The Aga Khan Collection in Pforzheim Jewellery Museum!

The rare opportunity to marvel at this fantastic collection of nécessaires, cigar cases and watches continues until MAY 3, 2019. Don’t miss this exceptional chance to immerse yourself in the glorious past of the most renowned Parisian jewelers and the time-honored art of goldsmithery!

Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan laid the cornerstone for his future collection on Christmas Eve in 1972, when he gave his wife an exquisitely bejeweled box made by Cartier. In the ensuing years until his death in 2003, the prince’s collection grew to a total of 116 objects, making it the world’s largest individual collection of Art Deco etuis and watches. Although the majority of these luxurious creations were made by Cartier, others were masterfully crafted by Van Cleef & Arpels, Boucheron and Bulgari.

One particularly outstanding example is the “Panther” makeup case, which Cartier fabricated in 1925 (illustrated in the upper photo). Embellished with mother-of-pearl, rubies, turquoises, onyxes and diamonds, the enamel etui depicts a panther among cypresses, the predominant trees in Persian miniature landscapes. This particular panther may have been inspired by the drawings of Paul Jouve, who illustrated Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Nécessaires and etuis provided significantly larger surfaces than jewelry on which to create new interpretations of exotic motifs like the panther. This masterpiece was displayed at the Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris in 1925.