Lalique Tiaras: From God to a Rooster’s Breakfast

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The setting of gems is profound meditation. How can a tiara or crown give its wearer the verisimilitude of God on Earth? Rene Lalique couldn’t care less. He transformed the appearance of jewelry with new themes.

Combining French Symbolist philosophy with ideas from Japanese art, he incorporated gem setting into raptors’ claws in this comb, made of horn, enamel, and sapphires. It sold for 92,500 euros on 6/14/2013 at Brissonneau Auction House, Paris;

rain, in the moonstone drops falling from blonde tortoiseshell buds in his famous Moonstone Tiara;

and tree-branch garlands. This tiara has leaves of green enamel with small diamond flowers, which are decorated with a mabe pearl garland. It sold at Christie’s for $112,561 on 6/17/2008.

However, being a keen ethologist, two of his pieces stand out as exemplary expressions of animal behavior.

“Head with Rooster Headdress” resides at the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian. It is made from silver, enamel, and alabaster, and minutely details the intricacy of rooster feathers. What makes this piece special to me is the ruby set in the rooster’s mouth. In real life, roosters eat red currants.

In Lalique’s dragonfly tiara, his golden insects have plique-a-jour enamel wings, but they are also behaving. When dragonflies fly at night, migrating or not, they fly toward the light. Lalique symbolized a light in the dark with an aquamarine.

Art Nouveau jewelry was not only art, engineering, Japonisme, and Symbolism. The gems set in tiaras, diadems, and combs went from symbolizing a wearer’s godlike status to accurately representing a rooster’s breakfast.

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For more scholarly research please examine our Resource Library and these books:


The Jewels of Lalique
Rene Lalique at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum
Rene Lalique: Exceptional Jewellery, 1890-1912

Jen Cruse: The Swastika Motif

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The comb in the photograph, a celluloid low back comb (simulating tortoiseshell), was bought in an Antique shop in Quebec City in 1995 for C$50 (£30). The decorative band along the heading, fixed to the comb by three rivets, comprises two clockwise pointing swastikas set with clear paste-stones, placed between three flower and leaf motifs of gilded metal, possibly aluminium.

The Swastika, a cross in which the arms or bars (sometimes referred to as crampons) are extended at right angles, is a sacred symbol derived from Sanskrit, the language of the Aryan (Hindu) civilisations of ancient India, dating back at least 8,000 years. The motif is now regarded by many cultures around the world as a good luck symbol and an implied prayer for success and accomplishment. The four arms may either point to the left or to the right, the latter being the more familiar and in this form may have been based on a sun symbol representing the clockwise movement of the sun.

The motif (with clockwise arms) was adopted by Hitler as an emblem of the Nazi Party, and incorporated into the German national flag from 1935 to 1945. Consequently it became a symbol of oppression in the countries occupied by Germany during the Second World War and was often called the “crooked cross”.

Occasionally combs are encountered that carry the swastika symbol as part of the decoration. The connection between this comb and the wearer is uncertain; it may allude to a Nazi supporter or a patriotic emigrant, or on the contrary, to one who has escaped the Nazi tyranny. The comb in this case is most probably American made, sometime during the first quarter 20th century, with the decoration added at a later date. Could it have been a commemorative piece?

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For more scholarly research, please examine our Resource Library and


The Comb: Its History and Development

Jewish Burial Combs

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“Ritual purification before God” defines Jewish burial. The liturgy and ceremony to prepare the body is called taharah, from the Hebrew verb taher, “be pure.” The Torah first mentions it in Genesis 35:2 – “Then Jacob said… Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments.”


Photo: Jewish Museum of Prague.

Strict adherence to taharah is performed by burial societies called chevra kadisha. It is considered to be a great honor to do this and the last kindness, for you can never be thanked.


Photo: Jewish Museum of Prague.

The purification ritual has three parts: Washing the person, Showering the person, and Dressing the person. The comb plays an important role in the first and last parts.

The initial washing removes all artificial adornment. As this is done, fingernails are cut and the hair is combed. This explains why fingernail instruments are attached to the burial combs seen in the Jewish Museum of Prague.


Photo: Jewish Museum of Prague.

This rare brass comb with the Lion of Judah comes from The Creative Museum. Its inscription says, “A day of darkness, a day of mayhem comes upon us.”

However, in other parts of the world, the burial comb can have hand-engraved floral ornaments, as in this Moroccan Jewish comb from the Kajetan Fiedorowicz collection

and this silver burial comb from the Sydney Jewish Museum.

