Art Deco necklace by René Boivin – £32,000 at Fellows.
Offered at Fellows (25/15% buyer’s premium) in Birmingham on May 26, guided at £2000-3000, it raced away to £32,000.
Boivin (1864-1917) himself died in the Great War years but the studio he founded with his wife Jeanne (1871-1959) created some of Paris’ most celebrated and influential jewellery for more than eight decades.
She became renowned for championing female designers including her daughter Germaine Boivin, ‘little Suzanne’ Belperron (who worked at Boivin from 1921-32), and Juliette Moutard (from 1931-54).
Unstable economics in the period of the 1930s-40s encouraged creativity and innovation in the use of semi-precious stones.
This particular design – very much in the manner of Belperron – is known in a number of different materials. A similar necklace with a gold half loop sold for $50,000 at Sotheby’s New York in April 2014; another brought €17,000 at Christie’s Paris in 2010. Both were dated to c.1950.
