Gabrielle Chanel's penchant for Coromandel screens has previously been expressed in haute couture and an oriental perfume.
Her eponymous fashion house has revisited the ancient lacquerware, in designing a fine-jewellery collection of 59 pieces, 24 of them singularly unique.
The French couturier bought as many as 32 folding screens, dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries and portraying fascinating images of China and East India's Coromandel Coast.
Many of them were given away, but she kept enough to line living spaces, from her apartment at 31 Rue Cambon to her suite at the Ritz Paris, her mansion on Avenue de New York and her villa in Lausanne.
She once described herself as a shelled gastropod to Claude Delay, who penned several biographies of the fashion icon.
"I'm like a snail," she said. "I carry my house with me. Two Chinese screens, books everywhere. I've never been able to live in an open house. The first thing I look for is screens."
The Chinese screens featured landscapes and motifs made by encrusting precious stones and mother-of-pearl into the lacquer, by using the ancient method called kuan kai, or incised colours.
The legendary designer was mesmerised by the beautiful motifs on the screens, some of which have been reinterpreted in the Coromandel jewellery, grouped under three themes: floral, animal and mineral.
The screen's geometric structure, for example, shows in a reversible cuff with a floral pattern and a pivoting yellow diamond; its landscape portrayed on a yellow gold plastron necklace dotted with mother-of-pearl and diamonds; and its animals such as birds about to take flight adorning several pieces.
Other gems used in crafting the fine jewellery include Tsavorite garnet, emerald, tourmaline, red spinel, ruby bead and black lacquer transposed onto onyx.
The palette of precious stones recalls the colours of Mademoiselle Chanel's Coromandel screens that remain a part of the decor in her Paris apartment till today.
