CHAUMET: BEFORE THE ART DECO BRACELET IN THE PREFACE…
Imagine a pair of wings. Immense, light, enveloping, powerful and elegant. They are a call for freedom. Now imagine these wings made of platinum. Jewellers’ precious fingers saw, laminate and file, pierce, perforate, set and polish the shiny white metal. It’s a metamorphosis. The raw material is transformed into a delicate wonder. The light engraved lines form a silky plumage. The curves set with diamonds are streaks of light. This work became a wonder when the openwork metal was set with a blue glass boasting a powerful colour and a remarkable transparency. Delicate feathers made of rose-cut diamonds maintain and set off these touches of colour.
The miracle works its magic: light plays between the lines of diamonds and the radiant metal, penetrating the blue of the glass. The eye gets lost in the details and dreaming.
If it were possible, these incomparable wings take on an even greater importance and beauty when you know their history.
Only an extraordinary figure could get away with wearing such a powerful piece of jewellery. One such person was Gertrude Vanderbilt, a descendant of “Commodore”, who had made a vast fortune in the railway and maritime industry. In 1896, she married the seductive Harry Payne Whitney from the firm Standard Oil.
This union offered the couple financial possibilities that would make Mrs Payne Whitney a great patron of the arts and – as a jewellery enthusiast – one of Maison Chaumet's major customers. This multi-faceted woman contributed to the creation of Vogue in 1892, and took various actions to support young artists, ultimately founding the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1931.
Herself an artist close to the avant-garde figures of her age, Gertrude Payne Whitney made several journeys to Europe, Greece, Rome and above all Paris, where she opened a sculpture workshop in Passy. There she met Auguste Rodin, whose pupil she would become.
In 1910, Mrs Payne Whitney went to Chaumet to order a jewelled hairpiece representing wings. Remaining fashionable until the beginning of the 1920s, this motif was inspired by the winged helmets worn by the Valkyries in Wagner's operas. These deities from Norse mythology, Odin's warriors, used to ride looking for warriors who died as heroes.
Drawing on its experience and know-how, Maison Chaumet took the order, beautifully enhancing it. The aigrette hairpiece, which could be turned into a devant-de-corsage brooch, became this incredible pair of wings that could be worn in any direction thanks to its frame.
This piece represents the meeting of creative geniuses. Any Maison aspires to the sublime; Chaumet has achieved it here thanks to the inspirational force of its client and the perfect mastery of its art of jewellery-making.
This quality of craftsmanship, especially working with platinum, developed in the Belle Epoque and continued during the Art Deco period, of which the bracelet from 1926 found in the Preface is iconic. Aesthetic language moved away from naturalism to adopt a geometric vocabulary, still with this quest for modernity and excellence.
Violaine Bigot