An Eagle Has Landed at Boucheron

From a tiny hummingbird to an elegant swan to a majestic elephant, Boucheron has a long history of creating sparkling animals, and of regularly revisiting and re-conceptualizing their jeweled incarnations. This season the eagle Chinha is consolidating its recent entry into the jeweler’s bestiary with three new dazzling reinterpretations.

The jeweler’s zoological garden of gems began in the late 19th century. Amongst the earliest animals Frederic Boucheron created was a snake necklace made as a protective talisman for his wife in 1885, while the jeweler’s rich archives also show drawings of scarabs and peacock feather. Over the years, other animals have been added such zebras, giraffes, and camels and, as in medieval bestiaries, each symbolizes a specific quality or state: the swan standing for fidelity and everlasting love, for instance, the beetle rebirth, and the peacock (usually represented by its elegant tail feathers) immortality.

The eagle appeared for the first time in the Boucheron bestiary in the form of a double-headed diamond-and-cabochon-tanzanite ring as part of the Bleu de Jodhpur collection, creative director Claire Choisne’s homage to India created with the help and support of the current maharajah of Jodhpur.

Associated with soothsayers and gods, the eagle is the emblem of Jodhpur and can be found in many sculptures inside its palaces. Although some may see the animal as predatory, Choisne said she likes its strength, “which aligns with the Boucheron woman, a confident, self-assured woman.”

This season Choisne interpreted the Chinha as three follow-up pieces mixing diamonds and black lacquer with either sapphires and a cabochon tanzanite, rubies and a cabochon rubellite, or emerald and a cabochon tourmaline.  She points out, “Usually, in terms of design, we have the animal encircling a finger or a wrist. Here we take a more sculptural approach, using its head as a caryatid (supporting the main cabochon).”

Also of note amongst the latest haute joaillerie additions to the bestiary are two stunning cuffs with Cypris, the Swan —  one in white diamonds and the other in black sapphires, that can be worn separately or together, head to tail — and a pair of delicate earrings with Nuri, a colorful cockatoo.

As first published on BLOUINARTINFO.com