BLUE GRADE: 2
CREME GRADE: 2.5
6.5 w x 5.5 l cm

These striking wide cuffs, with their vitreous enamel grounds and open-backed colored glass pastes, belong to the group of bold costume jewels created in the 1930's for Gabrielle Chanel by Parisian ateliers such as Maison Gripoix. The hand-formed apertures, soldered hinge plates and rotating tongue clasps are all characteristic of pre-war French craftsmanship.

Similar enamel glass bracelets appear in period editorials, including French Vogue (1937) in a feature titles "Bijoux de Chanel, Gripoix" while comparable examples of 1930's Chanel costume jewellery were recently included in the V&A's exhibition Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto and are illustrated in Patrick Mauries' Le Bijoux de Chanel.

Although the two cuffs vary in enamel color and slight construction details, both follow the same underlying hand-made chassis and workshop techniques, consistent with Chanel's practice of producing seasonal variations of a model. Their scale, materials and construction align closely with known 1930's Chanel pieces.