“These long sautoirs were very fashionable in the 1970s, and now they are coming back into style.”

French jeweler Louis Gérard isn’t a household name, but “his work was of no less quality than a Cartier or Van Cleef & Arpels,” says Daniela Mascetti, a senior jewelry specialist at Sotheby’s. In fact, Gérard honed his jewelry skills at Van Cleef & Arpels, leaving to establish his own firm in 1968. The collectibility of his designs was evident at Sotheby’s Geneva on May 17, when this Gérard sautoir from the 1970s fetched a cool $1.48 million. Its allure boils down to “good stones, good design, good era,” Mascetti says. And the design is particularly compelling because “normally, if you have important gemstones, you tend to have a very unobtrusive setting—that’s not the case here.” Plus, “you don’t find a Gérard piece every other day,” she adds. “He didn’t work for that long; by the early ’90s it was all done and dusted.”

M. Gérard gold sautoir with brilliant-cut diamonds, oval and cushion-shape rubies, and a pendant with a 21.04 ct. pear-shape diamond

(Courtesy of Sotheby’s)