Monsieur Bijou was the moniker given to Robert Goosens, a French jeweller who lived from 1927 to 2016. He was born in Paris, France, the son of a metal foundry worker. He learned the techniques of casting, engraving, and embossing semi-precious and simulated stones into gold and silver metals during his apprenticeship in jewellery making. Read More →
With more than 80 stunning photographs, Masterpieces of French Jewelry offers a fascinating look at the most remarkable pieces that found their way into prominent American collections. Like all art, this delightful array of jewelry mirrors the evolving culture of its time. Chapters in this book explore jewelry of the Victorian Era and the Art Nouveau period of the early twentieth century; Art Deco; 1940s retro; up through the 1960s and more contemporary styles.Read More →
Maubossin is a jewellery company in France. The original company was established in 1827 in Paris, on Rue Grenata, where it manufactured jewellery. Starting in 1903, M.B. Noury was the owner and nephew of Georges Maubossin, who had been the director of the company since 1877. Mauboussin succeeded Noury in 1923, changing the firm’s name to Maubossin. At the intersection of rue Saint-Augustin, rue de Choiseul, and rue Monsigny in Paris, at address 3 rue de Choseul, he bought two connecting houses.Read More →
Costume jewellery has always been a popular gift; it becomes more popular in difficult economic times. The better-known makers offer better quality. “Gold” that comes off on the skin or with a fingernail is painted, and “crystal” that shatter at a touch is glass, and not very good quality. InRead More →
Edward Spenser (1872 – 1938) was a British metalworker, silversmith, and jeweller. He was professionally active in London. Spencer was a junior designer at the Artificers’ Guild. When Montague Fordham took over the Guild in 1903, Spenser became chief designer. Read More →
Florence Koehler was an American artist, craftsperson, designer, and jeweller, professionally active in Chicago, London and Rome. She was one of the best-known jewellers of the Arts and Crafts movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Chicago, Koehler’s jewellery in a crafts style was fashionable in artistic circles. Koehler became one of the American crafts-revival leaders in jewellery, related more to French than English styles.Read More →
Basse-taille is a method for enamelling the graves or graves low-reliefs on a metal surface, typically gold or silver, and then covers it with translucent glazed enamel. (French: ‘low-cut’) This technique dramatises the play of light and shadow over the low-cut design and also gives the item a tone ofRead More →
Van Cleef et Arpels is a French Jeweller located in Paris. Brothers Julien, Louis, and Charles Arpels and brother-in-law Alfred Van Cleef transformed a small store on place Vendôme, Paris in 1904 or 1906 into Van Cleef et Arpels.Read More →
Georg Jensen was a Danish metalworker. He was born in Faavad. He was apprenticed as a goldsmith. cl895-1901, he studied sculpture, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, Copenhagen. Read More →
Louis Rault (1847 – 1903) was a French Sculptor, engraver, silversmith and jewellery designer.Between 1868 and 1875, Rault worked in the Boucheron workshop on the Place Vendôme in Paris. At the end of the nineteenth century, he set up a workshop where he produced silver and jewellery in the Art Nouveau style.Read More →
Nanna Ditzel, a leading Danish 20th-century designer, had also worked in furniture, textiles and jewellery design for many decades and has been one of the few women designers in the country to achieve celebrity status.Read More →
Borje Rajalin is a Finnish Jewellery Designer.
Rajalin worked at Bertel Gardberg’s silversmith from 1952 – 1956. His design work included technical equipment, plastic fittings, cutlery, stainless steel table and cookware and with Anti Nurmesniemi in 1972 a train for the Helsinki Railway. They collaborated with station designers to make the metro stations modern and chic. Rajalin produced silver designs for Bertel Gardberg and jewellery for Kalevala Koru. He taught at Taideeteollinen Oppilaitos and was the director of Taidetelinen Ammattikoulu in Helsinki.Read More →
Maison Gripoix, a French costume jeweller, was located in Paris. Around 1890, Maison Gripoix sold glass beads and buttons wholesale. Subsequently, specialised in handmade imitations of precious and semi-precious jewels, including parures for Sarah Bernhardt. When the molten glass is poured into a mould, rather than through the kiln-firing ofRead More →
Pierre Hardy’s Lignes Sensibles collection juxtaposes a rainbow of gemstones against the warm rose goldRead More →
Max Joseph Gradl is a German architect painter, graphic artist and designer. He was born in Dillingen an der Donau.
Between the 1888 and 1892 he studied at Kunsgewerbeschule, Munich under Theodore Spiess.Read More →
or more than a century, the designs of the French jewellery house Van Cleef & Arpels have represented the marriage of an unrivalled sense of elegance with an extraordinary level of technical expertise and prowess. The comprehensive monograph Van Cleef & Arpels: The Art & Science of Gems is aRead More →
I love this illustration for Van Cleef & Arpels that I discovered in a copy of Harpers Bizzare, Singapore. The jewellery adorns the tree and does not overpower the image. Van Cleef & Arpels is one of the most recognisable names in the French and American jewellery world. Read More →
Have you ever seen that sad box of abandoned Barbies on the curb silently waiting for their land fill fate? Margaux Lange is saving the forgotten Barbies across the world and making them just as fun to hang out with now as when you were little. Source: Amputated Barbie partsRead More →
