Off the cuff

It’s one of the most famous jewels of the 20th century, a design icon that encapsulates a moment of creative collaboration, of cultural and artistic brilliance. But, perhaps most of all, it epitomises the style and spirit of a woman who was an architect of modern femininity. This tantalisingly rare Maltese cross cuff-bangle – offered by Bonhams in New York Jewels sale – was designed around 1935 by the charismatic Sicilian socialite-designer Fulco Santostefano della Cerda, Duke of Verdura (1898-1978), especially for ‘Coco’ Chanel (1883-1971).

This creation is indelibly associated with Chanel, who wore a pair of the bangles – one on each wrist – day and night, until they became her signature style. She wears them in photographs by Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst and Man Ray, in sketches by Christian Bérard and Cocteau. Very few of the bangles were made at the time, but their enamel set with coloured gems would spark fashionable interpretations for decades to come.

Verdura was born to an eccentric aristocratic Sicilian family and grew up surrounded by the faded baroque splendour of the Palazzo Verdura in Palermo and the Villa Niscemi outside the city. When his father died in 1919, he took his inheritance and travelled across Europe, from Venice to Cannes and, on the advice of his new friends Linda and Cole Porter in the 1920s, to Paris. There he found himself at the pulsating heart of high society, immersed in the wayward, restless creativity of a circle of brilliant artists, writers, musicians, poets, and fashion leaders, including Baba Faucigny-Lucinge and Natalia Paley.

As a young nobleman, he was not expected to work, but he was extravagant, spending the last of his inheritance on a Lady Hamilton-themed costume ball at the family palazzo. He needed a job. According to Patricia Corbett, in her book Verdura: The Life and Work of a Master Jeweler, Verdura was introduced to Chanel by his cousin Baron Ugo Oddo, although it’s likely their paths had already crossed in Venice. Chanel took him on as a fabric designer, one of several aristocrats – many of them Russian émigrés – she hired for specialist departments, handbags, perfume, embroidery and, in the case of Count Étienne de Beaumont, jewellery. It was said Chanel liked their wit, their contempt for luxury, their innate understanding of heritage. She certainly admired Verdura’s mordant wit, his cosmopolitan tastes, flair and style.

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So impressed was Chanel with his work in the textile department, that she appointed him head of jewellery design after Étienne de Beaumont, with whom she’d fallen out. Here, Verdura was able to draw on his favourite historical inspirations – sumptuous baroque ornamentation, elaborate heraldic motifs, the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna, German mannerism. He conjured the majesty of the Merovingians, the richness of the Renaissance. Chanel and Verdura would work and travel together, studying treasures across Europe, whether the Cathedral Treasury at Aix-la-Chapelle or the Munich Schatzkammer and the Green Vault in Dresden.

It nurtured in Chanel a taste for extravagantly rich, antique-inspired jewels that ran counter to the rigorous and restrained tailoring of her clothes, but chimed with the growing collection of precious gifts bestowed on her by various lovers, particularly Grand Duke Dimitri and the Duke of Westminster: hefty gold chains and medallions, strings of gem beads, ropes of pearls, luscious rubies and emeralds, many of which she had re-set, some very probably into the celebrated cuffs.

Verdura and Chanel fused influences and inspirations, conjuring a distinctive, vibrant jewellery style of sumptuous yellow gold, richly gem-encrusted with pebble-like cabochon stones, set seemingly at random – jewels redolent of history, evoking royal and noble insignia. Verdura was especially fascinated by heraldic orders and medals, visiting the Musée de la Légion d’Honneur et des Ordres de Chevalerie, which opened in Paris in 1925, and then the 1929 exhibition at the Bibliothèque Nationale of objects relating to the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, whose defining symbol was the Maltese cross. In the 1930s, Verdura designed a series of Maltese cross brooches for Chanel, in sun-yellow gold, set with coloured gems.

Together, they reinvigorated jewellery, instigating an entirely new genre that injected voluptuousness and intense colour into the “great white silence” of pearls and diamonds and the frozen geometry of Art Deco. It was a style made thrillingly contemporary both by references to the so-called “barbarism” of medieval jewels (Byzantine, Visigoth, Merovingian) and by Chanel’s rule-breaking audacity in mixing precious and faux jewellery – the costume jewellery that she had popularised in the 1920s, challenging entrenched ideas of status and value.

In 1934, Verdura left Paris for the United States, to explore new possibilities – he worked for celebrity jeweller Paul Flato in Hollywood – but went back to Paris the following year, summoned by Chanel. It was at this time (according to Corbett) that Verdura and Chanel created the signature cuff bangle, the pair owned and worn by Chanel herself, and a variation of the bangle offered now by Bonhams. Soon after, Verdura returned to the States, establishing his own business in New York to became one of the most successful and influential designer-jewellers of the 20th century.

Just like Chanel’s own bangles, this cuff – of generous bombé silhouette – was made of silver, overlaid with translucent ivory enamel and ornamented with a Maltese cross studded with emerald cabochons, a central amethyst, aquamarines, sapphires, diamonds and rubies. The gems are set as if at random, which is very much a signature of Verdura’s work with Chanel. The richness of the cross was inspired by the Byzantine mosaics at the church of San Vitale, Ravenna, depicting the Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora, both lavishly bejewelled. It seems very possible that the smooth enamel was an echo of the African bone bangles, worn by the armful by Nancy Cunard, that became fashionable after the 1931 Colonial Exhibition in Paris. Whatever the case, the combination of plain-white, wide cuff with gem-encrusted Maltese cross encapsulated the intriguing dualities of Chanel’s style, with restrained simplicity meeting opulence. Very few precious versions of the cuff were made.

This superb bangle – in pristine condition, still in its original box – has an impeccable provenance. It belonged to Helen Hayes MacArthur, ‘First Lady of American Theatre’ (1900-1993), having been bought for her by her husband directly from Chanel in Paris in the 1930s. A child star, Helen Hayes MacArthur went on to have an impressive 82-year career, in Hollywood and on Broadway. She was the first woman to win an EGOT – an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award. The cuff is being sold by Helen’s descendants, offering opportunity to own a jewel that fuses modern fashion and ancient inspiration, that is imbued with the spirit of women who made history.

Vivienne Becker is a jewellery historian and contributing editor to the Financial Times.