Couture 1920s Chanel Rousselet Hearts Camellia Metallic Glass Bracelet & Sautoir

Chanel used camellias and hearts to ornament her feminine accessories since 1910 when she opened a hat boutique as the first of her business enterprises. Aside from her famous “little black dress” of 1926 that made the somber color as chic as Ford Model-T cars, the designer is personally associated with a golden-orange color beyond her perfumes because she was almost always photographed wearing a topaz ring as one of her most important gifted pieces of jewelry, which she reportedly considered a talisman.

While Chanel garnered international fame for her couture house in the 1920s, she custom designed unabashedly fake jewels to fully accessorize clothing commissioned by her clients. The materials of this set are handcrafted in the distinct style of one of Chanel’s primary Parisian jewelry workshops, Louis Rousselet (1892-1980), who opened his business in 1920 that catered to couture houses. For exclusive materials, the bead specialist was often commissioned by her for intricately decorative metal, carved enameled galalith, and lampwork or faux-pearl glass.

In Chanel’s typical fashion-forward approach around 1930, the necklace features an anti-ArtDeco metallic combination of gold, copper, brass and silver.

So the motifs, unique materials, construction and fashionable juxtaposition of colors align for linking Chanel, Baretti and Rousselet to this set in the late 1920s or early 1930s before the couturier began to rely mostly on Maison Gripoix for costume jewelry.

The symmetrical contrasting-texture beaded necklace features 15 copper-infused poured glass hearts bracketed by copper-enameled galalith spacers, which are accented by 14 smaller copper hearts in filigree with miniature petaled flowers. For tiny-toggle fastening, the ends are knotted to intricately twisted brass hardware, in a way found on other Chanel-Rousselet jewelry. The hanging central glass heart is attached with Rousselet’s delicate wire, whose fastening loop is visible on the bottom.

The symmetrical seed-bead bracelet is woven into undulating rows that widen and mount into 6 three-dimensional domes via 3 kinds of differently sized and colored clear glass. Their metallic reflections and shadows contribute to the appearance of depth. Whereby, the interior of the largest beads are injected with yellow gold, the micro beads are injected with copper, and the medium beads that link them are injected with silver. The ends fasten with a decorative beaded loop and a round metallic button that appears carved into miniature petaled flowers.

The beaded set are in very good condition consistent with age and minimal wear, such as fine scratches on the glass hearts that blend with the thin dark streaks of the bead-making process. As the nearly century-old necklace can be easily pulled over the head, we recommend that the buyer not use its toggle to avoid stressing the knotted ends.

The bracelet when unfastened and laying flat measures in inches: 8L x 1 1/4W x 1/4D. Only the necklace dimensions are noted in the Measurement Units section of this listing.