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| Passion Investments: Gems & Jewelry |
Retro Rockets
Marisa Bartolucci
03/01/2005
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Schepps was the only American of this adventurous group of jewelers—and it shows. With its unusual angularities, bright colors, vivid textures and overscale forms, his jewelry is swankier, more brashly modern. Only Schepps could have designed his jazz cuff bracelets from the late 1930s. Fashioned from white and yellow gold, they are adorned with a syncopated assemblage of cabochons and engraved emeralds, sapphires and rubies with diamond accents. If one came up for auction—and they seldom do—Lisa Hubbard, the executive director of the jewelry department at Sotheby’s, estimates it would fetch somewhere between $15,000 and $25,000.
| | RARE CLUSTER of grapes clip brooch by Suzanne Belperron in white gold, carved agate & blister pearls at Primavera Gallery. |
Schepps could also make luscious treasures. In 1941, he fashioned a grape cluster brooch for Doris Duke from an array of multihued purple sapphire cabochons. She paid $2,500 for it. When Duke’s jewelry collection was put up for auction last summer at Christie’s, it fetched $44,215.
A new generation of jewelry lovers has lately discovered Schepps’ eclectic style, thanks to a 2004 retrospective of his designs at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design and a new monograph published by Vendome. In fact, interest has been so great that the Schepps salon has reissued six Retro designs, including the Doris Duke grape brooch ($41,000), and the jazz cuff bracelet with rubies ($39,000). The replicas cost almost as much—if not more—as the originals. This is another sign of just how much jewelry by these designers is undervalued, because contemporary reproductions cannot duplicate the historical aura or workmanship of the originals.
“Up until the 1970s, even unsigned jewels were of great quality,” Audrey Friedman of Primavera Gallery says. “All the little rivets you see to hold things together in the old jewels, that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just too expensive to make.” The outlook for collecting Retro jewels by these exceptional designers seems bright. They are once again celebrated, and their vintage work is in diminishing supply. Nevertheless, if you begin collecting these jewels, it should be, as with any work of art, for love, not mere investment. Unlike equities, jewelry does not pay dividends, except in pleasure. For a growing number of young collectors, that seems good enough. Marisa Bartolucci lives in New York and writes on a variety of cultural subjects. misab@rcn.com
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