Overview
Join Christie’s on jewelry adventures around New York City. This program is designed for jewelry connoisseurs, collectors, and enthusiasts at all stages of a collecting journey. Familiarize yourself with some of the most beautiful and unusual jewels crafted over the last two centuries by seeing them in-person. From contemporary designs to historic gemstones, participate in the full spectrum of jewelry as art.
This course is an incredible opportunity to experience jewelry history firsthand in important public and private collections, as well as see some of the most incredible designers in their private ateliers. Visits include galleries, studios and workshops, museum exhibitions, antique shops and gem dealers.
This fall Jewelry Jaunts will focus on visionary artists and independent voices. Beginning with a visit to the world renowned Macklowe Gallery for a private tour of the exhibition “René Lalique: Collector’s Reserve”. Lalique was the first true artist jeweler of the 20th century and so it is fitting that we start with his work and then, over the course of the program, visit other independent jewelers and designers such as Sarah Ysabel Narici of DYNE, Elizabeth Garvin, and Chris Davies. Rounding out the five-week program, will be a visit to one of NYC’s longest running estate jewelry galleries, Camilla Dietz Bergeron, Ltd, also known for their independent spirit and discerning taste.
*limited number of spaces available
Schedule
September 10, 2024: Private Tour of “René Lalique: Collector’s Reserve”, Macklowe Gallery
This past spring Macklowe Gallery organized “René Lalique: Collector’s Reserve”, the most comprehensive collection of the maker’s artistic jewels found outside of a museum in more than three decades. Lalique was a celebrated naturalist who single-handedly defined the aesthetic of the Art Nouveau jewelry movement, and the range of his mastery is on full display among these 14 exceptional pieces. The exhibition focuses on Lalique’s innovation as a jeweler, establishing an entirely new visual language which rejected the primacy of diamonds and precious stones, and embraced and elevated humble materials like horn, pearl, glass, and enamel. The result was the birth of the Art Nouveau jewelry movement.
This tour will be led by President and second-generation owner, Benjamin Macklowe.
September 17, 2024: Salon Conversation with Sarah Ysabel Narici, Founder of DYNE
Named by National Jeweler as a Designers to Watch in 2023, DYNE’s “LoverGlyphs” series, a play on an ancient Egyptian signet ring with many symbols that was used as a seal, is quickly becoming an iconic take on a classical design.
We will meet Sarah Ysabel Narici, the British born Italian designer behind the New York based brand, DYNE.
Working predominantly on one-of-a-kind designs, Sarah designs and develops jewelry and precious objects. Inspired by ancient history and the futurism, materiality and function, often considering designs as miniature time capsules.
She cites the nexus between ancient history and the future as the main catalyst for her creativity. Prior to DYNE, Sarah designed at a number of high profile brands including Alexander McQueen, Stephen Webster, Marina Bulgari and Lorraine Schwartz.
Sarah trained in some of the most prestigious design houses in Place Vendome, later graduating from Central Saint Martins in London and the Gemological Institute of America in New York. She has been recognized by a number of awards such as The Robb Report Best of Best 2023 and published in publications such as Vogue, The Financial Times, Vanity Fair, Wallpaper*, L’Officiel and Forbes amongst others.
September 24, 2024: Estate Jewelry Shopping at Camilla Dietz Bergeron, Ltd
Camilla Dietz Bergeron, Ltd. is a New York-based fine jewelry firm. For over thirty years, they’ve built a distinctive business for estate jewelry, all from their intimate showroom on Madison Avenue. CDB, Ltd. specializes in important stones, older cuts of diamonds, and sought-after pieces by masters such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Flato, Schlumberger, Verdura, and David Webb. The company was co-founded by Gus Davis and Camilla Bergeron, who brought their expertise together when Camilla was just starting up the business and Gus was working in Sotheby’s jewelry department. Since Camilla’s passing in 2018, the company has continued to flourish under Gus’s leadership.
October 8, 2024: A Visit to the Showroom and Workshop of Elizabeth Garvin with Special Guest Chris Davies
Elizabeth Garvin is a studio jeweler with a fine art education. Raised in a household of creative thinkers and mid -century design, she has long been immersed in the arts through studies of dance, music, painting, sculpture, film and photography, eventually turning her focus to a lifelong hobby of jewelry making. Captivated by the elemental materials involved in metalsmithing, her designs playfully explore the full range of precious and non-precious materials. Her work has a distinctly modernist sensibility and draws inspiration from natural geometry and it’s examples of pattern and repetition. Jeweled fabrications like those from the Cyclone series render the power of storm systems in miniature, combining formal structure, cut gems and precious metals in provocative, yet intrinsically familiar wearable objects. A woman designing jewelry for women knows what a woman responds to, how it should feel and function, and what jewelry really means when worn. A predominantly self-taught jeweler, her years working in the studio guided by enduring technical curiosity have evolved a language of proprietary processes and a body of work imbued with a bold, signature style. Her approach to structure and mechanics has an elegant fluidity, instilled and nurtured by her father, an architect and engineer. Yet what really sets her work apart is the wide range of thought and imagery she draws from and an outsider aesthetic resulting from her unusual path to the trade.
Chris Davies is a couturier turned jeweler who uses traditional goldsmithing, weaving and tailoring methods to expand the aesthetic possibilities of historical jewelry forms. Davies boldly abandons the flat planes of ancient sheet metal for granulated patterns that float, spiral, fold, drape and ruffle. Designs can become architectonic or lacey and supple, while a painterly approach to gems and color imbues the work with a sensuality and refined play of light. References to art history, architecture and the couture are present throughout his joyful explorations of the possibilities of color and form. A demi-parure comprised of a large festoon-style necklace and earrings of woven pearls and ametrine are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Curator Dr. Emily Stoehrer comments, “Davies’ work has tremendous presence. His innovative use of materials and bold designs combine to make jewelry that is striking.” Educated at Vassar and Parsons and trained across disciplines in the arts, the designer brings an haute couture eye to the goldsmith’s hand.
October 15, 2024: TBA
Academic Profile
Bella Neyman is the co-founder of New York City Jewelry Week, a city-wide celebration of jewelry held annually in November. She is also an independent curator and writer specializing in contemporary art jewelry. She has organized multiple exhibitions in the United States and Europe including most recently, 45 Stories in Jewelry at the Museum of Arts and Design. Bella’s articles on decorative arts, fashion and jewelry have appeared in the New York Times, Metalsmith, American Craft and The Magazine Antiques amongst others. From 2014-2018, she was the director of the Gallery at Reinstein | Ross, a New York-based gallery specializing in contemporary jewelry. Bella has been on the Board of the Art Jewelry Forum since 2013. She lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn, NY.
