A “peineta” (the Spanish term for “haircomb”) is a female accesory similar to a comb with a convex boday linked to an area plenty of teeth. This accessory is meant to be put in place in a upsweep or low updo.
There’s proof of the use of this piece since Iberian women used it when living in the Iberian Peninsula. The flirty Roman women didn’t want to be less and also used to wear it on top of their complex and worked updo and hair braids.
Did you know they already used hair curlers back then? They were called “calmistrum” and it actually was a metal pipe that they placed over coal to warm it. Then the ointments did the rest of the work.
So yes, the beautiful Roman women used small combs to dress their hair.
The Spanish “peineta” were usually tortoiseshells. These pieces were very popular in some kind of celebrations like weddings, Holy Week processions, bullfightings, traditional parties and flamenco or copla shows.
The “peineta” is the perfect accessory for the laced shawls or “mantillas” since it highlights the beauty of the embroidery.
The most common comb models have ornamental curved (or squared somtimes) forms made in shell. Most of them have beautiful miniatures on them on shell. Nowadays however is mostly made in acetate or similar materials since turtles are in danger of extinction. Today there are only very few authentic shell-made tortoiseshells left.
Even more common today is the use of haircombs in silver to decorate the brides’ updo. Those were popularized back in the middle of the 19th century.
Nowadays you’ll easily find “peinetas” in silver with zircons, enamel, coral, semiprecious stones and even brass or gold.
The most valuable “peinetas” for collectors are those made back in the Imperial time in Golden brass and coral and also the art-nouveau style pieces from the beginning of the 20th century
The Frigate “Mercedes” has finally arrived to port… To a free exhibition that your kids will love. So if you plan coming to Madrid in October, don’t hesitate to pass over the rebuilt Archeological Museum in Madrid. A recommendation for the whole family!
This show pays homage to all those who died that October 5th back in 1804, when a Spanish flotilla (group of small war ships) came back from Peru loaded with very valuable merchandise and coins meant to recover the empty chest of the Spanish Government. Over half of a million gold and silver pieces, cocoa, vicuna wool among other things were some of the goods that this flotilla kept safe within them.
Suddenly, even though that was a peace period between Spain and England, an English fleet assaulted the Spanish ships. The Frigate Mercedes exploded a few minutes after the attack, and sank to the deepest Ocean in front of the Portuguese coast.
This story had an inmediate consequence: the end of the peace deal between Spain and England, and was the prelude of the Trafalgar battle.
But that wasn’t the end. The grave of those 200 brave souls who died that day along with the precious merchandise was sacked in May 2007 by the American treasure hunter Company Odyssey. After a few years in court in the US, Spain won this battle and the heirs were given all back, which was a precedent in the defense of the Underwater Archeological Patrimony.
The exhibition goes over much more than just the facts that sadly happened that day, but about how that day affected the history of Spain. It also defends how important is to keep and guard the files of the History in every country. The Spanish Government used files from the Naval Register to win the fight against Odyssey.
But what I consider even more important… With this story you understand how crucial is to guard our Cultural Patrimony that should always prevail over particular finantial interests.
Merle Oberon was the alias of Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson, a British actress who was born in Tasmania by the beginning of the 20th century. She is the first protagonist of our new section “Collectors of Jewelry of the History”
Merle Oberon was living in India until she was 17, when she moved out to London on the purpose of becoming a successful actress in cinema.
Her better good luck came when the productor and director Alexander Korda found out about her by chance back in 1930. He made her shine as one of the big ladies in British theatres during the 40’s. The ended up getting married and he was one of the first ones who started giving her away really expensive jewelry.
Merle Oberon wearing the necklace that Napoleon Bonaparte gave to Baroness Haussmann.
One of the very first pieces she acquired was an old necklace in diamonds and emeralds that apparently was a gift from Napoleon the Third to the Baroness Haussmann. It’s said that was his way to thank her for the role of her husband in the new and more modern Paris. Thanks to the alterations made in Paris, this city became in just two decades into the most modern capital in the world. Merle worn the piece in movies like The Divorce of Lady X and Of Love And Desire. Later Merle Oberon removed two tears to the necklace in order to make them earrings.
