A flair for the nécessaire

For women out and about in society during the early 20th century, vanity cases — also known as “nécessaires” or “minaudières” — offered a beautifully bejeweled way to carry their “necessities” in style. These mini masterpieces of design ingenuity and aesthetic excellence artfully contained spaces for everything from makeup to cigarettes to keys. And since they were often created by the most elite jewelry houses, they could match the elegance of the women’s jewelry and attire. A new book, A Vanity Affair: L’art du nécessaire, presents examples from an extraordinary private collection amassed over the past 30-plus years.

Author Lyne Kaddoura — an independent jewelry specialist and an advisor and senior consultant with Christie’s — included approximately 160 boxes from the extensive collection in the book. “We decided to select not only the more extraordinary ones, but also ones that marked the evolution of the art of the nécessaire,” she tells Rapaport Magazine. Along with a detailed history of the vanity case, the book features chapters on the work of three Paris jewelry maisons — Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Lacloche Frères.

Act of love

The collection in question, which ranges from the 18th century to the mid-20th, started when an avid art collector found “an Indo-Persian-inspired Cartier box from the Art Deco period” and, recognizing its importance, decided on impulse to buy it as a gift for his wife, Kaddoura recounts. “Inside, he hid a personal message, a love letter.” From then on, the couple started collecting together, “offering each other a jeweled box or case for every occasion and always with a personal, handwritten message secreted somewhere inside.”

The collector affirms that it was a way of expressing their love and “celebrating the preciousness of our relationship through these precious gold and jeweled works of art. It was as if our love affair was contained inside the boxes. It became a ‘Vanity Affair.’”

Although the collectors wished to remain anonymous, they wanted to share their collection with the public, says Kaddoura.

The book, adds the collector, is “also a thank you, from a wife to her husband, for starting this collection, for giving me this pleasure, and for trusting me.”

The emancipated woman

“Vanity cases came into fashion in the 1920s,” relates François Curiel, chairman of Christie’s Europe and head of Christie’s global luxury division, who wrote the preface to the book. “They are emblematic of the emancipation of women at the beginning of the 20th century. They bring to mind low-waisted dresses, rows of pearls, cigarette holders and fabulous parties. Charles Arpels famously invented ‘La Minaudière’ after seeing his friend Florence Gould throwing her lipstick, powder cases, cigarettes and lighters into a tin Lucky Strike box.”

While the vanity cases paralleled the fashion and jewelry trends of the day, they were also influenced by world events. “The collection embraces both world wars, political and financial turmoil, golden ages and times of restriction,” says Kaddoura. “Each item is an emblem of women’s hard-won emancipation, the shift in their lifestyle and their ideals of femininity, as well as the rise of the beauty industry and the burgeoning of the tobacco industry.”

It is also, the author continues, an ode to the skills of the greatest jewelry maisons, “who used their extraordinary imagination, ingenuity and master craftsmanship to create these ‘modern women’s’ accessories, these miniature artworks.”

Before the ’20s roared to life, the makeup women wore was discreet. “They could not smoke, let alone apply cosmetics in a social setting,” Kaddoura points out. After World War I, she says, women found a new sense of freedom and independence in a “golden age of extravagance, luxury and joie de vivre.”

This free-spirited Art Deco woman, Kaddoura continues, could powder her nose in public and even smoke, if she chose. She wasn’t shy about wearing heavy makeup. She “cut her hair short à la garçonne, drove cars, played tennis and golf, skied and danced to jazz, Charleston and foxtrot rhythms, wearing straight, corset-free dresses. This emancipated woman needed an accessory to meet these new social needs: She wanted to stay beautiful all night long with grace and poise, and puff on her favorite cigarette brand.” And so the vanity case was born.

Maison marvels

Of the more than 160 items in the collection, 59 are by Cartier, according to Kaddoura. These date “mainly to the 1920s and 1930s. Chinese and Persian cigarette cases, enameled or lacquered vanity cases, powder compacts, table cigarette boxes...in all their diversity offer a privileged vantage point on the evolution of these accessories...and broaden our horizons on the characteristics of [Cartier’s] style during the Art Deco period.”

An example she deems “probably my personal favorite case from the collection” is an Art Deco enamel, ruby, sapphire, emerald and amethyst vanity case by Cartier that formerly belonged to heiress and philanthropist Doris Duke. “It perfectly mirrors Miss Duke’s taste for Oriental design, in particular Mughal motifs.... It is one of the finest Cartier vanity cases of Indo-Persian inspiration. The quality of the blue enamel is so extraordinary that an untrained eye could easily believe that it was lapis lazuli.”

Other master jewelers whose work appears in the collection range from celebrated Parisian maisons such as Boucheron and Chaumet, to some “whose fame has vanished with time but nonetheless created extraordinary pieces, such as Ostertag and Janesich,” continues the author. “Maisons from across the Atlantic are interestingly featured as well, such as creations by [Jean] Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co.; Black, Starr & Frost; John Rubel & Co.; and Paul Flato, to name a few.”

