From early examples steeped in mysticism and ancient religious symbolism to modern flights of fancy starring insects with gossamer-sheer gold-work wings and bejeweled bodies, animal themes have been a constant motif over the years. An entire menagerie of ornamental renditions have found their places on the rings, brooches, bracelets and necklaces created by some of the most famous artisans of all times.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
According to Janet Zapata, a jewelry historian and co-author with Suzanne Tennenbaum of The Jeweled Menagerie: The World of Animals in Gems, the way in which the animals were depicted was dictated by the style of the era. In Art Nouveau, for example, animals were looked at in a surreal way. “They liked eerie insects; they liked the macabre. Lalique made a dragonfly corsage ornament that’s over nine inches in length.
Whereas in the Art Deco period, because the styles are based more on geometric motifs, the animals become more stylized.” Current events played a part as well, she points out. For example, the opening of King Tut’s tomb inspired Egyptian motifs, such as the scarab. The 1930s saw forms start to soften, Zapata explains, becoming bigger and more colorful, while in the Deco period, the colors were more black and white. “In the 1930s into the ’40s — the Art Moderne period — the jewelry becomes larger. Boivin did a wonderful large starfish that’s articulated,” so it moves when you wear it, becoming three dimensional.
“Later into the 1950s and ’60s,” Zapata goes on to say, “you have Schlumberger, who looks at jewelry in a surrealistic way, reinterpreting what had come before but now using enamel and diamonds” creating butterflies and seabirds, even a wonderful jellyfish. “And in the ’60s, David Webb introduced his animal jewelry, bracelets with different animal heads. Cartier in the ’40s did those wonderful ladybugs, and Boivin did great things and Lalique.”
And the list goes on and on, ranging from the realistic to the whimsical, like Raymond Yard’s dapper bunnies, imbued with amusing human characteristics, which first began to appear around 1928. In the late nineteenth century, Zapata points out, A.J. Hedges & Co., one of several jewelry manufacturers in Newark, New Jersey, produced “veil pins that were little dragonflies and you’d pinch the wings and the legs would open and you would clasp it onto the veil. They were made of gold and set with diamonds and dermatoid garnets.”
The nineteenth century, explains Lisa Hubbard, Sotheby’s chairman, jewelry, North and South America, “was all about snakes and birds.” And in the twentieth century, she points out, there were the panthers, the first great cat jewels, made by Cartier for the Duchess of Windsor. And David Webb had his frogs. “I just think people are constantly harkening back to nature for inspiration,” Hubbard says. “Everybody, regardless of the era, was trying to come up with something different and interesting and eye-catching.”
TIMELESS APPEALJill Burgum, director of jewelry and timepieces at Heritage Auction Galleries, Dallas, Texas, points to the whimsical appeal of animal jewelry. “In a lot of cases, the pieces just simply make people happy; they make people smile. A lot of the really fun pieces seem to have come out of the 1950s. They were very charming in nature.” And in the ’60s, she says, David Webb’s bangle bracelets “that have enamel and gemstones, shaped like a panther or a zebra, or frog, or some other animal, are very dramatic, over-the-top types of pieces.”
According to Stanley Silberstein, president, David Webb, Inc., which still produces many of those bracelets according to Webb’s original designs, animal jewelry encompasses many themes that touch people. “I think they appeal on multiple levels. You have the religious/zodiac appeal; you have the mystique of certain animals, like a snake; the mythical image of the frog prince. And you also have the sleekness of the cat — lions, tigers. Or even a horse. I think it all contributes to the appeal.”
“People love animals and the more charming the animal, the more people love it,” says Hubbard. “An animal that has some personality probably sells better than one that doesn’t. And the great thing about the old pieces is that their parts move.” A well-made animal jewel, she says, “is like having a little miniature pet that goes with you everywhere. And it transforms a jacket, coat, or scarf into something very distinctive.”
WHAT SELLSCamilla Dietz Bergeron,New York City–based estate jeweler, points out that“Sterle, a French designer in the late 1940s, ’50s, did some of the most fabulous bird brooches of anybody ever — the best.” Although the pieces had “some stones,” she explains, “it wasn’t the precious stones but the design quality of the birds” that makes them standouts; it’s the workmanship. Zapata echoes that thought. “It’s the design” that matters, she states. “It’s like anything in the market today, whether it’s silver or paintings or jewelry. If it’s a great design, everybody wants it and the prices jump up.”
Along with birds, that, she says, “probably sell the best of anything,” Bergeron says, “If you get a dog brooch that’s a really recognizable dog, people love it.” While she says she sells more brooches in the winter, Silberstein points out that “We’ve done more bracelets than anything, even though we’ve done a lot of brooches.” While various animals are in the line at any given time, Silberstein cites the frog and zebra as the most well-known. “We can’t keep them in stock—they’re still the most popular thing we do.”
The interesting thing to me, says Hubbard, “is the jeweler’s art of being able to take hard metal and all these kinds of stones and somehow wield them into a sinuous animal.”
“I think what appeals to most people these days, if you can get them, are the signed pieces from the jewelers who are most known for this sort of thing, ” says Hubbard, pointing out that Barbara Hutton had wonderful cat pieces from Cartier that were bringing extraordinary prices 20 years ago and these pieces hold their value.
Age isn’t always the key factor. Hubbard cites a Sotheby’s sale held in Geneva five years ago, “Jewels of Luisa Fanti Melloni,” that had a pair of lovebirds on the catalog cover. It had a fantastical array of exotic animals ranging from a cheetah lying on a branch of lapis lazuli, monkeys standing on citrine quartz to peacocks with elongated tails, polished gold panthers and more. “It was mostly Cartier jewelry, from the 1970s, ’80s and even ’90s. What amazed us was this was not vintage and they brought incredible prices. These were pieces that were bought within the past 15 years and people couldn’t get enough of them. And I just think a gold necklace of leaping dolphins, or a bracelet watch with a snake on top of it — these are pieces that appeal to everybody and can be worn by everybody.
They were all relatively new signed pieces and people just gobbled them up.” Burgum points out that in Heritage’s December 2007 auction, there were quite a few smaller items, pieces under $2,000 — an owl, terrier dog, butterflies.”
“This is a genre of jewelry that is alive and well. There can not be too many animals to meet the demand,” says Silberstein. “Animal jewelry is all about fantasy and whimsy. I’ve made blue enamel lions with diamonds, emeralds and rubies. We’ve done our frogs in green, black and white. It’s supposed to be fun. That’s the idea of it.”
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - February 2008. To subscribe click here.