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Inside the Fantastical Mind of Lydia Courteille
A monograph dedicated to the French fine jewelry designer delves into her life and jewels.
Lydia Courteille’s new monograph is filled with images of her collaboration with Lithuanian digital artist Natalie Schau, whose portraits featuring Courteille’s jewelry are seen here. (© Natalie Schau)
New York--A new monograph dedicated to French fine jewelry designer Lydia Courteille delves into the mind behind the designs.
ACC Art Books published Lydia Courteille, Extraordinary Jewellery of Imagination and Dreams this fall.
Written by jewelry expert Julia Weir de la Rochefoucauld, the book recounts Courteille’s childhood and the traits that eventually manifested themselves in her jewelry design: an extreme curiosity about the world’s diverse cultures (she corresponded with 18 pen pals worldwide), a love of narrative, and an eye for aesthetically interesting objects, such as the stones she saw at the mineralogical museum in Paris.
It was in 1979 that Courteille turned her attention to jewelry outright.
While trying to repair an Art Deco watch she had purchased, Courteille became besotted with jewelry antiques she saw in dealers’ shops.
She began re-setting antique cameos, transforming them from brooches to large rings, finally deciding to pursue her passion for these jewels through formal gemology study, which culminated with a career as an independent antiques dealer, in which she collected great jewelers like Suzanne Belperron and opened a store in Paris.
This diadem is from Courteille’s Queen of Sheba collection.
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Courteille created this headdress bangle as part of her collection inspired by Native American tribes. It features a variety of gemstones and enamel set in rhodium-plated gold.
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Courteille’s bunny earrings featuring rubellite, pink sapphires and white and black diamonds set in rose gold
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Copyright Lydia Courteille
The Ashanti warrior ring featuring ebony, diamond and gold
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Serpent pendant earrings from the Xochimilco collection, inspired by Courteille’s first trip abroad at age 21 to Mexico
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Copyright Lydia Courteille
A Memento Mori Couple brooch, circa 2007, featuring a boulder opal, diamonds and white gold
Copyright Lydia Courteille
Copyright Lydia Courteille
As Courteille began creating her own jewelry, she displayed it in the windows of her store along with her antique finds. The store and, subsequently, her designs garnered an impressive following.
Extraordinary Jewellery takes the reader through 20 of Courteille’s exquisite collections, their inspirations and origin stories.
Filles du Ciel, one of Courteille’s first collections, created in 1998, is inspired by carved jade in Asian design. Courteille made elaborate carved rings from turquoise and coral, adorning one with a ruby-encrusted beetle. It’s history reimagined through Courteille’s colorful, over-the-top lens.
In The Rainbow Warrior collection, there’s a fantastic take on Native American themes, such as a collar that feels ceremonial in its heft: Seven large semi-precious gemstones hang from the necklace and are bedecked with an array of animals.
Courteille’s collaborations are also highlighted, like the ongoing relationship she has with Lithuanian digital artist Natalie Schau, who illustrates Courteille’s creations, embedding them in her signature, anime-esque portraits.
Schau’s works fill the pages of Extraordinary Jewellery.
Extraordinary Jewellery is available now through a variety of booksellers, including its publisher, at ACCPublishingGroup.com.
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