The Story of Getty Jewelry

“Museum stores have the best jewelry!” a woman announces upon entering the Getty Center shop, making a beeline for the glass cases in front, virtually ignoring all the other merchandise.

The sales associates say this is a familiar story, some variation of this statement expressed daily by customers who congregate around the cases, leaning in to inspect every inch. They are like kids in a candy store, the equivalent of the school groups who flood into the shop before leaving Getty, immediately grabbing the hand-cranked flashlight keychains or the music boxes: a Van Gogh one that plays “Für Elise” by Beethoven, or a Bouguereau one that plays “La Vie en Rose,” popularized by Édith Piaf.

Feverish excitement about new jewelry on the part of visitors, staff, and volunteers is not uncommon. Jewelry at Getty has become big business. Sales have far exceeded expectations, just in the last few years alone.

There’s a reason for this popularity. This is not a random assortment of jewelry that can be found at any museum. Every piece on display at Getty is intentional. These are works that tell stories from the galleries, Getty’s paintings, sculptures, and other collections interpreted into adornments by passionate contemporary artisans eager to create something beautiful for someone to take home on a wrist, neck, or ear.

“People are creating a memory when they buy jewelry,” one sales associate told me, “a memory not only of having just experienced the artwork but also of a joyful day spent at the museum. Whenever you put that piece on, you always remember where you were when you bought it.” The store is the last stop for many visitors, and if they weren’t energized and inspired by their day, they wouldn’t spend the kind of money some of the jewelry costs to commemorate it.

I was offered a recent example of this, a story with a personal connection to Getty. It involved a necklace sold at the Camille Claudel exhibition. The Ophelia piece was the envy of visitors, a creation of Monika Knutsson, a jewelry designer from Sweden by way of New York City who counts Beyoncé as a fan. The necklace was crafted from repurposed French lace gathered from the time of Claudel, then plated in sparkling 24-karat gold. It retails for $975 ($1,067.62, including tax). The necklace was eventually purchased by a woman who had worked in Exhibitions years ago, revisiting the museum now as a patron. It struck me that both her time at Getty and her experience at the Claudel show were both positive enough that she was willing to invest that kind of money in this piece.

You want to bring home a memory, a story of your day.

“This is all an extension of the visitor experience,” Cory Gene Mayes says. He is the jewelry buyer for Getty, responsible for everything you see in the stores. “I’m the same exact way as every customer that comes in here. When I’m at another institution and go to a show, I go into the gift shop, inspired to buy something myself.”

Mayes told me his own story, that he had been an assistant buyer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before joining Getty six years ago, and that he had come from an art history background and studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. He credits Getty for allowing him to explore his passions. “Who knew there was a career like this, combining art history and fashion in this way?”

Like so many across the Getty campus, whether they are public facing or in the office suites, Mayes’s appreciation for the creative process is integral to how he approaches each day. He gets most animated when talking about Getty as a place where he can fuse the classical with the contemporary, both in what he finds for the stores and develops independently, always drawing from Getty’s rich permanent collection.

He told me about the line he shepherded based on ancient coins from the Villa. “It was, like, how can I take a new creative approach and spin this, taking something from antiquity and giving it a contemporary spin? So, we took coins from our collection, and Michael Michaud cast them in colored glass, which to me was exciting. You’re taking something that already exists in one medium and creating it in another.” Mayes took the same approach with his Isidora pieces, the earrings and necklaces he developed based on Mummy Portrait of a Woman, attributed to the Isidora Master in 100 CE.

It’s the story of the art on display at Getty and the story of the contemporary craftsperson interpreting that piece in their own unique way, fashioning an older artwork into a new form, feeding off the feeling or intention of the original artist who lived hundreds of years ago for someone to take home today. If only everybody had Queen Bey money.

Mayes understands the work and materials that go into these pieces can result in sticker shock, so accessibility is always in the forefront of his mind. Part of his mission is keeping prices lower while still retaining the quality expected from Getty. As an example, he mentioned a line of $50 strawberry enamel earrings based on a French medieval manuscript in the collection. Both the earrings and matching necklace have become perennial favorites, pieces he sees “on a young customer coming in, or I can see it on an older customer.”

Jewelry can range from tens of dollars to hundreds. While telling me about a 14-karat gold blue topaz necklace at the Villa that’s $1,500, Mayes gets just as excited about a new line of buttons displaying art from Getty that go for a dollar apiece, the price of a postcard.

At the end of the day, Mayes feels everyone should be able to carry away a memory of their time at the Center or Villa. It’s all part of the experience, taking something home when you leave. Whether you wear it to a formal event or pin it to your backpack as you head off to school, it becomes a reminder of a special day, a story to hold with you forever.