In celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb (November 1922), and in tribute to the contribution of ancient Egyptian culture to the rest of the world, Sotheby’s has assembled a collection of jewels by renowned makers, including Castellani, Émile-Dêsire Philippe, F.W. Lawrence, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Lacloche and Verdura.

The term “Egyptomania” encapsulates the fascination of Western society with ancient Egyptian culture as it has flourished to greater and lesser degrees since Roman times. One of the most ambitious exhibitions of Egyptomania was organized by the Musée du Louvre, Paris and the National Gallery of Ottawa, Canada with the collaboration of the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna. The catalogue published in 1994 titled, Egyptomania: Egypt in Western Art provides an excellent guide to understanding the impact that centuries of Egyptomania have impressed upon the modern viewer. In an essay by Jean Marcel Humbert, he notes, “Egyptomania, Egyptian Revival, Nile Stile, Pharaonism: many different words and themes have been used in various periods and countries to describe the varying expressions of a single and specific phenomenon.”

It is indeed a significant year for the appreciation of ancient Egyptian culture. This November, the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum is due to open in Cairo, featuring the full collection that was retrieved upon Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Additional exhibitions celebrating ancient Egyptian history are also opening all around the world from the De Young Museum in San Francisco to the Saintsbury Centre in the United Kingdom.

On the pages that follow we explore the influence of Egyptian art on jewelry and the persistent fascination with “Egyptomania,” especially as it pertains to jewelry design from the mid-19^th to the 20^th centuries. Each jewel showcases a reincarnation of ancient Egypt through a variety of media and styles. We delight in the colorful micromosaics of Castellani and the symbolic interpretations of Émile Philippe and Louis Comfort Tiffany. These are followed by the Romanticism expressed by F. Walter Lawrence and Gustav Manz and, later in the 20^th century, we find two rare, high Art Deco pictorial jewels by Lacloche and the precious treatment of an ancient Egyptian coin by Verdura. Each jewel captures the timelessness of ancient Egypt while retaining the character of the specific time and culture in which it was made.