Or, the comb can just have text, such as this one from 15th Century Germany, which says, “This book was awarded to Yechezkel Rechkher of Brishköller. Laila Zecheneshel.”

Once the body is purified, the person is put in the coffin and dressed in tachrichim, white-cotton-shroud garments that symbolize the costume of Kohen Gadol, or High Priests during Israel’s First and Second Temple periods. The comb is used once again to set and dress the hair.

This piece is from the Michael Steinhart Judaica Collection. Breslau, 1868. Inscription: This is a gift of the treasured woman, madam Haya, daughter of the leader Tzvi, for use by the Hevra Kadisha.

When the person is dressed, the casket is closed.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik wrote, “Human death, however… terminates a personality which was driven by vision and hope, which despaired, rejoiced and grieved, which lived not only in the present moment but in both retrospection and anticipation. In a word, death destroys a world.”

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For more scholarly research, please examine


Tachrichim Jewish Burial Shrouds
Kitzur Dinei Taharah
Jewish Museums of the World: Masterpieces of Judaica

The Creative Museum in Exhibition: Le Japon Amoureux

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The Museum of African and Asian Arts in Vichy, France, resides in a 19th Century residence and contains collections, which were gathered by Christian missionaries from both continents.

The Creative Museum was one of the representatives invited to share their private collection for the real-life exhibition, “Le Japon Amoureux,” whose opening was quite the event.

Idealistically, Edo Japan’s concept of love was fleeting beauty in a “Floating World,” called Ukiyo. One could escape life’s banalities and experience love as the ultimate art form.

In real life, Ukiyo developed in Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Edo, as Japanese merchants became wealthy and thrived under the Tokugawa Shogunate. The artistic skill, ornamentation, and innovation of geishas, courtesans, and kabuki actors made the Floating World a mesmerizing draw for audiences and patrons.

Documentation started with Ukiyo-e, woodblock prints, which were invented during the Edo period (1600-1827). They portrayed love stories, such as the Tale of Genji, which explores different types of affection, friendship, loyalty and family. Ukiyo-e also advertised plays and tea houses.

In kabuki theatre, men played all the roles. To play a woman, the male actor adopted an attitude, which transformed him and was called kata. When taking a hairpin out of the hair, locks were suddenly released, symbolizing the overflow of passion.

Wigs were made from human hair, using a rigid frame to create complex knots, which signified the wearer’s status. For example, a large number of ornaments in a complex hair style showed that a woman had numerous admirers. This wig uses The Creative Museum’s blonde tortoiseshell set with a Kikyô flower family crest, as well as other tortoiseshell kanzashi.

Here are some more of The Creative Museum’s Japanese pieces on display:

The viewer can see this ivory kushi and kogai set with a Japanese landscape that looks like Mt. Fuji;

this silver kogai stick with floral embellishments, coral beads, and a curved ornament that hides the link attaching the hair;

and this superb engraved-ivory tama kanzashi with a netsuke rabbit.

In the Floating World, love was only an illusion, ill-treating human beings until death. To hear The Creative Museum’s many more insightful observations, one must see the entire multimedia presentation.

They conquered the real museum world again. Time to uncork the champagne!

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For more scholarly research, please examine our Resource Library and the publications and exhibitions of The Creative Museum

Scythian Burial Mound: Чурт доллу барз, Churt Barzu Dolly

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Dotting the fields of modern-day Chechnya are Bronze Age burial mounds created by the “classical Scythians,” known to the Greeks as a militaristic, pastoral Iranic people who lived by the Northern Black Sea.


First Century BC map of the land between the Black and Caspian Seas.

In 612 BC, the Scythians conquered the Assyrian capital of Niniveh and moved East. Along the way they made funerary mounds, six of which were excavated near the village of Gojty in modern-day Chechnya.


Modern map of the land between the Black and Caspian Seas.

The most interesting mound, or kurgan, is the Чурт доллу барз, or Churt Barzu Dolly.

The tomb contained soldiers (men and women) dressed in full armor with weapons, as well as murdered female slaves, who would have come from another tribe. However, there was also a unique find.

A bone comb.

On top was a winged deer, kneeling, listening, and ready to jump to its feet.

In the National Museum, New Delhi, there is a stone palette, which shows a winged Indo-Scythian horseman riding a winged deer, and being attacked by a lion. Indo-Scythian art combines Greek and Iranian influences, and the winged deer appears in both mythologies. The Greeks saw her as Artemis.

Did an Indo-Scythian carver put the virginal huntress on the bone comb to protect the young girls, relieve them of disease, and hunt with the soldiers’ bows and arrows?

