Somerset House Hosts 'Bejewelled by Tiffany 1837-1987'
London - Bejewelled by Tiffany, 1837-1987, the most comprehensive exhibition of Tiffany jewellery ever mounted, will introduce Great Britain to the rich history of the jewellery of Tiffany & Co.. It will take place at the Gilbert Collection, Somerset House, London, from Saturday 24 June to Sunday 26 November 2006. Some 180 glittering pieces from the Tiffany Archive, together with a small selection of jewels loaned from private collections, will chronicle Tiffany’s first 150 years. Many of these works have never before been on public display.
Now famous for its glamour, creative design and fine craftsmanship, Tiffany & Co. was founded in New York in 1837. Starting modestly as a ‘Fancy Goods’ store on Broadway, it quickly rose to international fame, its jewellery winning medals and stunning the world at the great international exhibitions of the 19th century. Success was born from a commitment to excellence in design, craftsmanship and the materials used and was rooted in the entrepreneurial genius of the company’s founder Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902). Tiffany has always been a unique brand combining an appreciation of European fashions with an original and distinctively American aesthetic.
The exhibition will follow a broad chronological framework within which the pieces will be arranged thematically, highlighting particular designers, sources of inspiration or the materials favored at different times during the 150 years covered.
The first section The Rise of an American Institution illustrates some of the qualities behind Tiffany’s early prominence and long-lasting success. Charles Lewis Tiffany, whose cameo portrait will be on display, knew how to capture the popular imagination and appeal to the wealthy by offering exclusive items. His stock ranged from topical modestly priced souvenirs, such as a mounted section of steel cable commemorating the laying of the first transatlantic cable in 1858, to historic diamonds acquired at the 1887 sale of the French Crown Jewels and from other princely European collections. This led to Tiffany stocking such glamorous pieces as the emerald and diamond brooch adapted from a girdle once owned by Empress Eugénie.
Tiffany understood the value of publicity and marketing. He introduced mail order sales, producing the first catalogue in 1845, so that the store’s goods could be ordered across America. He also participated in the great international exhibitions, recognizing the superb platform they offered for building reputation and the opportunity for attracting new clients, and opened an office in Paris in 1850 and a shop in 1868.
Like many of his contemporaries, Tiffany was unashamedly patriotic. The outsize American flag brooch, a rippling representation of the Stars and Stripes in rubies, sapphires and diamonds, captures the supreme optimism and pride of the day.
The second section of the exhibition ‘Temple of Fancy’ - as Tiffany was described by the New York Evening Express in 1875 - sets out to illustrate the wide range of jewellery available in the store to meet the needs of every occasion, from baby bracelets to mourning jewellery, and the amazing variety of influences then in vogue – the ancient classical world, the Renaissance, India and the Far East.
Notable in this section is a pearl necklace with matching brooch similar to one bought from Tiffany by president-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861 for his wife to wear at the Inaugural Ball. A gold bracelet copied from an ancient Greek example from the Cesnola Collection, recently arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is an excellent example of Tiffany’s archaeological-style jewellery which won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1878 In the 1890s René Lalique, now best known for his exquisite glass, designed jewellery for Tiffany in Paris and a diamond spray brooch by him is included in the show.
The third section Such stuff as dreams are made on … covers the period from the 1870s to the start of the First World War and explores Tiffany’s evolution into jewelers of true originality with a distinctive American flavor. It illustrates both the fresh and creative approach to the use of stones, particularly the taste for gems of unusual colors, and a deliberate bias towards stones of American origin. With growing American wealth, spectacular diamond jewellery became commonplace. Charles Lewis Tiffany, nicknamed ‘the King of Diamonds’, acquired the great fancy yellow 128-carat Tiffany Diamond, one of the showstoppers in this exhibition. A magnificent early 20th century Garland Style diamond necklace in the exhibition made for Mrs. Wade, the wife of a Cleveland industrialist, typifies this hunger for diamonds by the rich and for jewellery that dazzlingly set them off. Diamonds became and have remained at the heart of Tiffany & Co.’s business.
At that time, pearls equaled diamonds in prestige and value. Tiffany designers used pearls from all sources, especially the tinted and irregular fresh-water pearls found in American rivers and the soft pink pearls from conch shells. A group of pearl pieces in the show, such as the late 19th century corsage ornament with its striking combination of these conch pearls with diamonds and the ‘Naiad’ pendant, as it is now known, in Renaissance Revival style (first exhibited at the international Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901), have been brought together to remind visitors that the pearl is one of the most seductively beautiful of all gems.
The appointment of George Frederick Kunz as a young man to the staff of Tiffany was a masterstroke. He developed into an outstanding American gemologist, his enthusiasm and knowledge about the field chiming perfectly with serious appreciation of precious and semi-precious stones at this time. Tiffany’s familiarity with unusual colored stones may be seen in the sales catalogue for 1893 which listed 47 different stones for setting in rings. In addition they offered newly available American gemstones such as Montana sapphires and Mexican fire opals. Among the pieces to be shown is a brooch set with diamonds and a large pink kunzite, the stone named in honor of Kunz in 1902. An opulent Art Nouveau-style bracelet designed around 1900 set with a combination of amethysts, sinhalites, garnets, aquamarines and tourmalines is a splendid example of an original combination of stones.
