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.
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.
It seems the name comes from the word “mimium” (red lead oxide), a substance used as a component to make the ink for the illustrations in the old codex.
The history of these miniatures dates back from the beginning of the writing. During the Middle Age this sort of artwork was used to decorate manuscripts and books with illustrations. This type of decoration keeps being used along the Renaissance and Baroque. However, when the printing press the miniatures stopped being useful and the art almost disappeared.
We are going to focus in what means miniatures for jewelry: small illustrations usually made over ivory, shells, metal or any other material that were used to decorate bracelets, pendants or lockets. You also can find these tiny and creative paintings in fans, medallions, watches, jewelry box or earrings. The miniatures are usually made with oil painting over copper, tin or similar metal.
This art stamps a very special nature to the piece and makes it unique and a once-in-a-life-time jewel. Wearing a bracelet with a tiny decoration over ivory, or a pocket watch with little illustrations made by a master makes you feel different, important, unique. You are wearing a piece that you could easily find exposed in an exhibition.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy nowadays to find an artisan able to create these miniatures. We actually spent a lot of time looking for a reproduction that was really worth being included in our collection. The only two workshops we finally found in Italy and Spain make tiny pieces in Golden brass, those that I’m including in this post, and decorations over fans .
We keep looking for more pieces with miniatures as decoration, but they are very special jewelry worth being part of our historic jewels collection…
We’ve just realeased a new shop window design! Since we are in the favourite time of the year for couples to get married, we’ve decided to add a touch of a vintage wedding to it, a retro wedding from the 50s.
Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of a very good friend of my family, Paula Vallejo Rey del Castillo, Mrs Esteban, we have today one of the most refined and exquisite wedding dresses from the late 50s. We asked to much of her, we knew it. We were asking to show not only her lovely dress but also the memories that entails to take out such a piece. But she gladly agreed and I think her effort was really worth it. This magnificent dress deserved to be shown to the world, don’t you think so?
This piece was made back in 1957 in chantilly lace and silk tull in the sewing workshop own by Purificacion Sepulveda in Madrid. What really caught my attention was the spectacular 2 meters-long tail in chantilly lace and tull. That detail gives the dress an unusual fall and movement. It was so difficult to make it fit in our shop window!
It also was a bit tricky to take these pictures since the dress, my camera and I didn’t fit in the shop window all at once! You can imagine how superb this piece is.
We’d love to show it to you in person, and chat with you about how fashion was that time. So don’t hesitate to come and see me at C/Claudio Coello, 60 in Madrid if you plan to be around any time soon!
If you also have a vintage dress like this one and you’d love to see it in our shop window, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be glad to show it to the world if you take part in our iniciative.
We are celebrating the third edition of our Show “Replicas of Jewelry of the History”. After the great success of our two previous editions and also using the momentum of the release in theatres of Grace of Monaco, we’ve decided make it very special this year.
The big opening will be next Tuesday, the 20th, at 12 pm (GMT + 1) with the History specialist María Romero de Cuenca who will lead you across the most amazing life of jewelry.
And we have a surprise! Both you who happens to be in Madrid and want to join us, and you who will follow the event on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ will have the chance of being the first to see and enjoy our new collection “Grace”, based on the jewels Grace Kelly was gifted during her royal wedding. Did you know it was a very special order made by Rainier III, Prince of Monaco? A necklace with pearls and double clip, a bracelet and a pair of earrings compound the beautiful gift.
But we won’t stop there! Beyond those replicas, we’ve made a lovely tiara inspired in the one Grace Kelly preferred the most. She wore it in a few events, with a pretty hairstyle by the famous stylist Alexandre.It’s a jewel made in silver and zircons. The original piece had on it 214 bright-carving diamonds and 45 baguette-carving diamonds. The Princess wore it in several special occasions like the Gala pre Spanish Royal Wedding in Athenas and also during the party previous to the wedding between the Infanta Pilar Duchess of Badajoz and Luis Gomez-Acebo back in 1967.