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For more scholarly research, please see our Research Library and these products:


Scythian Gold
Authentic Ancient Scythian Silver Greek Drachm Wise Men Coin of King Azes II – 35 BC Jesus Time

Jen Cruse: The Butterfly Motif

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The butterfly, the short-lived ethereal beauty of gardens and countryside, has been a favourite motif adorning hair jewellery for at least the past 250 years and particularly popular through the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its delicate form is found on combs and hairpins from many countries around the world, and even featured on the celebrated comb attributed to one of the passengers on the fated Titanic before it sank in 1912. In Christian art, the butterfly symbolises the resurrected human soul. One Oriental source describes it as a sign of conjugal felicity – the Chinese Cupid – while another describes the butterfly, coupled with the chrysanthemum, as portraying beauty in old age. For the Maori peoples it represented the soul; for the Greeks, immortality; yet for the Japanese it indicated a vain woman or a fickle lover. Always popular in England, butterflies were a favourite in the 1870s during the vogue for insect motifs in jewellery and later favoured by the Art Nouveau and Art Deco artists and designers.

Here are a few examples:


Butterfly cased comb in celluloid. British or French, c. 1920s – 1930s.


Butterfly on translucent horn, China, mid-20th century.


Cut steel butterfly with horn tines. English, mid to late 19th Century.


Polished bone butterfly hairpin. Bali, 1950s to 1980s.


Celluloid butterfly comb and two hairpins. USA, c.1910-1920s.


Buffalo horn with inlaid mother-of-pearl butterfly. Indonesia, mid to late 20th Century.

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For more scholarly research, please examine our Resource Library and


The Comb: Its History and Development

Lalique’s Berenice Tiara

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Although a revelation to some, Lalique designed tiaras for actresses other than Sarah Bernhardt. One of his most eloquent pieces was made for Julia Bartet, who starred in Jean Racine’s Bérénice at the Comédie-Française in 1893.

The perfect material for theatre props, Lalique used an aluminum frame, which was shaped into lotus flowers and openwork palmettes. Figures of the Greco-Roman goddess Isis punctuated five ivory cameos, depicting scenes from Bérénice’s life.

Jean Racine (1639-1699) wrote tragedies in which men fall from prosperity to disaster. But being a Jansenist Christian, his sense of fatalism and divine grace departed from Greek tragedy, where merciless Gods lead men to unforeseen doom. Instead, Racine’s tragic vision was the product of unrequited love.

In Bérénice, Racine wrote about the all-consuming love between her and Titus, son of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. When Vespasian died, it was thought Titus would finally be free to marry his true love. However the Roman population would not accept a “foreign” queen. In 79 AD, when Titus became Emperor, he caved into Roman political pressure and chose his duty over her. Although he begged her to stay, she ran away, and he continued as Emperor.


Photograph of Julia Bartet in the Role of Bérénice with Lalique’s tiara at the Musée Lambinet, Versailles.

The real Bérénice was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I, the Jewish client-king of Roman Judea, and the man who built the Second Temple of Jerusalem. Herod’s entire family were Roman citizens. During the First Roman-Jewish War, in 70 AD, Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed Herod’s temple — while involved in a passionate love affair with his daughter. This is the reason Titus had to choose between Rome and Bérénice.


Soldiers taking away the spoils of the Second Temple, carved on the Arch of Titus

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For further scholarly research please examine our resource library and these books:


Bérénice (French Edition)
Rene Lalique: Exceptional Jewellery, 1890-1912
The Jewish War, by Josephus

The Creative Museum Triumphs Again

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Every culture has a comb. It can symbolize a ruler’s deification, be a liturgical object for high priests, or an item that pushes the limits of an artistic movement. In Japanese culture, combs were an expression of love.

On May 4, The Creative Museum steps into the real world again by contributing items from their Japanese collection to an exhibition at the Musée d’arts d’Afrique et d’Asie called Le Japon Amoureux. Their combs will accentuate the Musée’s own collection of Japanese prints.

Having gained recognition by a second museum after En Tête à Tête at Le Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême, The Creative Museum’s collection is becoming a source for museums around the world. I am eagerly anticipating their multimedia presentation about Le Japon Amoureux. For now, I will just pick a few of my favorite Japanese combs.

This is a full modern wedding set of turquoise silk with colorful beads. It is composed of a kushi, two pairs of kanzashi and a bar placed in the bun.

This silver kanzashi celebrates a popular Japanese wedding concept: the crane for happiness and faithfulness; Minogame, a sea turtle so old, seaweed gets stuck to his tail. He symbolizes endurance and longevity; and pine branches and cherry blossoms for renewal.

