Ever since Marco Polo, that most mysterious and mercurial of Middle Ages merchants, famously chronicled his escapades in old Cathay in the dying days of the 13th century, the West has been enchanted by the sheer exoticness of all things Eastern. Despite the Occidental-Oriental overlaps of the past oft having consequences most unfortunate – wars, colonialism and Canto Pop, to namecheck just the most egregious – such cultural cut-and-grafts have also given rise to some far more fruitful fusions, most notably in the fields of food, fashion, design, architecture, science and philosophy.
It is the world of high-end jewellery, however, that has perhaps benefited most from this cross-cultural transfusion of tastes and techniques. Indeed, the finest pieces of many of the West’s duly-celebrated jewellery – notably Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Boucheron – owe much to the classic contours of Chinese haute joaillerie.
The high-water mark for such cultural appropriation came back in the ’20s, a time when the Art Deco Movement reigned supreme and the West’s more refined and entitled ladies boldly embraced less conventional clothing and jewellery styles. This saw many haute couturiers and high-end jewellers creating a vast array of China-homaging objets d’art, all of which proved immensely popular.
In terms of favoured materials as well, Asia had a huge impact on the repertoire of many European jewellers, with jade – the rare mineral most emblematic of Eastern elegance – proving especially popular. Indeed, as a sign of its enduring appeal, Cartier recently bid HK$214 million – a new record – to secure a particularly fine 1934 jade necklace that once belonged to Barbara Hutton, the US heiress who was once one of the richest women in the world. It is, however, a record that is not expected to endure long.
