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- A Short History of Twentieth Century Jewellery
A Short History of Twentieth Century Jewellery
- By Whitehouse, Richard
- Published 24 April 2008
- Jewellery, Snuff Boxes and Miniatures , 20th-century Decorative Art
- Unrated
The art jewellers of Paris
Paris was of course the source and the trendsetter of Art Deco, which is itself named after the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderns held in Paris. The Swiss born designer, Jean Dunand (1877 – 1942) whose hammered metal, lacquered vases, furniture and screens were greatly indebted to non western styles, also designed a small but stunning body of jewellery. They were made largely of silver lacquered with red and black, Dunand’s dangling earrings and earclips, brooches and bracelets, assumed geometric shapes containing equally strong motifs – interwoven and superimposed lines, zigzags, openwork squares and triangles. Gérard Sandoz (b. 1902) came from a family of jewellers and began to design starkly geometric pieces for the Sandoz firm while he was still a teenager. His output is significant within the realms of the Art Deco period. Another gifted goldsmith was Jean Després (1889 – 1980), whose industrial-design training in the First World War is reflected in his strong pieces. His machine age aesthetic may be interpreted as unwieldy and masculine, but it was well suited to the Jazz Age, to the increasingly strong image of the liberated, at times androgynous women. Després/s modernist, industrial derived pieces are some of the most desirable for collectors of vintage jewellers of today. Raymond Templier (1891 – 1968) came from a family of Parisian jewellers. His designs were boldly geometric, but sported geometric stones, brooches with scattering of diamonds against dark platinum fields. He was especially fond of precious white metals such as platinum and silver, paired them with onyx and other dark stones in stunning pieces.
Paul Emile Brandt was a Swiss born jeweller who began working in the Art Nouveau but evolved into a highly admired Art Deco jeweller. His cocktail watches for instance, are richly bejewelled but strictly geometric. The Cartier firm, founded in 1847, reached dizzy heights of Art Deco splendour under the direction of Louis Cartier (1874 – 1945). His fascination with exotic motifs led to the creation of diamond, ruby and platinum earrings from which hung jade roundels carved with elephants, and a gold and enamel bangle with two carved-coral chimera heads facing each other in the centre. In the 1930’s figurative clips and brooches, featuring ornate blackmoor heads, even American Indian squaws and chiefs, were marketed by Cartier and spawned a whole wave of cheap imitations, especially in plastic and base metals. The glass jewellery of Réne Lalique and Gabriel Argy Rouseau deserves special mention. By the 1920’s the master goldsmith Lalique had become the premier glassmaker of France. He created some lovely glass jewellery; pendants, some inspired by openwork Japanese Swordguards, or tsubas, and moulded with stylized leaf or animal design. Others with insects and lovely female figures, all hanging from silk cord terminating in rich tassles. All glass rings, necklaces made up partly or wholly or wholly of hemispherical, zigzag, floral, foliate or round beads, and brooches on metal backs.
Motifs: from the sublime to the ridiculous
Art Deco style in other European countries was largely derivative, like the Italian G. Ravasco’s diamond studdied geometric creations or Theodor Fahmer’s later jewels. Some London jewellers, like Asprey and Mappin & Webb, produced Art Deco Style confections, but these are largely unsigned so the designers are unknown. Some British design jewellers however, like Sybil Dunlop, Harold Stabler and H.G. Murphy, known primarily for their Arts and Crafts pieces produced decidedly moderne jewels
Geoge Jensen’s firm in Copenhagen continued to produce silver jewllery in the Art Deco era adding sharp geometric forms to it’s repertoire of stylised motifs, these in turn were imitated by a host of European jewellrs.
The indigenous Mexican silver industry was highlighted in the Art Deco period by the talents of an American architect designer teacher, William Spratling, who settled in Taxco in 1929. He opened a shop dealing in traditional crafts and also started a school where he trained natives to work with silver and other substances. A whole community sprang up in Taxco around Spratling and his wife.
Several significant jewellery manufacturers like New York’s Oscar Heyman & Brothers, the Bonner Manufacturing Company and Walter P. McTeigue, Inc, provided Saks Fifth Avenue and other exclusive department stores with their creations. Even the mail order Sears, Roebuck catalogue featured moderne jewellery.
