Saturday, September 24, 2011

ANTIQUES - ANTIQUES - Dragonflies Shimmering As Jewelry - NYTimes.com

The dragonfly came to Western masterpiece much afterward, probably in the 1860's, when Japonisme became a craze afterward commerce with Japan opened up. It was accustomed by Christopher Dresser, the English designer, and his friends in the Esthetic Movement in the 1860's and 1870's.

''The English and Americans saw the magic of these characters and adopted them,'' said Denis Gallion of the Manhattan gallery Historical Design. He is selling a sterling silver Japonisme creamer and sugar bowl, with a dragonfly idea, designed by Dominick & Haff of New York City in 1881.

The dragonfly namely a forcing moth. It has 5,000 species, and people, especially children, have been mad approximately it for centuries.

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Amy Ogata, one Art Nouveau expert, said, ''In America, the dragonfly has not particular emblematic averaging.'' It became ubiquitous in the 1890's, she said, ''because it perfectly captured the ephemeral ecology of Art Nouveau.'' She persisted, ''The ephemeral quality is well suited to the rotate of the century -- life is short, so 1 must be as gifted and pretty as one can in the period one has.''

But the dragonflies in the Tiffany exhibition are even extra stunning. One is a brooch with trembling wings of diamonds and sapphires. It was designed about 1890 by a little-known Tiffany artiste, G. Paulding Farnham. Though he was only in his 20's at the time, he had already conquered a special medal for his jewelry at the Paris Exposition of 1889. Farnham's work ambition be surveyed for the first time in ''Tiffany Jewels,'' by John Loring, to be published in November by Harry N. Abrams.

In counting to several stunning pieces of jewelry that are not based on dragonfly designs, including Diana Vreeland's signature ''trophee clip'' of 1941, the show features an Audubon tea set, circa 1875; a ''Comanche trophy'' silver horse statue commissioned in the 1870's by August Belmont, a father of American thoroughbred racing, and a Persian-style demitasse set festooned with real freshwater pearls.

''The dragonfly lands on someone for only a second and then works away,'' said Annamarie Sandecki, director of the archives of Tiffany & Company, whose designers have constantly been influenced by the insect. ''It not sits still. When it alights, it's for a moment, a heart-stopping second of charm.''

As a design motif, it appears on Japanese lacquerware, metalwork and porcelain and in colored woodcuts. And it is one of the insects maximum beloved by Japanese kid.

In ''Jewelry in America: 1600-1900'' (Antique Collectors Club, 1995), Martha Gandy Fales wrote: ''The dragonfly was considered particularly beautiful for jewelry. Its long posterior extremity, outstretched wings and solid body give it particularly invaluable properties for the setting of precious stones.''

''Farnham's dragonfly is designed to be dressed at night, in candlelight,'' Ms. Sandecki said. ''It's a real show stopper, and it was meant to draw care to the wearer and itself.''

John Loring, devise manager of Tiffany, said of the dragonfly, ''The Japanese consider it brings good tidings.''

The dragonfly's first starring role was in eighth-century Japan. According to the Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, which covers the nation's civilization, the dragonfly was trusted in mythology to be the morale of the rice plant and a harbinger of rich crops. It was a symbol of the power of the Yamato tribunal in the eighth century and was mentioned in later poems set to melody.

''The sugar bowl portrays a kingfisher swooping over the water in pursuit of a fish,'' Mr. Gallion said. ''The fish is abstracted with grabbing the dragonfly. It represents the life wheel of nature.''

Ms. Sandecki is curator of ''An American Design Legacy: Highlights from the Tiffany & Company Archives,'' an exhibition of 70 of the 750 objects in the company's permanent accumulation, including some dragonfly designs. The show, which runs through Sept. 11, is at Tiffany's Fifth Avenue cache in New York.

In Christie's marketing on April 14, captioned ''Magnificent Jewels,'' an enamel, diamond and emerald dragonfly brooch by an unnamed jeweler sold for $18,400; it had been anticipated to send $12,000 to $15,000. The piece had wings ''en tremblant,'' alternatively with springs namely let the wings flutter. The wings were in royal blue and emerald green plique a jour enamel,Imitation Handbags Usually Are Friendly Finishing Touches, a technique namely resembles dyed glass and allows light to penetrate.

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Jewelry designers were particularly inspired by the dragonfly. ''They like to interpret the translucency of its wings and body,'' Ms. Sandecki said. ''The dragonfly does no arise solid, so a jeweler can do a cloud of stones.''

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