Art Deco is considerably more than architecture. For investors in particular, the most attractive and lucrative legacy of the early 20th century design movement is its jewelry due to it unmistakable geometric, nearly architectual look.
“Of all the periods, Art Deco’s value has held its own the best,” says Ann Lange, vice president and director of jewellery at the auction house Doyle in New York, of the era which began in the teens of the twentieth century and lasted into the early 1940s.
“It’s the jewellery is very wearable, it’s classic, it’s stylish, and the workmanship is extraordinary.” Art Deco fit into the time when commercial air travel was young and women were shedding their frilly, constricted duds and complicated hairdos and replacing them using sleeveless chemises, such as flapper dresses, sporting bobs, and adorning themselves with sparkly bangles and lengthy strands of pearls.
The jewellery, handmade with the most finely detailed of materials—diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, pearls and onyx, normally set in platinum—suited that new era of speed, flexibility and experimentation.
The Places To Find Art Deco Jewelry: Nowadays it is easy to come across Art Deco pieces in several places, which includes on eBay.com, from jewelers who deal in classic jewelry and at the auction houses, like Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Doyle. A great place to start the search is Antique and Vintage Jewelry Store at http://wwwcheapantiquejewelrystore.com. The site is affiliated with eBay, Amazon and other sites and can almost guarantee the lowest prices available.
Costs can hit $100,000 and more, but the starter collector can get in for $1,500. Truly fantastic pieces—produced with precious gemstones and created by top designers—can go for significantly higher. Rarity also accounts for its everlasting cachet, says Kadakia, noting that in the course of a year, only 100 to 150 truly memorable items go up for sale.
For instance, at a September auction at Doyle, jade-and-diamond pendant earrings, set in platinum, from 1930 and signed by Parisian designer Janesich, sold for $43,750—over $13,000 above auctioneer’s top estimate. That very same month, an emerald ring, circa 1920, produced with a gemstone given to Cartier by a royal family of India, commanded over $100,000.
On the lower end are items like a man’s dress set, which are cuff links, a tie bar and shirt studs, in one of the most identifiable and well-liked Art Deco styles—black and white colored geometric. It sold for $3000, double the top estimate. The set’s individual pieces are medallions of black onyx, edged by very small diamonds, with a larger diamond in the center, and set in platinum and gold.
Art Deco designing was at its peak throughout the 1925 world’s fair in Paris, known as the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, an occasion set up by the French to showcase what they viewed as their supremacy in developing luxurious goods and avante-garde place in industrial design.
Everything from jewelry to modest personal items, such as vanity sets and decorative boxes, to furnishings was on exhibit there. It was later that the time period became known as Art Deco, shortened from the phrase arts decoratifs in the fair’s name.
What You Need to Know about Art Deco. When evaluating Art Deco jewelry, there are various factors to keep in mind. “So much is dependent on quality, the strength of the design. And if the pieces are signed, the costs go up,” says Lange. Top designers include Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Boucheron, Mauboussin, who are French, and the Americans Tiffany, Yard, J.E. Caldwell, Schlumberger, David Webb and Marcus and Co.
Other key components in determining value are a dog’s head stamped inside a piece, employed by French creative designers solely, and for all, the visibility of scant metal on the underside of bracelets, necklaces and earrings. The less metal used, the more skillful the artisan, and the more valuable the piece. Pieces made using jade are especially valuable today too, due to interest from Asian collectors.
Within the larger Art Deco category are subcategories, such as Egyptian and Japanese revivals, which mimic the urbane aesthetic of those cultures, the American streamlined design, which is another name for American Art Deco, and Tutti Frutti, a style in which precious gemstones of contrasting colors—rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds—were used. Cartier, who produced the style, nicknamed it tutti frutti because he believed the colors combined together resembled fresh fruit salad.
The legendary 20th-century French clothing designer Coco Chanelalso designed Art Deco jewelry, but hers was costume quality to be worn with her ensembles, according to Jane Adlin, curator in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art.
The museum is now exhibiting Masterpieces of French Art Deco,that showcases a dress ornament of jade, onyx, diamonds, enamel and platinum, created in 1923 by Georges Fouquet. Soon after contemplating various Art Deco pieces to buy, it’s sensible to remember that the client’s own senses in the end should tell her or him which jewelry is the best.
According to Christie’s Kadakia: “Look at the workmanship and the balance of the designt and the stones and colors, and run your fingers over it. And, in the end, see how it looks on you.”
A great place to begin your search is the Antique and Vintage Jewelry Store at http://www.cheapantiquejewelrystore.com. The site features information about antique jewelry, buying tips and a discount store with the lowest prices available. Imagine your delight at finding a piece of cartier art deco jewelry or tiffany art deco jewelry at substantial savings.