Jewelry
JEWELRY
HD JEWELS / RARE, VINTAGE & ESTATE FINE JEWELRY
As a renowned purveyor of exceptionally designed and finely crafted decorative arts and furniture, Historical Design has also turned its eye with the same criteria to rare vintage and estate jewelry. The hallmarks of these remarkable jewels are art historical and period stylistic significance, a particular eye and taste for the graphically true to a period or art movement and ultimately to the appeal and sheer beauty of the design. The fine jewelry collection focuses on signed examples and spans the entire 20th Century with an emphasis on the major designers and jewelry houses of the Art Deco era. It also includes refined archeological revival pieces from the late 19th Century, Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts, as well as Mid-Century and 1960’s & 1970’s, an adventurous Post-War period following the great moment of Art Deco. The major jewelry houses and jewelers represented are Belperron, Boivin, Boucheron, Bulgari, Castellani, Cartier, Charlton, Despres, Fouquet, Fontenay, Flato, Grima, Gucci, Giuliano, Hermes, Janesich, Kutchinsky, Lacloche, Lalique, Lenfant, Marchak, Marcus & Co., Marzo, Mauboussin, Nardi, Seaman Schepps, Sandoz, Sterle, Tiffany & Co., Templier, Udall & Ballou, Van Cleef & Arpels, Verdura, Webb, Wiese, Yard and many other prominent designers and jewelers. Our motto is: Historical Tradition with a Modern Vision. Rare, Vintage & Estate Fine Jewelry. Come visit our “Jewel Box” salon now open in The Carlyle Hotel in New York City.
View our Ring collection here.
HD JEWELS / CONTEMPORARY COLLECTION
Inspired by Historical Design’s vintage fine jewelry collection, HD Jewels is a new venture that offers the highest quality execution of iconic designs and motifs. Working in collaboration with the finest workshops in New York City, HD Jewels merges modern luxury and craftsmanship with special, one-of-a-kind rare and exceptional jewels. From toasting a special occasion with a colored diamond Champagne glass or drinking a Mad Men style Martini in diamonds and jade to paying homage to majestic animals of the court of India and to the plains of the Sahara. Adaptability is exquisitely expressed through a grand collier featuring more than 250 carats of cushion cut rhodolites and diamonds and cleverly separates into a necklace, brooch and ring. An up-to-the moment collection of platinum and diamond charms exploring the universal theme of LOVE adds a sparkling “bling” factor to the Contemporary stage.
PUT A RING ON IT
All the single ladies
Now put your hands up…
‘Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it…
As Beyonce knows best and made famous with her Grammy Award winning song “Single Ladies”, everyone needs to “Put a Ring on It!” From a historical vantage point, rings have been in existence for over six thousand years and appear in almost every culture of the world. Rings have been used to pledge one heart to another, to seal correspondences and authenticate documents. They have served to memorialize a friendship, honor the dead and as talismans to provide protection against the forces of evil. Rings have also been used as symbolic expressions of faith or as tangible evidence of power and wealth. So ubiquitous an item, rings of all periods have survived providing valuable historical insight into various cultures and as a timeline of major design themes and materials in jewelry history. The HD Jewels ring collection focuses on dynamic design, fine jewels, exquisite craftsmanship and major designers and jewelry houses of the mid to late 19th Century, all of the avant-garde movements throughout the 20th Century, as well as select Contemporary designs up to the present day. One will discover many of the same jewelry houses and jewelers outlined above in our HD Jewels / Rare, Vintage & Estate Fine Jewelry section. A ring is a wonderful expression of devotion, commemoration, engagement, commitment and love and as Beyonce proclaimed so eloquently “Put a Ring on It!”
SILVER & ART JEWELRY
Silver & Art Jewelry as adornment has enjoyed popularity in every culture through the ages. Historical Design’s Silver & Art Jewelry collection begins with finely crafted works from the Aesthetic Movement of the late 19th century across Europe and America. By the 1890’s, new ideas emerged with the Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts Movements in France and America. In Austria and Germany the “Jugendstil” style transformed into the modern sensibility of the Wiener Werkstaette and Bauhaus collectives. Beginning in the 1920’s Europe and America saw the emergence of the new “Art Deco” style with the commencement of the 1925 Exposition Nationale in Paris and in the 1930’s Cubism, geometry and streamlined design became all the rage. After WWII, the more organic sensibilities of the Scandinavian designs paved the wave for the Post-War aesthetic and eventually the “Craft” movement of the 1960’s. In the last quarter of the 20th Century, famous American jewelers are represented and bringing the collection up to the present day the iconic houses of Hermes and Gucci round out the timeline.
View Silver & Art Jewelry here.
MASTERS OF MEXICAN SILVER
The American architect & designer, William Spratling is often referred to as the “Father of Mexican jewelry”. Spratling visited Mexico several times in the late 1920s and eventually settled in Taxco in 1931, which was known for it’s rich silver deposits. Shortly thereafter, he established a silver workshop where he began designing and crafting works himself, as well as hiring local artisans. Many of these designs were influenced by the ancient Pre-Columbian designs and motifs and Spratling soon widened his own design vocabulary. He then opened his first retail store, the Taller de las Delicias where he trained and employed talented young apprentices to create tableware, objects and jewelry. Many of these silversmiths later became leading Taxco designers themselves and opened their own shops and featured their own work bearing their own signature logos. These included famous craftsmen such as Hector Aguilar, the Castillo brothers, Margot de Taxco, Antonio Pineda, Sigi Pineda and many other “maestros de plata”. Spratling developed a wide audience for his silver work and by the early 1940s was selling work through prominent US retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Gump’s, San Francisco.
View Masters of Mexican Silver here.
ANTONIO PINEDA
Legendary Mexican designer and former apprentice of William Spratling, Antonio Pineda opened his own silver workshop in 1941 in his hometown of Taxco. His works have been exhibited internationally, beginning in 1944 when he participated in an exposition in San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor. He showed approximately 80 pieces of jewelry, all of which were purchased by Gump’s jewelry store San Francisco. This began a long relationship between Pineda and that firm during which Gump’s would send the designer stones, and he would design the settings. In 1953, he was awarded the Presidential Prize at the first National Silver Art Fair in Mexico, anda few years later, he expanded his workshops into a large studio with jewelry and sculpture divisions. In 1958 Antonio exhibited at the International Exposition nella Fiera in Brussels and the National of Modern Art in Mexico at the National Institute delle Belle Arti and in 1959 his work was featured in an Exhibition entitled “Profiles of Mexico” in Amsterdam. In 1960 this modern sterling pitcher and other works were shown at the renowned Exposizione Triennale di Milano.
View Antonio Pineda Jewelry & Silver here.
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