The motifs of Art Deco jewellery range from the sublime to the ridiculous: from stunning geometric configurations of paste to silly cherries dangling from a wooden bar. The former has borrowed its subject from deluxe jewellery of the time, but the latter, a joke, has come about more or less on its own. Animals and people inhabit the world of 1920s and 30s costume jewellery, from gentle playful fawns and playful plastic Scotty dogs to paste, turquoise and Marchasite Chinamen and elegant, gilt metal cloche hatted vamps. Flowers in every possible colour, combinations and variety sprouted on gilt metal or silver brooches and pendants, their paste petals glittering shamelessly.
The Twenties and Thirties 1919 – 1930
The end of the First World War marked the start of the popularity of costume jewellery. Fine jewellery at the time had unpleasant associations with being frivolous and unpatriotic. The new fashion for women was casual as well as sporty, and was not very well suited to the formality of precious gemstones. The Art Nouveau movement had already prompted a change in perception towards jewellery, focusing attention on aesthetic rather than monetary value. In the postwar period, the major couturiers took this one stage further by initiating the trend for entirely non-precious jewellery.
Popirot, Chanel and the fashion accessory
Paul Poiret had initiated the interest of the couturiers in costume jewellery before the war, when he produced theatrical jewellery for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe in 1910. The bold, vivid Eastern silhouettes associated with this influential ballet were in stark contrast to the Art Nouveau styles of the time. Poiret later developed his range of costume jewellery further. He commissioned the fine jeweller Rene Boivin, Gripoix, the artist Paul Iribe to accesorise his collections for the European department stores as early as 1913. They produced the silk tassle jewellery studded with semi precious that typifies Poiret’s style. Other couturiers such as Chanel, Shiaparelli, Premet and Drescoll followed Poiret’s lead.
Fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue were at first cautious about the idea, as they relied heavily on advertising revenue from the fine jewellery houses such as Cartier. However, they overcame their trepidation and began to feature the new costume jewellery in the mid 1920’s. Other magazines throughout Europe and particularly America took up the theme and costume spread rapidly internationally.
The couturiers revelled in intricate detail and elaboration, particularly embroidered beadwork and garnitures, which reflected current fashions and the use of sequins that adorned eveningwear. One of the most flamboyant and innovative of fashion designers was Coco Chanel who coined the term ‘junk’ jewellery
Twenties fashion dictated a new range of ornaments. As well as the3 bob haircut, there were the dropped waistlines, rising and falling hemlines, and décolleté necklines and backless dresses, requiring a new range of jewellery styles. Costume jewellery expanded accordingly to include clips, liberty pins (to hold up corsetless lingerie), and free flowing sautoirs associated with the dropped waistline.
American and mass-produced jewellery
America was well placed to apply the new manufacturing techniques to the jewellery field, and where Paris led the trend for costume jewellery, it was America that chiefly propagated it. Less hide bound by craft traditions than the European countries, and less inhibited by old bureaucracies and stylistic inertia, America was undergoing full-scale industrialisation. In the jewellery field America simply ceased to import or copy European role models and began to experiment with new technologies and materials of its own, to the extent that jewellery manufacture rapidly became a major industry. Companies along the length of the East Coast, from New York City to Providence, Rhode Island such as Napier and Co., were involved in jewellery production. Lightness and simplicity were the qualities aspired to. New materials came into their own, particularly plastics.
Plastic jewellery
The widespread introduction of synthetic plastics during the 1920s marked the beginning of jewellery that was affordable to the masses. Plastic was not particularly cheap and did not have couturier name attached to enhance its price. Plastic was ideally suited to machine production and to the new clean cut geometric Art Deco styles. Plastic could be easily moulded into sharply defined shapes and it offered the possibility of ‘Mathematical precision and purity of finish’. As soon as plastics became available manufacturers started to produce large quantities of beads, bangle bracelets, and moulded pins with a variety of different finishes from mottled to pearlised effects.
