TOUR DE FORCE

Van Cleef & Arpels’s latest High Jewelry collection finds inspiration in the tradition of the Grand Tour.

- NAOMI ROUGEAU

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see,” wrote English critic Samuel Johnson at the height of the Grand Tour’s popularity. (So much for #FOMO being a modern invention.) For young Europeans of means in the 17th to 19th centuries, these travels through Italy and France were a rite of passage, a way to supplement one’s education by taking in the treasures of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. The shared experience of the Grand Tour also contributed to a revival in classical styles among designers and architects—thanks in no small part to the objets travelers filled their country homes with upon returning.