In 1939 after her marriage, Alexandre got her one of the pieces most beautiful in her collection (at least, it is to me): a Cartier’s piece made with three flowered-formed brooches. The one in the middle, the biggest one, has a charming detail on it: the pistils are diamonds with some movement which adds beauty to the whole piece. These brooches were originary designed to be worn as hair clips but Merle preferred to let them be brooches or even cameos. Sadly after she died the three pieces were sold separately.
There’s a curiosity here that you’ll love to know: a few years later, the Princess Elizabeth of England would get a especial wedding gift from the Prince Philip of Greece: a tiara with three identical flower-formed clips designed by Cartier. Elizabeth II removed them to wear them separately and she did so in many occasions.
Merle Oberon wearing the Cartier’s three-flowered clip that was supposed to be a hair clip in the origins. Photocourtesy of Fine Art America
However, the most amazing piece within her collection is a necklace of diamonds and 29 emeralds from the Baroque that Korda gave her in 1939. The piece fitted her very nicely due to her exotic beauty. The necklace has a very original design for the time especially because of the sensual and elegant form the emeralds are linked.
The story of this piece is very curious indeed and show how humans always want badly what others have. It seemed the necklace meant to be acquired by the designer Elsa Schiaparelli. However Merle saw it in a store in Paris and when she asked the seller about it, she was said the piece had another admirer. Merle didn’t believe the man and thought it was a strategy to sell it to her. After a few days she realized the seller was right when she passed by the store and the jewel had gone. Her mysterious rival was in a fitting room trying on the piece.
The day after Merle went back to the shop to see if the necklace was still there and she saw how Elsa Schiaparelli leaving the place. She came back so devastated that her husband went out, straight away to the jeweller’s and after asking for the piece he surprisingly got it. The stunning 29 emerald will shine in her exotic neckline from that moment onwards.
Merle enjoyed that necklace until she died.
Cartier 1938, 29 stunning Baroque emeralds like tears, linked with platinum and diamonds, 44 cm long and finished in 2,642,500 CHF. This is one of the Cartier’s necklace most photographed ever.
A set of two clips designed by Cartier with flowered diamonds, one with the pistil in diamonds and the other with rubies. They might be worn together of separately. Other option was making a bracelet with them. Merle had this bracelet in the movie Til We Meet Again in 1940.
A brooch with saphires and diamonds by Cartier, also detachable to wear as a clip. The piece was set with an oval saphire and petals in diamonds. The stem (also in diamonds) was sold separately. Merle worn this piece many times, not only the clip but also the brooch as a short necklace. I’m sure Merle loved Cartier’s jewelry and the versality of his work.
By the end of the 50’s and 60’s she acquired and changed a big amount of jewelry. She spent a time living in Rome where she got a Bulgari’s brooch with diamonds and rubies. Bulgari also created for her an elegant bag in a non-conventional design (acorn).
Van Cleef&Arpels was other of the preferred Merle’s designers during the 70’s. Among her collection is a set of a brooch, earrings and a necklace with turquoises and diamonds in pink that could be transformed into a brooch and a bracelet.
Merle also had a small but good collection of rubies that included an spectacular necklace by David Webb who also made for her a ring and earrings with a big oval ruby in the center.
Most of these pieces were sold in an auction in New York back in 1980, exactly a year after she passed away.
Merle Oberon had a really beautiful and huge jewelry collection.
The fact that the street photo style phenomenon was born with Scott Schuman is like saying this gentelman invented the hot water. “There is no news under the Sun” and the only exception to this proverb is Steve Jobs who is probably pointing at his iPad and smiling at me from somewhere up there…
It’s also popular the saying that the ideas don’t know further onwer than the one who dares to actually make them real. So according to this, we do have to recognize Scott Schuman’s the achievement of getting benefits from an old idea such as the street style. You’ll probably have read enough about this photo discipline and I have no much to add. There are many blogs with an only section dedicated to the style of the streets, which goes much further than the catwalks.