Bakelite was light, warm, and virtually indestructible and extremely wells suited to the imitation of a number of different substances. From the 1920s onwards it could be produced in more sophisticated colours. It was not just an inferior imitation of natural materials, but had many unique qualities.
Paris was of course the source and the trendsetter of Art Deco, which is itself named after the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Moderns held in Paris. The Swiss born designer, Jean Dunand (1877 – 1942) whose hammered metal, lacquered vases, furniture and screens were greatly indebted to non western styles, also designed a small but stunning body of jewellery. They were made largely of silver lacquered with red and black, Dunand’s dangling earrings and earclips, brooches and bracelets, assumed geometric shapes containing equally strong motifs – interwoven and superimposed lines, zigzags, openwork squares and triangles. Gérard Sandoz (b. 1902) came from a family of jewellers and began to design starkly geometric pieces for the Sandoz firm while he was still a teenager. His output is significant within the realms of the Art Deco period. Another gifted goldsmith was Jean Després (1889 – 1980), whose industrial-design training in the First World War is reflected in his strong pieces. His machine age aesthetic may be interpreted as unwieldy and masculine, but it was well suited to the Jazz Age, to the increasingly strong image of the liberated, at times androgynous women. Després/s modernist, industrial derived pieces are some of the most desirable for collectors of vintage jewellers of today. Raymond Templier (1891 – 1968) came from a family of Parisian jewellers. His designs were boldly geometric, but sported geometric stones, brooches with scattering of diamonds against dark platinum fields. He was especially fond of precious white metals such as platinum and silver, paired them with onyx and other dark stones in stunning pieces.
Paul Emile Brandt was a Swiss born jeweller who began working in the Art Nouveau but evolved into a highly admired Art Deco jeweller. His cocktail watches for instance, are richly bejewelled but strictly geometric. The Cartier firm, founded in 1847, reached dizzy heights of Art Deco splendour under the direction of Louis Cartier (1874 – 1945). His fascination with exotic motifs led to the creation of diamond, ruby and platinum earrings from which hung jade roundels carved with elephants, and a gold and enamel bangle with two carved-coral chimera heads facing each other in the centre. In the 1930’s figurative clips and brooches, featuring ornate blackmoor heads, even American Indian squaws and chiefs, were marketed by Cartier and spawned a whole wave of cheap imitations, especially in plastic and base metals. The glass jewellery of Réne Lalique and Gabriel Argy Rouseau deserves special mention. By the 1920’s the master goldsmith Lalique had become the premier glassmaker of France. He created some lovely glass jewellery; pendants, some inspired by openwork Japanese Swordguards, or tsubas, and moulded with stylized leaf or animal design. Others with insects and lovely female figures, all hanging from silk cord terminating in rich tassles. All glass rings, necklaces made up partly or wholly or wholly of hemispherical, zigzag, floral, foliate or round beads, and brooches on metal backs.
Motifs: from the sublime to the ridiculous
Art Deco style in other European countries was largely derivative, like the Italian G. Ravasco’s diamond studdied geometric creations or Theodor Fahmer’s later jewels. Some London jewellers, like Asprey and Mappin & Webb, produced Art Deco Style confections, but these are largely unsigned so the designers are unknown. Some British design jewellers however, like Sybil Dunlop, Harold Stabler and H.G. Murphy, known primarily for their Arts and Crafts pieces produced decidedly moderne jewels
Geoge Jensen’s firm in Copenhagen continued to produce silver jewllery in the Art Deco era adding sharp geometric forms to it’s repertoire of stylised motifs, these in turn were imitated by a host of European jewellrs.
The indigenous Mexican silver industry was highlighted in the Art Deco period by the talents of an American architect designer teacher, William Spratling, who settled in Taxco in 1929. He opened a shop dealing in traditional crafts and also started a school where he trained natives to work with silver and other substances. A whole community sprang up in Taxco around Spratling and his wife.
Several significant jewellery manufacturers like New York’s Oscar Heyman & Brothers, the Bonner Manufacturing Company and Walter P. McTeigue, Inc, provided Saks Fifth Avenue and other exclusive department stores with their creations. Even the mail order Sears, Roebuck catalogue featured moderne jewellery.
