Ventes à venir

AnARCHIVES

Veuillez patienter...

PARCOURIR LES VENTES À VENIR

10 résultats

Femme

Homme

Paul Flato

Designed as intertwined rose leaf branches set with round, single-cut and baguette diamonds, internal circumference approximately 6½ inches, circa 1937.

Elizabeth Irvine Bray, Paul Flato Jeweler to the Stars, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2010 p. 69 for an image of this bracelet photographed alongside a May 1937 Paul Flato advertisement in Harper’s Bazaar.

Paul Flato

Paul Flato was one of the biggest names in American jewelry in the mid-20th century; yet, until fairly recently, appreciation for his work’s distinctive style and exuberance was maintained by a small circle of knowledgeable collectors.

Born and raised in southeast Texas to a prosperous family of German immigrants, Flato developed an interest in jewelry from a young age. Elizabeth Irvine Bray, whose 2010 book Paul Flato: Jeweler to the Stars has helped return his work to the spotlight, writes that “his earliest encounter with jewelry both terrified and thrilled him.” While hiking in some nearby woods, he and his friends came upon a Gypsy encampment. There, Flato watched with rapt attention as a man fashioned a necklace out of silver wire, an act of creation that was forever burned into his memory.

He moved to New York in 1920 to pursue a business degree at Columbia University but left early to apprentice with a Fifth Avenue jeweler. Soon he was selling his own jewelry, specializing in diamonds and natural pearls. His rise in reputation was nothing short of meteoric and he gained the respect of prominent players including Harry Winston, himself an up-and-coming jeweler, who later worked with Flato on a necklace for the legendary Jonker I diamond. (The Jonker VI is offered as lot 160 in this sale.)

A gregarious and charming young man with a great sense of humor, Flato was a natural salesman. He opened an elegant salon at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, the location itself a sign of his growing success. He mixed amongst high society, hosting and attending events, collecting clients along the way. While much of his business was word-of-mouth, he provided jewels to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, making his name synonymous with high glamour. He developed a fiercely loyal clientele which allowed his business to remain remarkably unaffected by the stock market crash of 1929. In fact, it was against the backdrop of the Great Depression that he created some of his most spectacular designs.

Flato’s dramatic designs found a particularly appreciative audience among the Who’s Who of Hollywood and, in 1938, he opened a salon on LA’s Sunset Boulevard. His timing was perfect. It was the Golden Age of Hollywood, and the studios expected their stars to radiate glamour both on-screen and off. Flato’s lavish statement jewels were easily picked up by the cameras, serving to enhance the escapist fantasies of moviegoers and readers of the Hollywood press. His contributions to the movie industry were so significant that he was credited for jewelry design in no less than six films including Holiday starring Katharine Hepburn, Blood and Sand with Rita Hayworth and Two-Faced Woman with Greta Garbo.

Unfortunately, this celebrity status came at a price. In 1941, his Sunset Boulevard store was robbed by four armed men who made off with nearly $50,000 in jewels. The financial toll would have been far worse had he not just lent his most valuable pieces to Columbia Studios for The Lady is Willing. Flato did his best to put a light-hearted spin on the theft, commissioning a drawing of a gunman with the caption “Everybody Wants Jewels by Flato” for an ad in the Hollywood Reporter.

Though everyone did seem to be clamoring for jewels by Flato, he, like many jewelers and fashion designers today, received many requests to borrow—not buy—his jewels, and when his clients did make a purchase, they were often late to pay. He received a decisive blow, both personally and professionally, when a 17-carat emerald-cut diamond that had been entrusted to him by Fabrikant Jewelers vanished from his safe. Suspecting Flato may have played a part in its disappearance, other members of the trade asked for their jewels left on memo to be returned immediately. The race to reclaim these goods revealed that he had pawned many of the jewels to cover operating costs. He was arrested and charged with theft and was later forced to sell the company’s assets. The depth of his misfortune could have possibly been softened had he not been so generous in extending credit to his well-to-do clients: Nelson Rockefeller, Mrs. Alfred G. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Frank Gould, Lady Isabel Guinness and Brenda Frazier all appeared with outstanding amounts in his ledgers.

To escape his legal woes, he went to Central America in 1952, but he was eventually found by authorities and sent to Mexico to await extradition to the United States. The process dragged on for five years and he eventually found himself in the “Black Palace of Lecumberri,” a prison in Mexico City. In 1961, he was finally extradited to the United States and served time at Sing Sing prison. Upon his release, he returned to Mexico, the country for which he had developed a good deal of affection and whose people he admired for their warmth and loyalty. Flato wrote in his memoir that “a loyal friend is more precious than any of my jewels.”

Flato possessed an optimism that persisted throughout the many peaks and valleys of his career, and in 1970 he opened a new salon in Mexico City’s fashionable Zona Rosa. Like his previous ateliers, the salon’s enticing window displays lured clients into a beautifully appointed, character-filled space. The jewels produced during this period were a significant departure from his high-glamour style of the 1930s and ‘40s, but his trademark eccentricity remained. He was a frequent visitor to the Anthropological Museum where he drew inspiration from Mayan and Aztec artifacts; he developed a pared-down, sometimes raw or “primitive” aesthetic. Some of the jewels continued his earlier exploration of surrealism, such as a necklace made of brass bells and a bracelet with longhorn bull terminals. Diamonds were used sparingly, and he played with different textures to emphasize the hand-wrought nature of his jewels, sometimes incorporating gemstones in their rough, unpolished form.

