Among the world’s foremost collectors of modern art, Laurence Graff’s enduring love of the 20th century art scene has inspired a poetic new jewellery collection. Mirroring the calligraphic paint strokes of the American artist Cy Twombly, seamless swirls flow playfully from one gemstone to the next.
The looping lines and abstract doodles of the American artist Cy Twombly formed the starting point for Graff designers, who have created a collection of contemporary masterpieces where the spontaneity of the gesture – the impromptu line animating the pieces – is painted in scintillating gemstones.
Laurence Graff, chairman of Graff Diamonds who is best known as the “king of diamonds,” is a passionate art collector whose own collection of 20th-century masterpieces includes works by Twombly alongside other pieces by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Pablo Picasso but it was Twombly’s energy and spontaneity that prompted the creation of this new high jewellery collection
Twombly’s signature look used flowing lines of doodles and handwriting and the disruptive power of graffiti to make his work powerful and beautiful. The new Graff collection adopts these smooth flowing lines to create jewels in mesmerising spirals and loops.
Graff master mounters spent months re-imaging the calligraphic style of Twombly setting diamonds and baguette cut rubies invisibly so that free-flowing forms daubed on vast canvases become never-ending spirals of gems that encircle the neck, cascade downwards from the ear lobe and embrace the finger.
The centre-piece of the Graff collection is a white diamond necklace featuring 1,071 individual stones set around a 4.06-carat pear-shaped diamond, its lines looping around a total of 83.58 carats of diamonds.
The matching earrings feature a pair of stunning pear-shaped diamonds, set around more than 200 round and baguette-cut diamonds. Two rings in this striking parure offer a choice of two shapes, each with a centred diamond set on swirling ribbons of white diamonds.
Crafted with meticulous attention to detail, the classic yet imaginative design aesthetic of this ‘art inspired jewel collection’ is perfectly captured in these extravagantly precious pieces, which, like the finest art, inspire quiet contemplation.
