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Lydia Courteille

Extraordinary Jewellery of Imagination and Dreams

Format: Hardback
Publisher: ACC Art Books, Woodbridge, United Kingdom
Published: 21st Nov 2016
Dimensions: w 243mm h 268mm d 28mm
Weight: 1520g
ISBN-10: 1851498370
ISBN-13: 9781851498376
Barcode No: 9781851498376
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Synopsis
Parisian jeweller Lydia Courteille has been making a very special name for herself over the past thirty years; with her avant-garde and unusual jewellery designs, she has been keeping the Place Vendome Jewellery Houses on their toes. She is always two to three steps ahead of the fashion world and her inventiveness and daring in the world of high jewellery is legendary. Taking her inspiration from cultural landmarks in France and from numerous historical and literary sources including film, she has combined her love of unusual gemstones with colour combinations that speak to the senses: her chlorophyll green in the Amazonia collection, the sunny bright vitamin C oranges of her Xochimilco collection and the azure blues in the Abysse collection all tease our imagination. Famous for her memento mori and vanity rings, she combines symbols of faith with reminders of mortality to create a juxtaposition of meanings for the wearer to ponder upon. Never macabre and always witty, her edgy jewels recount tales and cultural differences from every part of the globe. She deliberately combines symbols to create a duality in her jewels, marrying the sickle and hammer of the Soviet period with the ultra-femininity of eighteenth century jewellery design to impose contrast and debate on her Scarlet Empress collection. To see, to touch and to wear Courteille's jewels is to travel to rarely visited spots in the world, from the sulphurous volcanic landscape of the Danakil desert to the remote tribes of the Omo Valley and the Bontoc people of the Philippines. Her jewels have a presence, a femininity. They demand respect; they are for strong, confident, women.

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Newspapers & Magazines
Her jewelry is art--it is colorful beyond all rainbows and in a league of its own. Gem Gossip One of the most crucial aspects for a book of this genre is its photographs, which in this case happen to be just about as good as it gets. Readers can see for themselves why this jewelry is not for the faint of heart. Her thematically designed pieces are ablaze in color stones and finishes. -- Jeffrey Felner New York Journal of Books, November 7, 2016 Covering her life story and 20 collections, the book is a comprehensive look at how Ms. Courteille became a jewelry designer... A fresh side to Ms. Courteille's work is revealed. The New York Times Written by jewelry expert Julia Weir de la Rochefoucauld, the book recounts Courteille's childhood and the traits that eventually manifested themselves in her jewelry design: an extreme curiosity about the world's diverse cultures (she corresponded with 18 pen pals worldwide), a love of narrative, and an eye for aesthetically interesting objects, such as the stones she saw at the mineralogical museum in Paris. National Jeweler