Picture it: Bombay, 1911. The steamer trunks are barely unloaded, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel hums with gin fizzes and gossip, and a young French jeweller named Jacques Cartier disembarks into a world that will upend everything he thought he knew about luxury. His eyes widen at the sight of carved emerald leaves glowing like captured sunlight against a maharaja’s silk turban. It was less discovery than revelation—and like all good revelations, it travelled back to Paris in steamer trunks.
“For a very long time, India was actually the place to source gemstones,” explains Julien-Loïc Garin, founder of The Collection by JLG in Hong Kong. “Of course, 18th-century Golconda diamonds were very famous, because that was the only source of diamonds we had [back then].” The legendary diamond mines of Golconda produced stones so flawless they became the stuff of myth, while the Mughal emperors had already perfected the art of combining precious stones in ways that would make a rainbow jealous.
The cultural exchange had begun centuries earlier with intrepid merchants like Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who “travelled to India from France and brought back the very famous jewellery, the very famous gems that were sold to the kings of Europe, particularly the kings of France,” Garin says. Think Louis XIV commissioning diamonds cut to Indian proportions, or Marie Antoinette threading them into her hair at Versailles. But it was the early 20th century that marked the true revolution. The generation of maharajas coming of age were sophisticated globetrotters who brought their precious stones to European ateliers, commissioning pieces that would bridge two worlds.
The real catalysts were figures like the Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala and the Maharaja of Indore. In 1925, the Maharaja of Patiala placed what would become the largest single order ever made with Cartier. But this wasn’t just about displaying wealth—it was about creating something entirely new. “They brought so much of their gems to be reset,” Garin says. “And that’s what’s interesting… they wanted jewellery commissioned in European style.” Patiala’s commission was less transaction than theatre, dazzling even Paris.
What made this exchange revolutionary was what the maharajas brought with them: “carved stones completely unknown in Europe that really influenced the way that modern Western jewellers, like Cartier in particular, would start designing.” Forget the tidy faceted gems of Place Vendôme—here came emeralds carved into leaves, rubies into berries, sapphires into blossoms. They were less stones than luscious gardens you could wear. Cartier would later perfect this hybrid in the dazzling Tutti Frutti style.
To understand why these Indian influences were so radical, picture European jewellery before 1920. “If you look at the Belle Époque style just before [the Art Deco period], it’s very plain. It’s diamond and platinum—white, bright and bling, but very plain in terms of colours,” Garin says. The Victorian era favoured monochrome elegance. “And that’s really when the maharajas started to bring their rubies, sapphires and emeralds, that suddenly even the European style started to mix stones and colours.”
This wasn’t a contradiction to the Art Deco movement but a sophisticated synthesis. Art Deco emerged as a rebellion against Victorian excess, embracing what Garin describes as the inspiration of “modernity and machine.” Yet even as designers stripped away Victorian frippery, they found themselves drawn to the vibrant colour palette and organic motifs of Indian jewellery. “To put together red, blue and green is really something that is not classic European taste, but very Indian, on the contrary.”
The Maharaja of Indore exemplified this cultural fusion. “My sweet spot is the Maharaja of Indore and his wife, because they were extremely tasteful people… fascinated by European art and craft, but at the same time, still keeping very strong Indian references and culture,” Garin says. The maharaja commissioned the famous Indore Pears from Chaumet—two magnificent pear-shaped diamonds set in strikingly simple, modern settings. What made this piece important was its cultural symbolism: “He posed for a painting in his Indian costume with the Indore Pears set in Chaumet settings.” It was an image of modern India—comfortable in its silks, confident in its new Parisian diamonds.
“They [Indians] really found a way to make a new path [in jewellery design], at the crossroads of both cultures,” Garin reflects. The carved stone tradition became the foundation for Cartier’s Tutti Frutti style, elevating what Europeans had previously dismissed as “primitive stonework” to the pinnacle of luxury.
The influence extended beyond stones and colours. Indian enamelling techniques fascinated European jewellers. “The technique of enamel was completely redefined… in Europe, we were doing enamel already in the 14th, 15th century, but in a very different way,” Garin explains.
Perhaps the most subtle but profound Indian influence was jewellery layering. While European women typically wore single statement pieces, Indian tradition embraced abundance. “From India came the way to integrate fabric into jewellery. In India very often, stones are set on silk, on strings of fabrics,” Garin explains. This philosophy slowly infiltrated Western fashion. Even Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom adopted these techniques. “The layering of bracelets and bangles… the layering of necklaces of different colours… it’s because of the influence of the Indian Empire at the time.”
Today, this dialogue continues. “We have some amazing jewellery designers from India today, like [Viren] Bhagat… making a new way of doing Indian jewellery, but so contemporary and relevant,” Garin says. Even major maisons continue to draw from this well: “When you look at Van Cleef and Cartier… they still reference the carved stones in their latest collections.”
In his own work, Garin embodies this continuing design language. “What I love with carved stones is that they have such a strong personality… they speak their own language, and pull for a certain design,” he explains, creating contemporary pieces that reference the great garden-style bouquets made famous by Cartier and Lalique.
Today, when we casually stack our bangles or mix coloured gemstones without thinking twice, we’re unconsciously channelling the maharajas who dared to dream beyond tradition. Every time a designer reaches for a carved emerald or sets rubies against sapphires, they’re speaking a visual language first written in the palaces of Indore and Patiala. The carved stones that once seemed impossibly exotic to European eyes are now the lingua franca of luxury—a reminder that India did not merely add colour to jewellery; it rewrote its spectrum.
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