STYLE Edit: Graff’s bold and classic beauties take their inspiration from Cy Twombly’s art
Great art inspires more great art. And make no mistake, the finest jewellery creations are works of art. The art of Cy Twombly has inspired new diamond jewellery from the master craftsmen of Graff.
Laurence Graff is a renowned art collector with an appreciation of the moderns; Twombly’s work combines his European sensibility with the freedom of his American roots. It is a marriage of minds from which emerges jewellery that is bold, seemingly mobile, yet with classic beauty.
Twombly used the flowing lines of doodles and handwriting, and the disruptive power of graffiti to make his work powerful. The new Graff pieces flow, too, in mesmerising spirals which are exuberantly contemporary but which, like all great art, will defy the passing of time.
Take earrings that swirl around in cascading spirals to end in superb pear-shaped drops. These earrings have the freedom of a Twombly doodle, as if a thoughtless scribble had suddenly transformed into an exquisite jewel, with each freehand loop of different proportion, creating a joyful spontaneity. Only a great technician could achieve this triumph of ingenuity and artistry. Graff jewellers have used round diamonds on the uppermost aspects of the whorls and emerald-cut diamonds on the underside, creating a three-dimensional effect. With 17.12 carats in total diamond weight, these earrings are cascades of brilliance.
The design is also dramatically interpreted in 11.92ct of rubies and 4.27ct of diamonds.
Another pair of drop earrings is more an explosion of brilliance with loops forming a flowerlike doodle on the lobe. Two pear-shaped diamonds are suspended from diamond trails.
The loops of round and emerald-shaped diamonds are most stunning in the 59.59ct bracelet. The invisible setting and juxtapositioning of the two diamond shapes creates an infinity of loops which is bold and full of energy, yet essentially feminine. Another bracelet is more delicate, an open design with a single row of diamonds ending in a Twombly-like twirl on one end, and a pear-shaped diamond on the other, 3.63ct in all.
In the necklace the looping ribbons of diamonds are in equal partnership with larger round diamonds and pear-shaped diamonds, totalling 83.58ct. One of the great achievements of this piece, magnificent as it is, is its wearability. It is graduated to sit perfectly around the neck.
Two rings have been added to the collection. One places a round diamond in a flowerlike doodle of loops (8.13ct) while another emphasises the drama with a band of loops, the central loop cradling a 5.47ct pear-shaped diamond.
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Marriage of minds results in mesmerising spirals that will defy the passing of time