The pansy is the most identified single subject in the body of work of JAR, the Paris maison founded by Joel Arthur Rosenthal in 1977 at 7 Place Vendôme. JAR has produced pansy brooches, pansy ear clips and pansy rings in numerous colour permutations across more than three decades, and the pansy has become for many collectors the emblematic JAR motif.

The Subject

The pansy is a flower with five overlapping petals arranged in a distinctive heart-shape, with strong colour contrasts between an outer field and an inner darker centre or face. The combination of overlapping petals, sharp colour transitions and small scale makes the pansy a particularly demanding subject for fine jewellery, and the JAR pansies are designed to exploit precisely those features.

Construction

JAR pansies are pavé constructions built up over a carved silver and gold substrate. Each petal is set with calibrated coloured stones, in many cases drawn from across the full sapphire palette and supplemented by diamond, ruby, tsavorite and amethyst depending on the colour scheme. The petals are layered to suggest natural depth, and the centre of the flower is rendered with a small group of contrasting stones, often yellow diamond or yellow sapphire surrounded by darker tones, to capture the characteristic pansy face.

Tonal gradation across each petal is the technical hallmark. Multiple stones differing by a single increment of hue or saturation are placed adjacent to one another to give a soft transition rather than a banded contrast. The mounting metal is blackened so that no metal is visible at the surface and the flower reads as colour against the body or fabric on which it is worn.

Permutations

JAR pansy brooches have been recorded at auction and in exhibition in violet and yellow, white and yellow, deep purple and yellow, blue and yellow, pink and yellow, and various two-tone schemes including white-on-white pavé in diamond alone. Some examples include a small leaf or bud alongside the principal flower, in green tsavorite or green sapphire pavé. Pansy ear clips are normally mounted as pairs of facing or mirrored flowers; the rings are smaller single-flower versions on a tapered shank.

The Pansy Collection

The pansy collection of JAR pieces was a celebrated assemblage formed by a single American collector across a number of years and sold at auction, the dispersal of which generated significant trade and press attention because it brought a substantial number of pansies into the secondary market in a short period.

Auction and Exhibition Record

JAR pansies have featured prominently in the Metropolitan Museum's 2013 retrospective Jewels by JAR and in the Somerset House exhibition of 2002. They appear regularly at Christie's and Sotheby's sales, where they consistently realise strong premiums.