The Quatre contes de Grimm Collection. Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels
Submerge yourself in a world of fantastical forests, wondrous creatures, precious fruits, and glorious princes and maidens with the Quatre contes de Grimm high jewelry collection by Van Cleef & Arpels. The beauty of the gems, the passion behind the designs, the monumental craftsmanship in the delivery, and the intricacy of the final pieces are all breathtaking in their own right, but delve a little further into the mythical inspiration, and the magnificence of the high jewelry is reimagined tenfold. The vision of the collection is entrenched in the fairytales collected and cataloged by the Brothers Grimm. The siblings Jacob and Wilhelm, born a year apart in Germany in the 1780s, are now household names, after making it their lives’ work to research, preserve, and in some cases make their own folk tales – including the beloved stories Snow White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel.
For this new collection, the jewelry house used four of the brothers’ lesser-known fairytales as inspiration: The Twelve Dancing Princesses, The Golden Bird, The Three Feathers, and Town Musicians of Bremen – all featured in their Children’s and Household Tales anthology. Each story has been carefully and cleverly interpreted into high jewelry pieces that traverse a magical realm of enchanting birds, mischievous princesses, and victorious heroes.
The Quatre Contes de Grimm Collection. Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels
The Twelve Dancing Princesses tells the tale of a king whose daughters escape their locked bedroom each evening to dance the night away; the tell-tale sign being their worn-out shoes. This chapter of the collection underlines a long Van Cleef & Arpels tradition of ballerina clips; this time, princesses in ballgowns of polished gold, diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds join the fairies and ballerinas created by the Maison since the 1940s. The intricate figurines are accompanied by the sublime Souliers précieux clip of delicate diamond-set shoes placed on a sparkling blue cushion of lapis lazuli as well as the Traversée étoilée bracelet of sapphires, turquoise, and diamonds playing host to two larger pear-shaped sapphires of 50.03 carats (in total) that represent the lake that the princesses crossed each night en route to the ball.
Traversée étoilée bracelet. Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels
In The Golden Bird, a bird steals the prized golden apple of the king. The monarch sends his gardener’s sons on long and arduous journeys to find the bird, for one of them to return victorious to claim the throne. The bird that is so elusive in the fairytale appears in a number of the pieces, most prominently in the Oiseau d’or clip with feathers of diamonds and yellow sapphires. In the Le prince et l’oiseau clip, the golden bird proudly perches on a purple sapphire of 3.18 carats. This clip is a model addition to the Van Cleef & Arpels’ animal kingdom, which has featured hummingbirds, lovebirds, and birds of paradise ever since its beginnings. The clip is one of Van Cleef & Arpels’ rare masculine figures–the polished gold armor is adorned with diamonds, while the hero is decorated with a diamond-set plume and engraved sword.
The tale of The Three Feathers follows a similar storyline of a king setting his three sons a number of tasks. They have to follow feathers for direction, with one prince becoming heir after he is assisted by a magical frog. Beautifully diverse interpretations of the feather are at the heart of this episode of the Quatre contes de Grimm story. The Panache mystérieux clip is a sparkling display of round and baguette-cut diamonds highlighted with colored sapphires in Vitrail Mystery Set, while the Trio précieux clip presents three feathers of brilliant diamonds that wrap around a yellow diamond of 2.51 carats.
Princesse Esther clip in white and rose gold, rubies, pink and yellow sapphires, along with rose and white diamonds. Courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels
In the wondrous tale of the Town Musicians of Bremen, a quartet of animals joins forces to become musicians in Bremen. The intricate Les musiciens clip depicts the scene where the animals stand on top of each other to scare o a band of robbers. The pyramid effect is also present in the delicate white and yellow gold Victoire earrings that come with detachable pendants. The collection is steeped in the beauty, character, and magic of the stories that inspire it, a skill that Van Cleef & Arpels has perfected through previous engagements such as the Peau d’Âne raconté par Van Cleef & Arpels collection, which was based on the French fairytale of the same name; A Midsummer Night’s Dream creations inspired by the Shakespearean comedy; and in the bejeweled animals of its Noah’s Ark exhibition. This collection, like those before it, gives those who are lucky enough to wear the pieces an adventure through fantasy, fairytale, and elegance that, of course, ends happily ever after.
Part of the Quatre contes de Grimm collection will be on show in Dubai for the first time at Treasures & Legends at Les Salons Van Cleef & Arpels Dubai Opera from October 10-January 15
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