Art is at the center of every piece we create at Moutoniere, and there’s nothing that inspires art more than love. The romance of it. The absence of it. The destruction of it.
In honor of the season of love, we’ve dedicated four of our favorite pieces to four of our favorite love stories, each a masterpiece in its own right.
Love as fuel.
Frida Kahlo has often described her marriage to Diego Rivera as one of the great accidents of her life.
The two prominent artists first met in 1928. Twenty-two-year-old Kahlo was just emerging on the art scene, while Rivera, twenty years her elder, had already cemented his place among the greats.
They were married one year later.
Despite their vow, their relationship was filled with tumult. Affairs and messy fights and miscarriages that had Kahlo illustrating her pain alongside her belief that Rivera wasn’t fit to be a father. Kahlo once wrote, “I love you more than my own skin and even though you don’t love me the same way, you love me anyways, don’t you? And if you don’t, I’ll always have the hope that you do.”
They spent nearly twenty years painting each other, telling stories in the art that cultivated their legacy.
Though she was often depicted as inferior to Rivera, Frida Kahlo is now recognized as a timeless feminist icon. As such, the Patrick Puckett scarf is the perfect item to honor Kahlo. Puckett uses his art to celebrate the unapologetic confidence of the women in his life. For the scarf, he envisioned a woman of the future, surrounded by yet-to-exist flowers.
A woman like Frida.
Love as a constancy.
Penelope waited for Odysseus for twenty years. Even when everyone assumed Odysseus was dead after the war, Penelope still waited. She refused hundreds of suitors, certain Odysseus would return even after he was rumored dead. For her, love meant waiting.
For Odysseus, love meant doing everything in his power to make it home. He fought monsters and storms, gods and seductions—even the promise of immortality. His love for her was the only thing that carried him through his odyssey.
The Guiding Star Signet is the only piece worthy of their enduring love. At the center of this signet, an engraved aquamarine or garnet intaglio captures the North Star—the symbol of return.
Love as an inextricable link.
Catherine and Heathcliff are often depicted as this great love story, when really their love is nothing more than a path of mutual destruction. The two met as children when Heathcliff was brought into Wuthering Heights and immediately deemed an outcast for his otherness. Catherine was the only one who accepted him for who he was.
Their love endured despite the tensions tearing them apart, which led to a fixation on both ends. Heathcliff, because Catherine’s acceptance was the only validation he craved. And Catherine, because her identity was linked to Heathcliff's. When she said, “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”—that wasn’t a quote about romance. It was a quote about the loss of her identity.
The Knot Necklace mirrors their intertwined destinies, each twist of the design echoing the bonds that both unite and haunt them.
Love as tragedy.
When John F. Kennedy Jr. walked into the Calvin Klein showroom in 1992 and first met Carolyn Bessette, he was immediately struck by her quiet elegance. Her life was defined by discretion and elegance, her allure inseparable from her resistance to the spotlight.
Kennedy was American royalty. He grew up in the spotlight. Carolyn sought refuge from it. This tension became fodder for the press, who just wanted more of this woman who refused to give them anything. The media only grew more frenzied in the wake of their highly elusive wedding, something that continued to strain their quiet but passionate love until their tragic death in 1999.
Carolyn’s style was minimal, refined, and deliberately protective—every choice a quiet boundary against the world. The Classic Bomber reflects that same ethos: understated, impeccably crafted, and designed for the life she lived on her own terms. A piece that honors both her timeless style and the careful way she preserved herself and their love.