When this style started being famous online, the argument to justify the excessive enthusiasm was to affirm that the designers looked to these pictures in order to find some divine inspiration to create their collections. However, the style has reached such a renown online that now brands use this sort of pictures that seem to be very natural shots, which works as a gold mine to get their online customer’s attention. We are again admiring an art that imitates life, or life that imitates an art.
The momentum of the street style on blogs has already passed and now it’s turn for magazines that prefer to pay for pictures of around the catwalk rather than the ones of the fashion show. Then in this case protagonists have nothing to do with the original spontaneity of this discipline.
And before I leave you with these wonderful images from the beginning of the 20th century by the photographer and illustrator Edward Linley Sambourne, I’d like to add my point of view about the “egobloggers”, those young girls who love to publish their fashion designs in a blog. I’m convinced they shouldn’t be considered as a part of the street sytle, although they tried once and again to incorporate this word to their post titles.
The especial situation of the real street style is the luck of premeditation, the spontaneous and unexpected shot and definately not in the creation of a “casual activity” wearing a design to show it in a blog. Said that, please, enjoy the following images. Also try to swap the books in their hands with an iPhone or a Blackberry and you’ll realize these trendsetters’ poses have not changed that much along a hundred years.
An “Object of Art” is a small high quality decorative ítem, very valued by collectors. They are pieces often made in reach materials like gold, silver, semiprecious stones, porcelain, mother-of-pearl, coral or enamelwork.
Some of these pieces are made with the only purpose of staying over a display cabinet and being exhibited. Others, however, are made for the personal use of the owner but ended up in a glass cabinet anyway, due to the fineness of the piece or the high value.
The perfect cabinet to be placed on are elevated, to avoid being touched and covered by glass. These kind of cabinets are closed furniture that back in the past were used to keep safe silverware, porcelains or vintage books.
This way these especial pieces can be exhibited to the public in museums or personal houses, so they are protected against damage, dust or inexperienced hands.
The most frequent collections across the world are fans, little boxes or miniatures in porcelain, silver pieces, golden little statues with semiprecious stones and many other distinguish and exquisite pieces worth of being kept safe and well protected.
Better known by her male pseudonym Isak Dinesen, the Danish writer Karen Blixen (1885-1962) had a fascinating life plenty of writing. Hemingway, who wasn’t good at giving compliments said he would have been happy if she would have won the Nobel Prize in literature instead of himself.
Karen Blixen had a farm in Africa where she used to grow coffee, under the Ngong hills. That’s something you probably already know thanks to the Sydney Pollack’s movie from the 80’s. She failed both romantically and personally there but her willpower made her recover and go back to her country. She started publishing her texts in the 30’s under a few different male pseudonyms.
Those were not good years for women although somehow the female aristocrats accepted Karen among them. Fortunately time gives everyone the correct place and nowadays Karen is considered as one of the most valuable and best female writers in history.
Her memories from Africa are what she better transmitted. Maybe a little excessive romanticism or idealized (at least in the big screen), but the baroness also was an excelent storyteller, not only over paper but out loud in every social event she atended.
Everyone was fascinated with her fragile body, her turbans and he reyes on make-up with black kohl. Leyends around her also helped people to be interested in her. It was said she only ate oysters and champagne, although she made clear she only ate products that would help her body. “I’m old and I’m eating whatever I want”, she used to reply.
Ill with syphilis since she got married with the baron Bror Blixe-Finecke, she couldn’t have children and her life was her imagination and the literatura. She was a huge Shakespeare’s lover, so much that she confessed her favourite book was One Thousand and One Nights. As a very good dreamer, she always kept the dream of coming back to Nairobi. The II World War cut that wish short.
The strength of her spirit probably lives in her lack of love: her marriage was broken soon and her intense relationship with Denys Finch Hatton (Brittish) had a terrible end when he die don a flight accident.
Karen Blixen’s style is not similar to any of her contemporaries’, maybe because her Scandinavian origins were shaped by her life in Africa. The weight of the past is one of the keys to understand both her personal and professional life.