The motifs of Art Deco jewellery range from the sublime to the ridiculous: from stunning geometric configurations of paste to silly cherries dangling from a wooden bar. The former has borrowed its subject from deluxe jewellery of the time, but the latter, a joke, has come about more or less on its own. Animals and people inhabit the world of 1920s and 30s costume jewellery, from gentle playful fawns and playful plastic Scotty dogs to paste, turquoise and Marchasite Chinamen and elegant, gilt metal cloche hatted vamps. Flowers in every possible colour, combinations and variety sprouted on gilt metal or silver brooches and pendants, their paste petals glittering shamelessly.
The Twenties and Thirties 1919 – 1930
The end of the First World War marked the start of the popularity of costume jewellery. Fine jewellery at the time had unpleasant associations with being frivolous and unpatriotic. The new fashion for women was casual as well as sporty, and was not very well suited to the formality of precious gemstones. The Art Nouveau movement had already prompted a change in perception towards jewellery, focusing attention on aesthetic rather than monetary value. In the postwar period, the major couturiers took this one stage further by initiating the trend for entirely non-precious jewellery.
Popirot, Chanel and the fashion accessory
Paul Poiret had initiated the interest of the couturiers in costume jewellery before the war, when he produced theatrical jewellery for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe in 1910. The bold, vivid Eastern silhouettes associated with this influential ballet were in stark contrast to the Art Nouveau styles of the time. Poiret later developed his range of costume jewellery further. He commissioned the fine jeweller Rene Boivin, Gripoix, the artist Paul Iribe to accesorise his collections for the European department stores as early as 1913. They produced the silk tassle jewellery studded with semi precious that typifies Poiret’s style. Other couturiers such as Chanel, Shiaparelli, Premet and Drescoll followed Poiret’s lead.
Fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue were at first cautious about the idea, as they relied heavily on advertising revenue from the fine jewellery houses such as Cartier. However, they overcame their trepidation and began to feature the new costume jewellery in the mid 1920’s. Other magazines throughout Europe and particularly America took up the theme and costume spread rapidly internationally.
The couturiers revelled in intricate detail and elaboration, particularly embroidered beadwork and garnitures, which reflected current fashions and the use of sequins that adorned eveningwear. One of the most flamboyant and innovative of fashion designers was Coco Chanel who coined the term ‘junk’ jewellery
Twenties fashion dictated a new range of ornaments. As well as the3 bob haircut, there were the dropped waistlines, rising and falling hemlines, and décolleté necklines and backless dresses, requiring a new range of jewellery styles. Costume jewellery expanded accordingly to include clips, liberty pins (to hold up corsetless lingerie), and free flowing sautoirs associated with the dropped waistline.
American and mass-produced jewellery
America was well placed to apply the new manufacturing techniques to the jewellery field, and where Paris led the trend for costume jewellery, it was America that chiefly propagated it. Less hide bound by craft traditions than the European countries, and less inhibited by old bureaucracies and stylistic inertia, America was undergoing full-scale industrialisation. In the jewellery field America simply ceased to import or copy European role models and began to experiment with new technologies and materials of its own, to the extent that jewellery manufacture rapidly became a major industry. Companies along the length of the East Coast, from New York City to Providence, Rhode Island such as Napier and Co., were involved in jewellery production. Lightness and simplicity were the qualities aspired to. New materials came into their own, particularly plastics.
Plastic jewellery
The widespread introduction of synthetic plastics during the 1920s marked the beginning of jewellery that was affordable to the masses. Plastic was not particularly cheap and did not have couturier name attached to enhance its price. Plastic was ideally suited to machine production and to the new clean cut geometric Art Deco styles. Plastic could be easily moulded into sharply defined shapes and it offered the possibility of ‘Mathematical precision and purity of finish’. As soon as plastics became available manufacturers started to produce large quantities of beads, bangle bracelets, and moulded pins with a variety of different finishes from mottled to pearlised effects.
Bakelite was light, warm, and virtually indestructible and extremely wells suited to the imitation of a number of different substances. From the 1920s onwards it could be produced in more sophisticated colours. It was not just an inferior imitation of natural materials, but had many unique qualities.