same time, other designers including David Webb, Donald Claflin, Fulco di Verdura and Jean Schlumberger, were producing whimsical animal jewels with great charm and imagination, insuring that a fantastic beastiary would become an indispensable part of every fashionable jewellery collection.
First created in 1962, the present brooch, called the "Lion Ebouriffé", is the most celebrated design from the Van Cleef & Arpels series.
For a similar piece see:
Van Cleef & Arpels, by Sylvie Raulet, Editions du Regard, Neuchatel, 1986, back cover.