Van Cleef & Arpels (French, est. 1906), Avian Pendant/Brooch/Buckle, circa 1971, gold

Audio Description

This combination pendant, brooch, and buckle was designed and manufactured by French jewelry house Van Cleef & Arpels in 1971. Van Cleef & Arpels’s was established in 1906.

Made of gold that has a rustic appearance, this is a horizontally-oriented oval shape with a bird-like creature at its center. Mostly two-dimensional, the head, beak and claws are three-dimensional. It is surrounded by curliques of gold along each side. Along the bottom, linked to the bird form are dangling flat triangular pieces of gold that have three parallel raised rows of gold wire across their centers. There are open spaces in the gold under the wings, around the head, and in the eyes of the bird.

Label Copy

This combination pendant, brooch, and buckle was designed and manufactured by French jewelry house Van Cleef & Arpels in 1971. Van Cleef & Arpels was established in 1906.

Jewelry firms were not quick to commit to new styles simply because the material they worked with was expensive, but Van Cleef & Arpels seemed unafraid of exploration. With varying components on the back, this piece can be worn as a pendant, brooch, or buckle. This example of Van Cleef & Arpel’s more intrepid jewelry was part of a collection of about 25 pieces inspired by Claude Arpels’s many travels to South America. Calling them his ‘jewel safaris,’ he visited the Yucatan, Mexico, Panama, Columbia, and Venezuela several times over the years. The collection made special use of pre-Columbian design motifs—the eagle, the jaguar, the sun—and a special blend of 18-karat gold that lent the pieces a rich, antique look.

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