Picq was Cartier’s main supplier between 1900-18 and continued to produce jewels for Paris’s haute joailliers into the 20s, making many of the ‘tutti frutti’ jewels and platinum pieces that were considered the best in Paris.
The first dedicated Jewellery sale at Olympia Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) on May 23 included a good example, a surete pin c.1915 set with calibre-cut rubies and a double festoon of graduated millegrain diamonds. Signed Cartier, it also has a French assay and the Picq maker’s mark. The cover lot of the sale catalogue, it was estimated at £6000-8000 and sold at £12,500.
Picq also created pieces for sale under his own name, all made to the same exacting standards demanded by its more famous clients.
Henri Picq ribbon bow brooch, £9000 at Woolley & Wallis.
The sale at Woolley & Wallis (26% buyer’s premium) on April 24 included a Picq Art Deco brooch modelled as a ribbon bow. Pavé-set with circular-cut diamonds, accented with lines of buff-topped calibré-cut emeralds and sapphires and mounted in platinum, it went over the top estimate at £9000.
Bond of brothers
Rubel Frères diamond sautoir, £130,000 at Bonhams.
Another of the ‘unsung heroes’ of French haute joaillerie now receiving full attention in the market is Rubel Frères. Operating from a workshop at 22 rue Vivienne, not far from the Place Vendôme, the Hungarian-born brothers created many jewels for Van Cleef & Arpels among others.
An Art Deco diamond sautoir, c.1925, with maker’s marks for Rubel Frères was among the many highlights of Bonhams’ London Jewels sale on June 13.
Pavé-set throughout with old brilliant and single-cut diamonds with a total of around 48ct, this came by descent from Jeanne Ida Adele Thomas Larroudé, the granddaughter of the Barons of Moser and Dulfuss of Austria, and niece to Counts Karski and Lubradsky of Poland. Born in 1898 in the Champagne area, she spent much of her life between Belgium, England and Portugal, winning several golfing tournaments.
Estimated at £40,000-60,000, her sautoir hammered at £130,000.