Her very interesting mailing, published a few years ago, has letters to her loyal servant back in Kenya. She told him on those words how much she would’ve liked coming back to her house only to talk to him about old times, those times when she had a farm far far away…
Why a daughter would want to wear her mother’s wedding dress? I’ve been thinking so much about this lately that I’ve decided to start a few posts around this theme: old bridal gowns and the stories and protagonists behind.
And the first story I want to share with you today is all but boring. I’ve been looking into the full story and I’ve been amazed with so many odd anecdotes. You know how I love digging into old stories from the past…
This time it wasn’t the lack of money what took Mary Mulenberg Hopkings into wearing the same gown her mother Mary Barr Denny Muhlenberg had worn 28 years ealier. Back in the time Mary (daughter) got married with one of the inheritors in the area. It was clear to me though her motives were sentimental.
The fashion trends had totally changed since then but the daughter only touched the neckline a bit in order to make it more modest and also changed a little the design of the sleeves, but nothing else. I assume they should have had about the same size.
Mary the mother had been a woman surprisingly well prepared for the time. She stood up over the rest of the students in the prestigious Parcker Institute, in Brooklyn, where she joined advanced Maths and Astronomy, among other subjects. This knowledge along with her personality allowed her to continue working on the projects her husband left unattended when he died.
She inherited a huge fortune which didn’t stop her from becoming into an incredible philantropic for the rest of her life. Hospitals, medical institutions, orphanages, schools and universities were a few of the projects Mary started besides her shy and discreet nature.
Mary made real the most ambitious project ever built by a woman in the time, the creation of the Mariemont Village in Hamilton, Ohio. It was a very advanced city with all the amenities you could imagine.
But Mariemont’s story goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, when her husband bought a ranch near Newport, Rhode Island. He called it Mariemont. There the couple spent wonderful times and started dreaming of how the project would be.
After Thomas’ passing, Mary spent over 7 million dollars to adquire all lands around her ranch. She needed a lot of space to build her dream city: a model place ready to embrace people from all levels, either buying or renting family houses.
Mary placed the first stone of Mariemont Village on April 23rd 1923, but she died four years later leaving her heirs enjoying her magnanimous creation: one of the biggest construction in the beginning of the 20th century that employed the most prominent professionals.
I’m sure her mother would have been very proud of the role Mary played in the development of the US. She, a woman with the sensitivity of wearing the same wedding gown as her mother did had the courage of build one of the most ambitious constructions of the time.
Here’s a mosaic with the two bridal dresses, the original one and then with the changes Mary did. Which one you like it more? I’d rather prefer the first option… The new neckline and sleeves don’t convinced me. How about you?
The nacre (also called mother of pearl) is the internal layer of the mollusc’s shells.
The seashells with the most beautiful nacre are the haliotidae and the nautilus. This material is so precious because it has gorgeous iridescent reflexions that make it proper to embellish jewelry, accesories and other very special decorations.
Within jewelry, the nacre is a material used for a long time, since the old civilizations like the iberian, Egyptian and Romans among others, started using it in order to decorate combs, swords handles, buttons or pieces of jewelry.
It was during the 19th century when the use of nacre was popularised. Soon enough you might find it in bags, powder compacts, frames, cufflinks or missals. Since nacre is a material easy to sculpt many other jewels started coming out like beautiful cameos or delicate sculptures in earrings, crosses and buttons.
By the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, the industrial revolution caused in Britain a boom in manufacture of buttons in nacre. In addition, this material has been always linked to fashion and accesories. It’s been used for ages to make buckles, bags or beautiful set of buttons for men, certainly very appreciated back in the time.
By mid of the 20th century, with the discovery of plastics and the termination of many of the mother of pearls deposits, the gorgeous nacre was replaced by imitations in plastic and acetate.
What you probably don’t know is that nacre is also very valued in cosmetic, since it’s commonly used to make lotions, soaps and to whiten unwanted spots on the skin.
Within jewelry made in nacre we can highlight the hand-sculpted crosses, the flowers used to decorate earrings, bracelets or cufflinks and the different pieces used to make brooches.
