In 2019, a 3-centimetre quartz disc sold at Christie’s New York for $2.1 million. In the truest sense, the shard was a non-fungible token. It displayed a carved artwork of exceptional quality. It carried a fascinating story of a young man who drowned in mysterious circumstances. But most importantly, it was nearly 2,000 years old.
The passage of time has a remarkable effect upon objects. It imbues them with a characteristic that cannot be replicated under any circumstances - a long and storied history. It allows the rare artworks that survive from antiquity to merge two remarkable properties: absolute uniqueness - or non-fungibility - and intrinsic material value.
The stone fragment in question was a black chalcedony featuring a fine cameo of Antinous, the young favourite of Roman emperor Hadrian. Its first documented owner, Anton Maria Zanetti (1679 - 1767) desired the piece to such an extent that he supposedly said he would have sold his house to obtain it.
If the urge to possess a treasure could so consume a man in the 18th century, what can we say of the 21st century - an age when the word 'treasure' is reduced to marketing verbiage and “non-fungible tokens” are created a-million-a-day from computer code?
Naturally, the urge is more pressing than ever, as the sales at Christie's 2019 ‘Masterpieces in Miniature’ auction revealed. It is an innate part of being human to externalise our self-value by owning precious objects.
The luxury jewellery market, for example, is enjoying a boom, with substantial revenue growth forecast throughout the next decade. Its function as portable wealth - treasure - is one feature that allows it to thrive in times of economic instability, when other luxury markets contract.
Yet there is a contradiction at the heart of this trend. Jewellery’s worth is largely a social perception, offering far less financial liquidity than its lustre suggests. The intrinsic value of materials may amount to just 20 or 30 per cent of the purchase price, with the scrap value of recycled metals and gemstones significantly lower still. Diamonds have market-controlled rarity, their accepted value being tested by an expanding synthetic stone market.
In this clash between our need to treasure objects and a lack of true rarity and worth, a select category of jewellery is rising to the fore: One-of-a-kind creations that have both the brand recognition and design to become iconic. The addition of extraordinarily rare gemstones comes close, at great cost, to making such creations irreplicable.
Yet the original NFTs - miniature artefacts - precisely fulfil that purpose. In the early 1900’s Jacques Cartier began to make unique jewellery with Egyptian scarabs, whilst in the 1960’s Nicola Bulgari set ancient coins in statement jewellery, creating the highly prized Monete collection. Now jewellery houses such as Loren Nicole in California and Kapistree in the United Kingdom also set their finest creations with ancient artworks. The union of antiquity and contemporary jewellery design yields pieces that are greater than the sum of their parts.
Antiquities have long occupied a specialised corner of the art market, the preserve of discerning collectors and beloved in classical interiors. Small artefacts - jewellery items, micro-sculptures, carved stones and seals - have for the most part traded within limited, expert circles rather than before a broad public.
Objects too diminutive to function as room ornamentation were frequently relegated to cabinets and desk drawers - rarity and refinement undersold by mere scale. Recast within a jewellery setting, however, these treasures can realise their proper potential.
The effect upon fine jewellery is profound. Traditionally a maison’s creative property endures de jure with the maker; one-off designs are commonly reissued or absorbed into standard collections after the première sale. In horology, where scarcity is frequently market-managed, such replication can substantially diminish value. By contrast, an artefact-centred piece is anchored to an object that predates the maker and cannot legitimately be reproduced.
An artefact offers something wholly different: ownership of the object in entirety as a work of fine art. If the spirit of jewellery is to create personal signifiers, these pieces are as intimate as it can be. Three qualities that define treasure - uniqueness, intrinsic material worth and, that most elusive trait, profound meaning - are brought into sharp relief.
That promise depends, however, on rigorous authentication and suitable legislation controlling the trade. The antiquities market requires clearer frameworks that deter illicit trade while permitting genuine objects to be studied, catalogued and conserved.
Victorian collectors often separated objects from their archaeological contexts without preserving attendant records. The result is a body of artefacts whose thin provenance invites devaluation and ultimately loss. To permit such remarkable survivals of history to be neglected or misplaced would be lamentable. Ethical concerns surrounding such objects are specific to our time. The cultural heritage they represent must endure forever.
At a moment when technological change and artificial intelligence pose existential threats, there is renewed reason to cherish that which is unmistakably human. Private ownership and market interest, properly regulated, have a demonstrable role in conservation. Wider appreciation commonly stimulates discovery, scholarly attention, authentication and good stewardship, as the Asian art and ceramics markets have repeatedly shown.
For artefacts, fine jewellery is where these green shoots first appear. Portable wealth is most potent when it is elevated into portable art. In marrying the essence of fine art ownership with our desire to treasure, these small objects may yet secure the largest of legacies.