The Nazi-defying bird brooch and other gems from the Country Life Archive
Rosie Paterson selects her favourite jewellery adverts from the Country Life Archive.
Cartier
By the time this advert for various bird brooches appeared in Country Life in 1951, Cartier had been making versions of them for nearly 30 years. Earlier iterations included a caged bird motif as a symbol of resistance to Nazi occupation.
Founded in Paris in 1847, 50 years before the inception of Country Life, Cartier grew from a small jewellery workshop into one of the world’s most celebrated maisons. Under the direction of Louis, Pierre and Jacques Cartier, the family expanded into London and New York, winning royal patronage and an international clientele. Queen Alexandra, Maud Alice, Lady Cunard, Victoria Sackville-West, Baroness Sackville, Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor and Consuelo Yznaga, Duchess of Manchester were notable British-based clients.
Cartier’s jewels are synonymous with the great styles of the 20th century, from the garland style of the Belle Époque to the geometric exuberance of Art Deco. The house pioneered combinations of platinum and diamonds, while its fascination with India, the East and exotic materials produced some of its most distinctive creations.
Boucheron
The 'Time is Jewels' was heavily featured in the brand's mid-1970s advertising campaigns — including adverts published inside Country Life.
Frédéric Boucheron opened his atelier on the Place Vendôme in 1893, becoming the first major jeweller to establish himself there. The house embraced the naturalism of Art Nouveau before moving towards Art Deco; all the while, its designers experimented with unusual materials and sculptural forms.
Boucheron’s celebrated clients included royalty, Maharajas and society figures, notably the Maharaja of Patiala. In August 1928, he arrived at Boucheron’s Paris premises carrying six iron safes filled with his own gemstones: more than 7,500 diamonds and 1,400 emeralds, as well as rubies and pearls. He commissioned Louis Boucheron to turn them into 149 pieces of jewellery, including emerald-and-diamond collars, multi-strand pearl necklaces, belts, earrings, sarpeches (jewelled turban ornaments) and bazubands (armlets).
Kutchinsky
Adverts like this one published in Country Life in November 1977 also appeared in publications such as British Vogue and Illustrated London News.
Hirsch Kutchinsky fled Poland because of persecution and founded his jewellery house in 1893, in London’s East End — drawing on his family’s experience as jewellers to the court of Ludwig of Bavaria.
Under Hirsch’s grandson Joseph, Kutchinsky flourished after the Second World War, moving to Knightsbridge in 1958. Large-scale jewels in textured gold, diamonds and vivid stones such as turquoise, coral, lapis lazuli and tiger’s eye became its signature. The business was sold to Moussaieff in 1991.
Tiffany and Co.
This Tiffany advert from a September 1986 issue of Country Life is in stark contrast to its recent 'Not Your Mother's Tiffany' campaign, designed to target Gen-Z clients.
Tiffany’s & Co. is arguably the world’s best-known jewellery brand. It was founded in New York in 1837 and by 1886 had perfected and introduced its six-prong Tiffany Setting, a single, brilliant-cut diamond elevated above the band by six slender prongs — better allowing it to capture and refract light.
Its gemmologists introduced Americans to rare stones including kunzite and morganite. In the 20th century, Jean Schlumberger introduced fantastical, nature-inspired jewels; Elsa Peretti revolutionised everyday jewellery with sculptural silver and fluid forms; and Paloma Picasso introduced bold colour and graphic motifs. Together, they established Tiffany as a byword for American jewellery.
Mappin & Webb
This advert appeared in multiple 1990 issues in the run up to Christmas.
Founded in Sheffield in 1775, Mappin & Webb evolved from a silversmith into one of Britain’s leading jewellery houses, opening its first London showroom in 1849. Its jewellery became closely associated with royalty after Queen Victoria granted the firm a Royal Warrant in 1897, followed by commissions from royal households around the world.
The house produced elaborate diamond and gemstone jewels, embracing the changing fashions of the late Victorian, Edwardian and Art Deco periods. Its commissions included striking jewels for the Siamese royal family in the early 20th century.
Garrard
Garrard stuck to its traditional guns, even when other brands adopted a more contemporary aesthetic.
Garrard started life as a goldsmith serving aristocratic patrons. In 1843, it was appointed the first official Crown Jeweller by Queen Victoria and subsequently created generations of royal jewels, from Queen Mary’s tiaras to Diana, Princess of Wales’s sapphire and diamond engagement ring.
The house is famed for its love of cluster settings (a design technique where multiple small gemstones are set tightly together to create the visual effect of one large, brilliant centrepiece or an ornate pattern), utilising it to create treasures such as a sapphire-and-diamond brooch, given to Queen Victorian as a wedding present by Prince Albert.
CHANEL
This CHANEL fine jewellery advert appeared in the pages of Country Life seven months after the brand's first dedicated jewellery boutique opened in London.
Gabrielle Chanel dipped her toe into the fine jewellery world in 1932 with Bijoux de Diamants, an audacious collection of more than 45 pieces. Its celestial motifs — comets, stars, moons and suns, alongside ribbons, feathers and fringes — remain central to CHANEL’S haute joaillerie vocabulary.
Chanel famously applied the principles behind her fashion designs to her jewellery, rejecting rigid clasps and favouring transformable pieces that could be worn in different ways.
CHANEL’s first dedicated fine-jewellery boutique in London opened in April 1997, on New Bond Street. Contemporary reporting in The Independent describes it as the first European CHANEL jewellery store outside Paris.
