The story of modern enameling in this country begins in the industrial heartland of the Midwest, amid blazing steel mills, smoky oil refineries, and congested railroad yards.
Cherchez les femmes in Baltimore
Exhibitions that highlight the accomplishments of women in the arts have become something of a trend at American museums, one long overdue.
A cultural trifecta at the Bard Graduate Center
Our own interests in art and design history range so broadly that we were delighted by the diverse trio of exhibitions now on view concurrently at the Bard Graduate Center.
Eda Lord Dixon rediscovered
In 2014 the American Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art received a gift from devoted patron Jacqueline Loewe Fowler of a stunning Arts and Crafts silver and enamel hand mirror by Eda Lord Dixon. At the time, Eda was virtually unknown, even among Arts and Crafts silver scholars, principally because she rarely signed her work.
Curious Objects: David Webb archivist Levi Higgs and the company’s storied Zebra bracelet
The twentieth century jeweler David Webb was known for his use of vibrantly-colored gems and enamels and frequent use of animal imagery. His eponymous firm carries on his legacy.
The jeweled watches of Henry Blank and Company of Newark
The origins of the New Jersey jeweler
Parisian jewelry and American patrons, real and fictional
By SHIRLEY BURY; from The Magazine ANTIQUES, April 1992. The formidable skill of Parisian jewelers in interpreting the work of innovative designers was the prime cause of their international popularity. Although craftsmen elsewhere practiced the late eighteenth-century technique of open-backed, or à jour, setting, which allowed light to refract and reflect through the stones, greatly enhancing their brilliance, the contrast …
The jewelry of René Lalique
By GEOFFREY C. MUNN; from The Magazine ANTIQUES, June 1987. Even if the word genius was used as sparingly as it should be, the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century jeweler René Lalique would always be so described. Rather than a craftsman with a leaning toward the artistic, he was an accomplished artist who chose to express himself primarily in …
Eighteenth-Century Jewelry
By JOHN HAYWARD; from The Magazine ANTIQUES, April 1955. Most aspects of eighteenth-century arts and crafts have been the subject of detailed and exhaustive research in the course of the past fifty years. The jewelry of the period, however, has been somewhat neglected in favor of Renaissance jewelry (so called, though much of it dates from the first half of the seventeenth …
The Unknown Jewelry of Marie Zimmerman
from The Magazine ANTIQUES, January/February 2012