This red cinnebar lacquer comb is decorated with ravens.

These two combs were made for Western clients. The first is carved in a beautiful cherry. Cranes and bamboo are painted in gold.

The second is made of shell with gold sparrows.

An Edo lacquered wood and gilt embossed comb with Takamaki-e (a technique where the lacquer is polished down to show the gold paint in high relief) shows a palanquin highlighted in black.

A moon of pierced blond tortoiseshell appears behind a dark cloud. Taisho (1912-1926). I think this shows how the Art Deco movement influenced Japanese artists.

I have left out some splendid pieces. To see those in the context of the exhibition, you can wait for the slide show or examine The Creative Museum’s entire Japanese collection.

For more scholarly research, please examine the publications of The Creative Museum.

Etruscan Hair Comb

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Before the Roman Empire, there was Ancient Italy, a compilation of cultures who absorbed each other’s ideas through trade. This map would date from 700 to 400 BC.

Greeks started colonizing Southern Italy in 800 BC, creating the province of Magna Graecia. They traded and had great cultural influence on late Villanovan culture, from which Etruscan civilization emerged. Mycenaean Greece’s Lion Gate (1300 BC) could have been a perfectly natural subject for an Etruscan artist to choose.

I believe this Etruscan ivory comb (600 to 500 BC) is a tribute to the Lions Gate at Mycenae. Using sgraffito, two decorative Greek-vector borders were scratched in: a larger pattern below the lions, and a smaller one above the tines, which might represent the gate itself. On the triangle just above the tines, circles signify a sacred emblem, the solar disc.

The comb is an example of the Hellenized world in Ancient Italy before the Roman Empire. It resides in The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

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For more scholarly research, please examine our Resource Library and


Greek And Etruscan Jewelry, A Picture Book: The Metropolitan Museum Of Art

The Böört: Headdress of the Turkic Shaman

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After being educated by Siberian shamans for three years, I became the first wolf shaman in Turkey. The Ajalat Shamanic Center is the only place in Turkey where traditional Turkic Shamanism is practiced. My colleague Asu Mansur and I have dedicated ourselves to strengthen and develop the ancient way of shamanism by guiding people to a natural way of being.

In this video, you can see what we do.
You may click the picture to view the video, as well.

The headdress of the traditional Turkic kam is often called a böört, which is pronounced like bird, but with a “t” at the end. The Böört is a very important part of the kam’s equipment. It not only protects the shaman from negative entities called Aza, it also gives the owner a light feeling in the head when it is put on.

The first kams in Turks are women. The cams of the past are the bards of today. Bards and cams go back and forth between the lower world (Erlik-Darkness) and the Upper world-Lightness and expel the evil spirits. It ensures that the light wins goodness. The yin and yang in nature are black and white, it provides the balance between good and evil. In the Efe game of the Turks, it is a cam dance in the form of an eagle. and bravery wins.

The lightness in the head is created by the many feathers, which most often surround the böört. The feathers should be from strong and high-flying birds, like the eagle, crane, or goose.

One eagle feather is necessary because the eagle is a predator who can protect the head of its owner from evil spirits. The feathers also help the shaman fly to other dimensions and the upper world, where the ancestors and gods are. Mostly, it does not matter what is put on the böört, except for the feathers. They must have some protective or strengthening value.

The long ribbons in front of a böört are mainly designed for their protective purposes from evil spirits or evil eyes. Evil eyes can burn you or let you dry out. For example, if you walk through a shopping mall, sit in a crowded area, or a better example: you are with people you do not like so much, your eyes will start to burn or itch. This is a sign that one or more people have burned you with their evil eyes. A good way to protect oneself from this, if you are not a shaman, is to put on mirrored sunglasses. They will reflect the energy back to the owner, because your eyes will not be in contact. The shaman needs these ribbons for the same purpose.

Some shamans put horns to each side of the böört. This has two reasons. One is for threatening reasons and the other one has ancestral significance. The threatening part is again against evil spirits, to push them away like the bull pushes away its attackers.

The ancestral value is dedicated to Oguz Khan, the first Turk in history. The name Oguz means the ones from the space (aliens). From Oguz Khan, all the Turkic tribes came out. Oguz Khan was blueish, had red eyes and a red mouth. His helmet had two long horns at their sides.

That was the time long before Abraham. In respect and knowledge of our forefathers, the shaman wears the böört to carry this legacy from generation to generation. Shamans are also keepers of the truth and true history. Therefore, everything they put on the böört is a truth.