Drawing of a Mystery Set Flower tiara (Circa 1950)

The life of every jewel begins with a jewelry design. Take a look at this selection of designs for Mystery Set creations. Notice the details, the refinement of the drawings, the interplay of light and shade, and the way the delicacy of the petals is captured. The choice of paper plays an important role too. For example, black-tinted paper highlights the color and sparkle of the precious stones. In addition to their artistic merit, these jewelry designs are the blueprints that jewelers rely on when creating the three-dimensional pieces. This is why they sometimes include annotations with comments on the aesthetics, and are signed and validated by the creative directors. Some of the drawings also show how the piece is supposed to be worn, for example the 1950 drawing shows a flower tiara worn on a woman’s head.

As you continue on your journey through the exhibition, you will find yourself in front of a cabinet of curiosities. It displays another rich set of archives that trace every step in creating a piece using the Mystery Set technique. Please take a look at the 1933 patent for the technique filed by the Maison. The patent explains the system of rails that the stones are slid onto so that they fully cover the surface. You can see a preparatory drawing on tracing paper as well as the final drawing. The object you can see nearby is a mock-up of the creation: it was a prototype made using non-precious materials so that the results could be seen in three dimensions. The notebooks exhibited here show how jewelers drew each piece and counted the stones before starting to make them. The plaster casts were taken once a piece was finished and were used a little like 3D-photos to help the Maison to keep records of its creations. Lastly, the product cards, which are like ID cards for the pieces, were made once the creations were officially put on sale.