Flato maintained he wasn’t a draughtsman, but with no in-house designer in Mexico City, he was the one who created sketches for his clients’ consideration. One of the keys to Flato’s early success, however, was his ability to recognize talent, especially in those with fine pedigrees. He engaged a crop of highly imaginative designers that ensured his creations remained fresh, inventive and thoroughly enticing. His chief designer, Adolphe Klety, excelled at creating more formal, diamond-set jewels, such as his starburst earclips and entwined rose leaf bracelets (Iots 175 and 176). Fulco di Verdura who, after beginning his career with Coco Chanel, was introduced to Flato by Diana Vreeland. Verdura, like Flato, was embraced by New York society but held additional appeal as the 5th Duke of Verdura. George Headley, who married into the Whitney-Vanderbilt family, was pivotal to Flato’s appeal with the Hollywood set. Serving as designer, muse and client, Standard Oil heiress Millicent Rogers conceived the “puffy hearts” that Flato fashioned into brooches and earclips. Similarly, Josephine Forrestal, wife of James V. Forrestal (Secretary of the Navy under FDR) and a former fashion editor at Vogue, was not a full-time designer but a contributor of ideas and designs. His eye for exceptional talent is further evidenced by his correspondence with Suzanne Belperron during WWII, entreating her to come to New York to lend her genius to his already inspired designs.

The jewels offered as lots 171-177 highlight Paul Flato’s independence from the European houses that so greatly influenced American design, particularly in the early to-mid 20th century. The extraordinary range of his work—from the whimsical to the sensational—suggests that Flato’s desire to delight his audience may have outweighed any concern for financial stability. We are privileged to present one of the most significant groupings of Paul Flato jewels ever to appear at market and to herald his contributions to American jewelry design to the current generation of collectors.

Paul Flato

Estimation : 150000 - 250000 €

Maison de vente : Sotheby’s

Date de la vente : 09/12/2025

René Boivin

Designed as a stylized pomegranate featuring a cushion-shaped, foil-backed faceted sapphire, accented by pear-shaped, old mine-, single- and rose-cut diamonds, within a polished gold frame, with French assay marks and maker’s mark; 1937.

Accompanied by René Boivin Certificate of Authenticity dated October 24, 2025 stating that the piece was manufactured by René Boivin in June 1937 after a drawing by Juliette Moutard.

Daisy Fellowes (1890-1962)

Magnificent Jewels, Sotheby’s Geneva, 17 November 2009, lot 389.

Stefano Papi and Alexandra Rhodes, 20th Century Jewelry and The Icons of Style, London, 2013, p. 108 for this brooch.

Stefano Papi and Alexandra Rhodes, Famous Jewelry Collectors, London, 1999, p. 165 for this brooch.

Françoise Cailles, René Boivin Joailliers, Paris, 1994, p. 267 for a design drawing of a similar brooch dated to 1940 and p. 240 for a brooch of similar design set with an amethyst.

Daisy Fellowes (1890-1962)

Daisy Fellowes was a French socialite, fashion editor for Harper’s Bazaar, author and tastemaker who is considered one of the most influential jewelery collectors of the 20th century. Her collection included cornerstones of jewelery design such as her legendary Cartier ’Tutti Frutti’ necklace, a pair of Art Deco emerald bead and diamond bracelets by Van Cleef & Arpels and numerous important jewels by René Boivin and Suzanne Belperron.

She was born Marguerite Séverine Philippine Decazes de Glücksberg, the daughter of the third Duke of Decazes. Through her mother, Isabelle-Blanche Singer (1869–1896), she was a granddaughter of Isaac Singer. His invention, the Singer sewing machine, greatly accelerated the general public’s ability to participate in changing fashion trends. After her mother passed away prematurely, she and her siblings were raised by their aunt Winnaretta Singer, Princess of Polignac (1865-1943), herself a renowned patron of the arts with a great interest in impressionistic music. In 1910, at the tender age of twenty, she married the Prince Jean de Broglie, a scion of one of France’s oldest noble houses.

In 1919, after her first husband had passed away, she married the Honourable Reginald Ailwyn Fellowes (1884-1953), a banker who was related to Winston Churchill. At this time she adopted the name Daisy Fellowes, Daisy being the English for Marguerite. Further than just changing her name she sought to re-invent herself as a living work of art after feeling decidedly repulsed upon seeing a bland and unremarkable portrait depicting her as everything she did not wish to be. She underwent a rhinoplasty, supposedly without anesthesia, and was dressed only by the best Parisian couturiers in highly original and sometimes controversial styles. Her witticisms, at times veering toward the outlandish and cruel, contributed to her reputation as "the most wicked woman in high society."

