EMMANUEL TARPIN | PAIR OF TSAVORITE GARNET EARRINGS, 'BEANSTALK'

Emmanuel Tarpin has erupted onto the international jewellery scene with a quiet and humble air belying his youth and immense success. At just 28 years old, his resume is already distinguished beyond belief. After a technical background studying at the school of Haute École d’Art et de Design in Geneva, and three years spent in the the Parisian workshops of Van Cleef & Arpels, he launched his own brand in 2017 with a pair of geranium earrings, and has since gone on to tend to his garden of jewels for over three years. In Paris, the astute jeweller keeps a rooftop jardin where he is able to cultivate and study plants at his leisure, turning them into jewels from a desk overlooking the Eiffel Tower. His earrings have landed on the red carpet with mega stars like Rihanna and Mandy Moore. As a boy, he grew up with his family in Annecy, France, and constantly trekked the mountain trails through the French Alps, as well as keeping a vegetable patch glistening with dew that would later inspire diamonds and veins of emeralds. 

For this new Sotheby’s sale, Tarpin’s pair of “Beanstalk” earrings, made of vivid tsavorites, do wonders to evoke the vibrancy of new, green growth. They twist and squirm like tendrils of lush vegetal life-force, and fork through the earlobe with ease. Tarpin says that he was drawn to the graphic and round shapes of the beanstalk from his personal vegetable patch, and wanted the shape of the earring to be simple, which is often the most difficult to achieve when depicting a specific specimen of flora in jewellery. Tapin says, “There is always an idea of sensuality in my work,” and the curling of the sprig going through the ear is one of the simplest pieces he’s made to date, making them extremely easy to wear. He calls them a “fresh young stalk,” and even though they are made with extreme lightness in mind, they still allow for the twisting tsavorites to shine bright on the ear. 

Having gotten to know Tarpin over the last few years, I am always astounded to hear from him about his wealth of inspirations and influences. Andy Goldsworthy is a contemporary British sculptor and land artist who is known for creating subtle interventions with nature, using all found natural objects to create cascading pillars of rock, gradations of leaves, or intertwined branches that are site-specific and that comment on the passage of time. Tarpin himself has dabbled with these meditative practices, sending a braided chain of sticks and leaves floating out onto the surface of a lake, snaking back to shore. To my eye, the interconnected links of sticks piercing the leaves could easily become a necklace one day. Tarpin is a burgeoning talent with creativity itching for materialization at every juncture in his daily life. He sketches constantly, and hand-paints beautiful beetles, butterflies, corals, and sea life. The inspirational niche between the natural world and the contemporary art world is where his jewellery is comfortably nestled. 

Sotheby’s Geneva is delighted to present this pair of tsavorite earrings that are absolutely indicative of Tarpin’s work, blurring the line between hyper-realism and graphic abstraction. 

Levi Higgs

Jewellery and decorative arts historian based in New York City, and currently the archivist at David Webb.