Today I bring to you one of those exhibits that you’ll easily retain in your mind forever. The fineness and beauty of a Cartier’s historic jewel, being able to admire it and almost feel it is with no doubt one of my biggest pleasures in life. If on top of that you make that a plan to travel to New York on vacations… what else you can ask for?
The show, under the name Cartier: Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Dazzling Gems brings together the most famous pieces of one of the main Cartier’s clients during the first half of the 20th century: Marjorie Merriweather.
The exhibit takes place in a rustic and very charming atmosphere with a touch of vintage air, placed within the gardens of the Hillwood museum. The building recreates the architecture that was common in the Adirondack Mountains, upstate New York, where our protagonist used to have her summer holidays.
The museum brings its special shows to this building in order to allow the visitor to enjoy a deepest experience of Hillwood.
Who was Marjorie Merriweather Post?
Meter foto: Marjorie Merriweather wearing Cartiers jewelry – Hillwood museum exhibit – by Vintage By Lopez-Linares – Copy
She was considered an icon in the history of America. She was the founder of General Foods and a leading socialite who lived from 1887 to 1973. When she was 27 she became into the wealthiest woman in the States after inherit her father’s fortune valued in $250 million.
The collection of jewelry, vintage furniture, porcelains, paintings and tapestries that Marjorie ended gathering during her long life is impressive and includes pieces from Faberge and Cartier, among other prestigious designers. The distinguish jewels that Marjorie requested from Cartier are the ones you can visit now in the Hillwood Museum.
Among the displayed jewels a brooch stands out. It’s considered one of the Cartier master pieces, made with seven carved Indian emeralds, tiny diamonds, platinum and enamel. It was designed back in 1928 by the renowned jeweler for her appreciated customer Marjorie Merriweather Post.
It’s also worth mentioning the necklace the designer did for her with pearls, diamonds and platino or the astonishing one with sapphires, among many other pieces worthy of the most demanding art collector.
With no doubt, Marjorie had a very good taste for jewelry and fashion in general, like she proved with such an amazing collection, that you can visit until the end of 2014 in Washington DC.
London National Gallery. Sandro Boticelli (1445-1510)
Venus and Mars was painted around 1483 by one of the most important artists of the Renaissance; Sandro Boticelli. The painting has many beautiful details but what really grabbed my attention was that little brooch on Venus’ neckline: A total of 8 pearls or stones in a light color with a ruby in the middle. A simple and timeless piece we’ve brought into our Historic Jewels Collection this month, straight away from Florence. I guess the knowledge Boticelli had as a metalsmith made him being interested in jewelry.
According to the size and form, this painting is 173×69 cm, it seems it was made to be a “spalliera” or headboard, and the reason might have been a marriage celebration.
The protagonists: two of the main mythological gods. Venus, goddess of beauty and love, and Mars, god of war. Venus wears a Florentine design in pure white while Mars is half-naked sleeping at her feet. In the meantime, a few little satyrs play around with his helmet and weapons. It might represent the triumph of love against war.
It’s said it could be a wedding gift ordered by the Medici family. However there’s a detail on the top of the painting that might indicate otherwise: a few wasps, symbol of the Vespucci’s family. I haven’t been able to confirm who ordered this painting.
What I have verified is that the model for Venus was Boticelli’s muse: a beautiful and young lady in the Medici court. Her name was Simonetta Vespucci, an icon in her time. Simonetta was a gorgeous Genovese married to a rich businessman calld Marco Vespucci. The Vespucci and Medici families were actually very good friends.
I’ve also discovered Marco Vespucci was Boticelli’s neighbour during the time of the painting. The couple was very well-known around not only because of their power but of her beauty. Simonetta died when she was 23 of tuberculosis, but all Boticelli’s paintings have shown u show beautiful she was.
To be honest, I can’t imagine a better feeling than lying with the person you love with this painting over you head… I don’t know why but I imagine a just-married couple enjoying this wonder.
The painting is symbol of harmony and happyness, you could be watching it for hours. I think we all were hypnoticed by the beauty of the protagonists and how idilic the scene is itself.
