It was 1936, and Pablo Picasso and his lover Dora Maar had joined the young painter and sculptor Meret Oppenheim for lunch at the Café de Flore, that famed stomping ground of Parisian creatives. Oppenheim was just 22 years old, but already known in Paris for her strange Surrealist canvases, her devilish wit, and her audacity.

With typical flair, she arrived at the restaurant wearing an unusual accessory: a bracelet swathed in fur. (She’d recently pitched the outlandish cuff to jewelry designer Elsa Schiaparelli, who included it in her winter collection.) Picasso and Maar were taken with the piece, and at one point, Picasso jovially suggested that perhaps anything could be covered in fur. Not missing a beat, Oppenheim replied, “Even t...