JAR Ruby & Diamond Earclips

Two clips, deliberately unequal

Around 1998, JAR made a pair of earclips in the shape of a quatrefoil, the four-lobed form familiar from Gothic tracery. The surface is a pave of round rubies, set so tightly that the metal nearly disappears, with small single-cut diamonds as accents.

The pair is not a mirror image. One clip centers a kite-shaped diamond; the other centers a kite-shaped ruby. The 2025 sale catalog described the result as an asymmetry that exemplifies Rosenthal's affinity for unexpected balance. A diamond that reads as light on one ear and a ruby that reads as color on the other is the kind of quiet joke that runs through JAR's work.

The earclips are unsigned. That is not unusual for JAR, and it is not a weakness here: the pair came with its original JAR box, was shown at the 2002-2003 Somerset House exhibition in London, and is illustrated as plate 289 in the book JAR Paris, published in 2002.

The jeweler with no shop window

Joel Arthur Rosenthal was born in the Bronx in 1943, the son of a postman and a biology teacher. He spent a semester at City College of New York before transferring to Harvard, where he studied art history and philosophy and graduated in 1966. Soon after, he moved to Paris.

His first trade there was not jewelry. He ran a small needlepoint business built on colored yarn, with clients that included designers from Hermes and Valentino. A request to design a mount for a gemstone pulled him toward jewels, and after a short stint at a jeweler's New York store he returned to Paris and opened JAR on the Place Vendome. Sources differ on the year: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and one recent auction article give 1978, while the 2025 sale catalog and other accounts give 1977. His partner in the business is Pierre Jeannet.

The salon at 7 Place Vendome has no storefront signage and no windows, and new clients are reportedly admitted only on introduction by existing ones. Output is tiny and almost entirely one of a kind. Accounts of how much he makes vary, from a few dozen pieces a year in one auction article to roughly 70 to 80 in another published profile.

His signature is the pave the Met describes as small stones set so close together that they appear as a continuous surface of jewels, with subtle gradations of color that give a painterly effect. One profile compares his settings to needlepoint stitches, a nod to the career he started in, and notes his use of blackened metal to intensify the color of the stones.

Seen by flashlight, then at the Met

JAR rarely shows work in public, which is why the two major exhibitions of his career matter so much to the paper trail of any piece. The first was at Somerset House in London in 2002, where about 400 pieces were displayed in darkness and visitors viewed them by flashlight. These earclips were in it, and they appear in the accompanying book, JAR Paris.

The second was Jewels by JAR at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, from November 20, 2013, to March 9, 2014. It showed more than 400 works and was the first exhibition at the Met devoted to a contemporary artist of gems, as well as the first retrospective of Rosenthal's work in America. The Met itself noted that the only other major exhibition of his work had been the 2002 show in London.

The Breuer sale

The earclips came to market as part of A Legacy of Elegance: Jewels from an Exceptional Collection, a single-owner sale held in New York on December 8, 2025. The owner was not named. Preview coverage said the collection held more than 20 works by Suzanne Belperron and more than 10 by JAR, with additional pieces by Cartier, Boivin and Boucheron, and a total estimate above $8 million. Preview counts put the collection at over 60 pieces; the catalog and the post-sale report list 56 lots.

The sale was staged at the auctioneer's new headquarters in the Breuer building on Madison Avenue, and preview coverage described it as the first evening jewelry auction in New York at that house in more than a decade. Highlights toured internationally before going on view at the Breuer from December 5.

The ruby earclips sold for $698,500, just over their $600,000 high estimate. The whole sale brought nearly $14 million. The top lot was a Boucheron ruby and diamond laurel wreath necklace from around 1888, once owned by Marie-Louise Mackay and later by Mona Bismarck, at $1.3 million.