Kaddoura highlights several noteworthy cases, including an “ingenious minaudière created by Van Cleef & Arpels, skillfully designed to contain everything a woman needed: fitted mirror, baton de rouge, powder, cigarettes, hidden clock, tortoiseshell hair comb, perfume — a miracle of technical mastery and perfection.”

Another one is a textured gold case that Schlumberger created for Tiffany & Co., “designed as a seed pod [and] set throughout with square-cut peridots interspersed with pear-shaped cabochon turquoises. It is an exceptional example of Schlumberger’s passion for the botanical world.”

She also cites a lapis lazuli and coral vanity case by Lacloche, “decorated with exquisitely detailed roses, the heart of the flower and the ribbing of the leaves picked out in diamonds. Known by experts as the Poiret rose, this motif is certainly the couturier’s emblem and trademark.” Yet she points out that “this newly blossomed rose, recalling the naturalism of Art Nouveau, is, in actual fact, an invention of the incredibly versatile Paul Iribe, a marvelous designer of jewelry, illustrator, Hollywood set designer and caricaturist with a passion for roses.”

Unflagging demand

While this collection of nécessaires is unique in its variety and quality, Curiel notes that “vanity cases have appealed to collectors since their invention. In particular, I am thinking of the collection of the Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan that has been exhibited around the world, or of the striking collection of vanity cases exhibited at the Lang Yi museum in Hong Kong.” He also points to the 49 vanity cases that Kashmira Bulsara, sister of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, donated to the Victoria & Albert Museum of London earlier this year in her brother’s memory.

Vanity cases started appearing at auction in the 1930s, “and prices have held up throughout the century,” according to Curiel. “Recently, in June 2019, Christie’s Paris offered an Art Deco lapis lazuli, jade and mother-of-pearl vanity case by Cartier; it sold for EUR 77,500 [about $86,800] against presale estimates of EUR 10,000 to EUR 15,000.”

As with jewelry in general, vanity cases from the Art Deco period are popular with collectors worldwide.

“It was an era of impeccable craftsmanship and intense creativity,” explains Curiel. “Vanity cases designed between 1920 and 1940 are particularly popular at auction, even more so if they were created by the famous maisons of Place Vendôme, such as Boucheron, Cartier or Van Cleef & Arpels. These refined vanity cases showcased the fabulous designs of the jewelers, using precious gems and hard stones rarely used before, such as lapis lazuli, malachite or rhodochrosite, for example.”

Indeed, Kaddoura considers each of the pieces in the collection “a keepsake to cherish, a testimony of beauty and creativity, an invitation to dream and travel.”

The book, she says, serves as “a mirror of passing time, a journey back to a golden age. Turning each page is like opening one of these boxes, unveiling their intimate secrets, diving into their universe and going back in time.”

A Vanity Affair: L’art du nécessaire will be published October 29, 2019, by Rizzoli. Written by Lyne Kaddoura; contributions by Pierre Rainero and Viviene Becker; introduction by David Snowden; preface by François Curiel.

Outside the box

The skills of master craftsmen are apparent in the boxes Lyne Kaddoura has profiled for her book A Vanity Affair: L’art du nécessaire. In the Art Deco designs, “distant lands like China, Japan, Persia and India became infinite sources of inspiration to the jewelry maisons,” notes the author. “Incorporating novel motifs and breaking color codes, they introduced jade and coral, and mixed turquoise with lapis lazuli, onyx with enamel, sapphire with emerald. Such bold color combinations had never been seen before and would have been considered heresy a few years earlier.”

Art Deco aesthetics are a strong influence on the decor of most pieces in the collection, she continues, citing “birds of paradise, precious studded Persian carpets, Egyptian carved scarabs, Chinese dragons and scrolling clouds, wisteria trees and Japanese bonsai.”

One technique used in several of the boxes is laque burgauté. “Louis Cartier was an avid collector of laque burgauté, an antique Chinese lacquer technique inlaid with dyed mother-of-pearl,” explains Kaddoura. “In Taoism, mother-of-pearl was believed to have magical properties and was a token of eternity. From 1924, Cartier used mother-of-pearl lacquer panels on a variety of objects and especially on vanity cases such as those in the present collection. These were taken from Chinese bowls, tablets or plaques bought from antique dealers.”

Laque burgauté was also a feature of pieces by Vladimir Makovsky, she says. “A true master craftsman of the early-20th century, his intricate lacquered works were sought after by many of the most prestigious Parisian fine jewelry maisons, such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Lacloche Frères, to embellish their jeweled accessories, vanity cases and ornamental clocks. Inspired by the ancient eastern lacquer techniques, his mother-of-pearl inlay and mosaic works were unrivaled in Europe. Makovsky’s pieces also found their way to America, where they were sold by jewelers like Black, Starr & Frost.”

Images: Shutterstock; Diode SA - Denis Hayoun

Article from the Rapaport Magazine - October 2019. To subscribe click here.