Louis Comfort Tiffany for Tiffany & Co.

This necklace is very similar to one published in Louis Comfort Tiffany at Tiffany & Co. by John Loring, page 62. Louis Comfort Tiffany—frequently shortened to “LCT” by today’s admirers of his work—first began designing jewelry in 1902. His earliest creations show an aesthetic kinship with Parisian adherents of the Art Nouveau style, most notably Lalique, who were steeped in the school of Naturalism. In 1913, the New York Armory held a fair that proved to be a watershed moment for both the fine and decorative arts, representing the new “modernist” trend emerging in Europe. Realism and figural representation were displaced by minimalism and abstraction. According to John Loring, former design director of Tiffany & Co., “Tiffany was demoralized by the instant and overwhelming success in the art world of the modernist vision that essentially opposed everything for which he stood.” 

In an attempt to counteract this trend, and as a promotion for his design concepts, LCT hosted an Egyptian-themed costume party in the Tiffany Studios showroom on February 4, 1913. This celebration featured a reenactment of Mark Antony’s return to Cleopatra in Alexandria. The New York Times ran a cover story on it, reporting “Cleopatra arrived on a palanquin, carried by semi-nude Nubian slaves… Antony arrived and then the Nubians carried in a bundle of rugs. When unwound, Ms. St. Denis emerged. Her dance, full of her unusual grace, was the feature of the fete. Her body was covered, thinly covered, with light brown gauze.” And while today we bristle at the idea of glamorizing slavery, this event may well have been the inspiration for the 1917 Hollywood film “Cleopatra” starring Theda Bara.

Tiffany may have seen, or been familiar with, the ancient Egyptian menat; a necklace composed of strands of beads linked to an amulet as counterbalance at the wearer’s back to keep it in place. The menat was intended to bring good luck and fortune and was worn as protection from evil spirits. The necklace Tiffany designed (lot 77) can be thought of as modern interpretation of the menat, but in his example, the counterbalance is centered and takes the shape of a miniature semi-cylinder of beads surmounted by an oval cabochon at the center, with the aten above, symbolizing the sun, flanked by cobras. His design is elegant and timeless, but very wearable, and remains fashionable today more than a century later.