JAR pieces did well across the evening. A reversible pendant-brooch set with pink topazes, rubies, diamonds, amethysts, sapphires, pink tourmalines and demantoid garnets brought just over $1 million against a $500,000 high estimate. A rock crystal and sapphire butterfly brooch from around 1987 also made $698,500, a wild rose brooch centered on a gray natural pearl made $609,600, and the frost-pattern diamond earclips that had led the presale publicity made $508,000.

How to recognize this pair

Look first at the asymmetry: a quatrefoil of pave rubies on each ear, with a kite-shaped diamond at the center of one clip and a kite-shaped ruby at the center of the other. The single-cut diamond accents sit within the ruby field rather than framing it.

Because the pair is unsigned, the paperwork carries the identification. The three anchors are the original JAR box, the Somerset House exhibition of 2002-2003, and plate 289 of JAR Paris. Carat weights for the rubies and diamonds were not given in the sources reviewed for this page.

In the market, the pair sits among the most expensive JAR jewels sold at auction in recent years. One auctioneer's ranking of the JAR results in its own sales placed it sixth, tied in price with the butterfly brooch from the same sale, behind an 8.62-carat emerald ring at $1,608,000 and the reversible pendant-brooch at $1,016,000.

The numbers

Carat weight

Not stated in the sources reviewed

Stones

Round rubies (pave), single-cut diamonds, one kite-shaped diamond, one kite-shaped ruby

Color/clarity grade

Not stated in the sources reviewed

Origin of stones

Not stated in the sources reviewed

Designer

Joel Arthur Rosenthal (JAR), Paris, circa 1998

Timeline

1. 1943

   Joel Arthur Rosenthal is born in the Bronx, New York.

2. 1966

   Rosenthal graduates from Harvard, having studied art history and philosophy, and soon moves to Paris.

3. 1977

   JAR opens at 7 Place Vendome, Paris, per the 2025 sale catalog and other accounts; the Met gives 1978.

4. 1998

   The quatrefoil ruby and diamond earclips are made, circa this year.

5. 2002

   The earclips are illustrated as plate 289 in the book JAR Paris.

6. 2002

   The Jewels of JAR Paris opens at Somerset House, London, running into 2003, with about 400 pieces shown in darkness; the earclips are exhibited.

7. Nov 20, 2013

   Jewels by JAR opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Met's first exhibition devoted to a contemporary artist of gems.

8. Mar 9, 2014

   The Met exhibition closes.

9. Sep 5, 2025

   The single-owner sale A Legacy of Elegance, including more than 10 JAR jewels, is announced for New York.

10. Dec 5, 2025

    Sale highlights go on view at the Breuer building on Madison Avenue.

11. Dec 8, 2025

    The earclips sell for $698,500 at auction in New York, above their $600,000 high estimate.

The world in 1998

• Jan 17, 1998

  The Drudge Report breaks the Clinton-Lewinsky story.

• Feb 7, 1998

  The Winter Olympics open in Nagano, Japan.

• Apr 10, 1998

  The Good Friday Agreement is signed in Northern Ireland.

• Jul 12, 1998

  France wins the World Cup it hosted, beating Brazil 3-0 in the final.

• Sep 4, 1998

  Larry Page and Sergey Brin found Google in Menlo Park, California.

• Nov 20, 1998

  The Zarya module, the first piece of the International Space Station, is launched.

• Dec 19, 1998

  The House of Representatives impeaches President Clinton.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, JAR Ruby & Diamond Earclips is number 33 of 100 in the jewelry entries of the FLOAT 100. 44 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (32 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The two earclips do not match: one centers a kite-shaped diamond, the other a kite-shaped ruby.
• JAR's 2002 London exhibition showed about 400 pieces in a darkened room, and visitors looked at them by flashlight.
• Before he made jewels, Rosenthal ran a needlepoint business in Paris whose customers included designers from Hermes and Valentino.
• JAR's salon at 7 Place Vendome has no sign and no shop window.
• In the same evening, a JAR butterfly brooch from around 1987 sold for exactly the same price as these earclips, $698,500.
• The 2013 Met show was the museum's first exhibition devoted to a contemporary artist of gems.