Exactitude

You are about to discover the room dedicated to Exactitude.

Calvino laments a world devoid of precision and invites us to look for accuracy in small everyday things, which can retain an exact sense of beauty and harmony. The qualities of technique and balance, inherent to Calvino’s “exactitude”, are well represented in Van Cleef & Arpels’ jewelry. A jeweler’s craft involves carefully combining the strength of the hammer with the precision of the chisel. It takes great virtuosity and accuracy to create, for example, pieces in Mystery Set, a major discovery patented by Van Cleef & Arpels in 1933. With this virtuoso technique, the Maison's craftsmen and women created impressive pieces, including the Two Leaves and Peony clips that you are about to see. Let’s have a closer look to some creations in Mystery Set to understand the precision and uniqueness of this technique. Only a handful of lapidaries in the world know how to make pieces in Mystery Set.