During the show you’ll also find many other luxurious accessories our Princess could have worn: hand bags, gloves, earrings…
The next 20th of May will be a very special date. We’ll open our space in Madrid in a non-stop timetable from 11 am until 8.30 pm. That day we’ll also make a toast with a glass of Oporto and we’ll have the chance to know each other better at the same time we enjoy these iconic pieces.
For those of you who can’t attend that day, feel free to follow the event on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtags #historicjewels and #GraceKelly. We’ll also have a hangout on Google+, so stay tuned!
Cufflink: A fastener made with two pieces linked to a little rod or through a small chain. It’s used to close the cuffs in a shirt.
The cufflinks are designed only to be used when the shirt has buttonholes in both cuffs but they don’t have actual buttons. These cufflinks can be single or double and you can wear them either one in front of the other (like kissing) or overlapped. The most preferred ones are the first kind.
These pieces of jewelry are tipycally used by men. However, women have also adapted them to their style.
According to the National Cufflink Society there is proof of use of cufflinks in ancient hieroglyphs found in the King Tut’s tomb. Nevertheless cufflinks as we know them today started being used during the 18th Century.
It was the invention of the stamping machine with vapor along with the electrometallurgy and the Guilloché’s turning machine that the kind of cufflinks we know today were able to be created. As for that moment, the process was handmade.
By the middle of the 19th Century this piece was popularize when French cuff shirts were fashionable – they still are today -. In that epoque was common to save a hair lock from a missed lover within the cufflink as a sign of shame and nostalgia.
In 1880, George Krementz registered in America a device to mass-produce buttons and cufflinks. As a consequence, from the mid 19th century onwards men in the middle and upper clases wore cufflinks. All of a sudden, most businesses in the US were ordering cufflinks for advertising purposes or as a gift for their clients.
Already in the 20th Century the fashion was to wear glazed coloured cufflinks made from gemstones. Artisans from Fabergé House travelled to America and Europe trying to teach worldwide this technique to be used in men jewelry.
If you are interested in the history of cufflinks and how they evolved over the years, don’t miss the Cufflink Museum in Conway (New Hampshire) where you’ll find over 70,000 pairs. I couldn’t find the website but if I finally do it, I’ll add it here as soon as possible.
One of the most completed collections I’ve heard of is the one belonging to the English Royal Family. There are three generations of kings in just one show of cufflinks, including the Eduardo VII, Jorge V and Eduardo VIII’s regins and their heirs. Nowadays is being extended by the current Prince of Wales.
Cufflinks are an elegant, discrete and long-lasting gift. It’s a memory for a whole life, a jewel that will pass from you to your heirs. They will live on.
In the very early years of the 20th Century, the brothers Mazer – Joseph and Louis- began running a jewelry business in Philadelphia. It was 1917. After a few years they moved out to New York where they opened a jewelry shop that soon changed the name to Mazer&Company Inc.
From the beginning Macel Boucher was the designer of the business but in the mid 30s he abandoned them to establish his own enterprise.
Mazer&Company Inc started developing high quality jewelry using Swarovski cristal. They conquered the market with medium price pieces but today collectors consider their pieces very valuable.
In 1946 the two brothers left the nest: Joseph Mazer released Joseph J Mazer & Company (better known as JOMAZ) and Louis Mazer kept the original business until 1951 when he definitely stopped the comercial activity.
So it was Joseph Mazer who did the first Jobs for Jomaz the famous pieces dipped in gold. That was his clear emblem during the 60s.
And here’s one of those pieces; a brooch dipped in gold from the 60s. One of the pieces you’ll be able to see and enjoy in the next showroom that Lopez Linares is getting ready.
The first Mazer&Company Inc’s pieces are maked with the badge “Mazer Bros”. However, the last jewelry is already marked as “Mazer”, “Joseph Mazer” or “Jomaz”.
Jomaz had several designers along its short career: Andre Fleurida, Thierry Muglero or Sandra Miller were some of its artisans.
In 1948 an advert in the renowend Haper’s Bazaar magazine said about the brand:
