Divining Beauty Through a Jewelry Collector’s Gaze

The name Kazumi Arikawa will be familiar to jewelry collectors and historians, but the Japanese founder and president of antique-jewelry gallery Albion Art is little known outside this sphere. Forbes once described him as “the man with the most valuable jewelry collection you never knew existed.” Now, a new book showcases 250 rare masterpieces that have passed through the hands of this collector and dealer of largely Western jewelry.

Divine Jewels: The Pursuit of Beauty renders the history of beauty in precious metals, diamonds and gemstones. It presents a catalog of jewelry spanning the fourth-century-BCE Hellenistic period through the 1940s. Acclaimed jewelry historian Diana Scarisbrick curated the selection, which is accompanied by personal narratives from Arikawa and photography by Nils Herrmann.

Describing his 40 years of collecting jewelry as both a pilgrimage and an odyssey, Arikawa — who was once a Buddhist monk — explains that “these jewels, which have graced wearers across generations, reflect not merely the complexities of craftsmanship, but also the transformation of styles, tastes and aesthetics spanning various eras and cultures. From the restrained elegance of medieval rings to the grandeur of Belle Époque tiaras, these jewels reverberate with the zeitgeist of the eras they symbolize.”

The book’s 10 themed chapters chart Arikawa’s jewelry journey. Intricately carved cameos and intaglios from antiquity through the 19th century give way to diamond and gemstone pieces by the likes of Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier. The volume finishes with a selection of nature- and animal-inspired designs by Fabergé, Lalique and Boucheron, among others.

Within these pages are awe-inspiring examples of ancient gem carving, dazzling European royal jewels, and the largest collection of the aforementioned tiaras — which, Arikawa explains, he began acquiring at a time when most collectors viewed them as “outdated and ostentatious displays of wealth and power.”

This is jewelry as art, and each exquisite full-page photograph comes with an equally detailed history of the piece, penned by Scarisbrick. The combination makes this a page-turner for art historians and jewelry lovers as well as a valuable source of inspiration for designers.

Divine Jewels: The Pursuit of Beauty by Kazumi Arikawa and Diana Scarisbrick comes out in October from Flammarion, with US distribution by Rizzoli.

Main Image: Pinks tiara (also known as Carnation tiara) by Joseph Chaumet, 1905. (Nils Herrmann/Flammarion)

Portrait Image: Tiara with pink topazes from the royal house of Württemberg. (Nils Herrmann/Flammarion)