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C artier has been synonymous with fine animal jewelry since 1914, when Louis Cartier hired illustrator George Barbier to design an invitation for an upcoming jewelry collection. Entitled Lady with a Panther, the ensuing illustration catalyzed what would become one of the brand’s most iconic symbols: the Cartier Panthère. The slinky apex predator could often be seen perched regally within Cartier’s dazzling brooches, as though taking a brief repose before making a calculated strike, or curling itself around chunky bedazzled rings.
Although it’s not uncommon for jewelry designers to cull ideas from books, photographs and films, that fount of inspiration took a more literal tack in 1975, when Mexican actress María Félix strolled into Cartier’s rue de la Paix outpost with an unexpected guest: her petite pet crocodile. Besides making quite the entrance, Félix had something more practical in mind. She wanted jewelers to aptly capture her beloved reptile’s mannerisms and movements for the piece she was having commissioned, a sort of living reference photograph. That same year, Cartier created a spectacular necklace for Félix featuring two crocodiles encircling one another in an ouroboros, with one set with over 1,000 yellow diamonds and the other flecked with even more emeralds.
Cartier – along with other notable jewelers including Bvlgari and Fred of Paris – has long been a standard-bearer for unique and often unexpected animal jewelry. Panthers, tigers, serpents, lions and other mesmerizing creatures inhabiting our world are not uncommon to see within these brands’ repertoires. In both Sotheby’s online marketplace and in seasonal jewelry auctions, a variety of these animals can be seen in a series of stunning pieces from the likes of Cartier and Boucheron, alongside more bespoke offerings. These astounding animal jewelry offerings also illuminate how humanity’s long standing fascination with the natural world continues to spark inventive ideas within jewelry design.
“Every brand of jewelry has, at one point, developed a collection with animals.”
This sensibility isn’t just reserved for the Cartiers or the Bvlgaris of the world, either. “Every brand of jewelry has, at one point, developed a collection with animals,” says Magali Delgrange-Teisseire, Head of Jewellery and Watches in Paris. “The way that animals have been imagined and interpreted in jewelry design is a history of art and a history of jewelry. So it’s as iconic as any other decorative motif.”
Animal motifs have cropped up in jewelry as long as humans have been making it, and the fascination spans continents and cultures. Ancient Egyptian amulets were known to feature animals, as was regalia in Viking folklore. Weevils and scarabs peppered necklaces and hairpins during the Victorian era. Animal jewelry is so prevalent throughout human history, in fact, that researchers continue finding intriguing examples of it scattered across the globe: A team of archaeologists recently excavated three burial tombs in Kazakhstan, where they found over 100 pieces of gold jewelry, including arm rings adorned with leopards, and those decorated with boars, thought to date back to the 5th century BC.
Although there’s an inherent timelessness to these pieces given that “animals have always been adaptive to the style and to the period of jewelry” they’re created in, says Delgrange-Teisseire, brooches lined with frogs and bracelets inlaid with swan motifs do filter in and out of the zeitgeist, as with any fashion trend. Yet there’s been an explosive uptick in animal jewelry as of late, ranging from a recent Chloé collection filled with brass serpent necklaces to the likes of Van Cleef & Arpels, Christian Dior and Boucheron “expanding their menagerie of bejeweled beasts,” notes The New York Times, with pandas, cockatoos, squirrels and other critters making their way into an array of jewels.
The increased popularity of animal jewelry arrives in tandem with another trend: Brooches becoming de rigueur accessories for both everyday use and more elegant occasions. Historically, animal jewelry has shown up in the form of brooches, explains Delgrange-Teisseire, which are usually affixed to outerwear. But brooches are starting to be styled in fresh ways, particularly by stars walking the Oscars red carpet, who fasten them to gloves and neckties instead of the typical placement on jackets and coats.
Given that they’ve long been intended as decorative pieces for day to day wear, these animal jewelry brooches often feature semiprecious stones such as turquoise and tourmaline. They tend to be made of white gold or yellow gold, and “usually there is always a diamond somewhere, in the eyes or wings or other parts of the animals,” Delgrange-Teisseire says. But even those classic arrangements can yield surprises. One striking pair of earrings in an auction at Sotheby’s Paris features a familiar Cartier panther, yet in its mouth it happens to be holding another iconic emblem of the brand: a Trinity band.
As such, animals might be the sole theme to buck a longstanding trend in jewelry design: The hesitation to reuse a theme that’s already been done, says Teisseire. “But honestly, animals are a recurrent theme. It’s very rare that you don’t find animals in a collection at all.”