Daisy Fellowes loved planning striking outfits around her exquisite, sometimes unconventional jewels. She had a particularly good relationship with surrealist designer Elsa Schiaparelli who created the color ’shocking pink’ for her. In fact, this color was inspired by a historical 17.27-carat colored diamond called the ‘Ram’s Head’ which Fellowes purchased at Cartier. The diamond had a provenance going back to Catherine the Great and the Princes Youssoupov. Unfortunately, it was stolen in 1939. The magnum opus of her collection was her 1936 Cartier ’Tutti Frutti’ necklace. It is now part of the Cartier Collection and stands as one of the most influential jewels of the 20th century, even though it was substantially altered in the 1960s. In the 1950s, she commissioned a sapphire and diamond panther brooch from Cartier inspired by the lamb skin of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Though the panther is often associated with the Duchess of Windsor, her contemporary and good friend, this very brooch forms the template for many subsequent panther pieces. She was also an early supporter of Fulco di Verdura and Jean Schlumberger.

In Jeanne Boivin and her former protégée Suzanne Belperron, Daisy Fellowes found kindred spirits in her quest for original and fashion-forward jewels. From Boivin, she commissioned several extraordinary brooches including a large pigeon’s wing set with buff-top sapphires, an exuberant gem-set butterfly, a ruby and diamond orchid and this stylish ’grenade’ brooch centering a large foiled sapphire dated to 1940. This was one of the earliest grenade brooches Boivin created, and the firm was to reinterpret it several times over the following decades.

René Boivin

Estimation : 40000 - 60000 €

Maison de vente : Sotheby’s

Date de la vente : 08/12/2025

Harper’s Bazaar 1958-1963

Harper’s Bazaar 1958-1963

comprising: 1958 six issues; 1959 six issues; 1960 seven issues; 1961 six issues; 1962 seven issues; 1963 seven issues (39)

Share this lot:

Harper’s Bazaar 1958-1963

Maison de vente : Kerry Taylor

Date de la vente : 25/03/2025

L’Official and Harper’s Italia, 1970s-1990s

L’Official and Harper’s Italia, 1970s-1990s

L’Official: Mars 1979; no 654 Aout 1979; no 665 Sept 1980; no 766 Sept 1991; no 800 Nov 1995; Harper’s Bazaar including large format examples: 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1985 and Harper’s France 1985 (23)

Share this lot:

L’Official and Harper’s Italia, 1970s-1990s

Maison de vente : Kerry Taylor

Date de la vente : 25/03/2025

Harpers & Queen magazine, 1976-1989

Harpers & Queen magazine, 1976-1989

comprising 1976 two issues; 1977 two issues; 1978 four issues; 1979 six issues; 1980 three issues; 1981 six issues; 1982 nine issues; 1983 nine issues; 1984 one issue; 1985 three issues; 1986 six issues; 1987 eight issues; 1988 five issues; 1989 one issue; together with three issues of Harper’s Bazaar US from 1976 and one from 1979 (69)

Share this lot:

Harpers & Queen magazine, 1976-1989

Maison de vente : Kerry Taylor

Date de la vente : 25/03/2025

Harper’s Bazaar, 1992-2000

Harper’s Bazaar, 1992-2000

comprising: 1992 four issues; 1993 seven issues; 1993 four issues; 1994 eight issues; 1995 four issues; 1998 eight issues; 1999 two issues; 2000 two issues; together with Harpers & Queen, 1993 two issues; 1995 two issues (43)

Share this lot:

Harper’s Bazaar, 1992-2000

Maison de vente : Kerry Taylor

Date de la vente : 25/03/2025

Harper’s Bazaar 1996, complete run

Harper’s Bazaar 1996, complete run

issues 1-12 (12)

Share this lot:

Harper’s Bazaar 1996, complete run

Maison de vente : Kerry Taylor

Date de la vente : 25/03/2025

Harper’s Bazaar 1997, complete run

Harper’s Bazaar 1997, complete run

issues 1-12, duplicate September issue (13)

Share this lot:

Harper’s Bazaar 1997, complete run

Maison de vente : Kerry Taylor

Date de la vente : 25/03/2025

Queen Magazine, 1960s

Queen Magazine, 1960s

comprising: 1961 three issues; 1962 thirty-one issues; 1963 one issue; 1964 one issue; 1968 eighteen issues; 1969 four issues; 1970 six issues; together with Glamour magazine (US) 1959 eight issues; a 1961 Harper’s Bazaar International Fashion Folio; and an issue of Nous Deaux from 1949 (qty)

Share this lot:

Queen Magazine, 1960s

Maison de vente : Kerry Taylor

Date de la vente : 25/03/2025

Two Cyd Charisse (Mrs. Tony Martin) Portraits for Harper’s Bazaar

Lot 1266
Two Cyd Charisse (Mrs. Tony Martin) Portraits for Harper’s Bazaar
Signed Eula
Pen, ink and watercolor heightened with white on tracing paper
Each 23 x 18 1/4 inches

Deux portraits de Cyd Charisse (Mme Tony Martin) pour Harper's Bazaar

Estimation : 900 - 1200 €

Maison de vente : Doyle

Date de la vente : 16/11/2006