The Opulent accessories section brings together such items as canes, parasols, purses, scent bottles, smoking kit, watches and the like, that were a must for the well-dressed man or woman around 1900. Tiffany designers and craftsmen transformed these functional objects into tiny works of art of the greatest beauty, often of extraordinary originality, which make them some of the most memorable items in the show, exemplified by the bonbonnière made of gold, platinum and sapphires exhibited by Tiffany at the 1889 Paris Exposition.
As well as using great historic styles as a springboard for the design of jewels, Tiffany sought inspiration from the natural world. The section Nature gathers together some of the finest jewellery created by Tiffany, works that certainly count amongst the masterpieces of American decorative arts. The enameled and diamond orchids created by Tiffany’s great designer G. Paulding Farnham for the 1889 Paris Exposition caused a sensation and were awarded gold medals. Seven of these exquisitely crafted and botanically accurate pieces will be exhibited. Nature was also the inspiration for an intricately enameled gold brooch in the form of a spray of mignonette and a dazzling dragonfly brooch where the diamonds and sapphires evoke the evanescence of the insect.
International exhibitions were occasions for national rivalry and for firms to show off their skills and make sales. The next section Paulding Farnham and the Paris Exposition of 1900 reunites eight virtuoso jeweled and enameled pieces illustrating the genius of this designer. Outstanding are a collar of fire opals and tourmalines set in gold, reported at the time to be the finest collection of Mexican opals in the world, and a brooch of diamonds, Montana sapphires and fresh-water pearls from Wisconsin and Tennessee.
The section Louis Comfort Tiffany devoted to the son of the founder Charles Lewis Tiffany is, as might be expected, one of the largest in the exhibition bringing together over 20 pieces of his jewellery – the largest number ever exhibited together. His innovative and diverse output over three decades confirms why he is a defining figure in the Tiffany story and one of America’s outstanding designers. Already well known for his brilliantly innovative glass and interior design, when he became closely involved in the company on the death of his father he introduced a more lyrical aesthetic, notable for its original color combinations. Outstanding examples are a dragonfly with opal and demantoid garnet back and platinum lattice wings, closely related to one made for the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair, a group of small brooches with subtle enamel work and lustrous toning gemstones, and a ‘grapevine’ fringe necklace of amethysts and jade set in gold, exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1906.
This great period of naturalism in jewellery was followed by the abstract geometry of Art Deco. The Art Deco section shows how Tiffany, ever at the forefront of design, moved confidently into the new geometric style. This section features such typical and stylish pieces as a diamond and sapphire bracelet with a bird and lattice motif, c. 1925, a semi-circular ring of lapis lazuli, platinum and diamonds, both made in Paris, and a platinum and diamond ‘skyscraper’ necklace.
New York World’s Fair and the 1940s, a brief but intense period, saw exuberant Retro Style jewels with brightly polished gold, such as the gold brooch with emeralds and diamonds exhibited at the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair, contrasting with the more sober style of war-time patriotic pieces based on strong abstract forms with color supplied by such stones as aquamarine and topaz. Examples include a 1940s suite of gold jewellery set with large citrines and clusters of rubies, a gold charm bracelet with patriotic and victory symbols, and gold earrings in the form of aeroplanes, specifically American B-25 bombers.
The final section in the exhibition The Return to the Designer covers the post-war years when Tiffany boldly backed new designers. The elegant and witty genius of French designer Jean Schlumberger, hired in 1956, brought a universally acclaimed originality. His ‘Bird on a rock’ setting of the Tiffany Diamond combines quirkiness with understated splendor. In the 1960s the American designer Donald Claflin created humorous, figurative pieces such as the ‘Dragon’ brooch included in the show. Tiffany turned to designers Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso in the 1970s whose work captured the stylish informality that patrons now looked for in their jewellery. Peretti’s sleek and minimal elegance in silver or gold, such as her trademark ‘bone’ cuff bracelet, has become internationally recognized and since the 1980s Paloma Picasso’s bold forms and love of color, exemplified by the gold cuff bracelet with a zig-zag of tourmalines, have brought modern expression to Tiffany’s lasting fascination with gemstones.
The exhibition is curated by Clare Phillips, Curator within the Department of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue with essays about aspects of Tiffany’s history by distinguished jewellery historians, published by Yale University Press.
Bejewelled by Tiffany, 1837-1987 celebrates Tiffany’s sustained pursuit of superb design and outstanding craftsmanship. Through the display of glittering jewels and luxurious objects, it will evoke the glamour that has beguiled Tiffany’s clients for 150 years.
Visit The Somerset House, London at : http://www.somerset-house.org.uk/