Berkshires - Objets d'Art and Vertu

Influenced by the Art-Nouveau illustrations of Alphonse Mucha, this antique French jewelry box display case is decorated with silvered bronze or ...

This curvilinear textural gold-gilt metal two-piece belt buckle or convertible pendant depicting pine cone and needle sprays was designed by Mimi di N in 1981, as noted in the signed...

Young British Artist (YBA) Philippe Bradshaw (1965-2005) was represented by blue-chip international art galleries when he was the first to reimagine iconic-art images as tapestry-like metal-chain installations in multimedia environments. He is best known for transforming hand-assembled colorful anodized-aluminum links into shimmering semi-transparent layered curtains, whose hanging long strands uniquely amplified the light and sound of his projected camcorder videos and DJ'd music. In Bradshaw's first American exhibition "Disco Damage" in 2001 at NYC's legendary avant-garde art gallery, Deitch Projects, this jewelry-costume sculpture became part of the artist's live-in evolving studio installation. While later celebrating 15 years of art happenings that had occurred at that Soho exhibition space, its gallerist-cum-museum-director Jeffrey Deitch--who was physically scarred during this unforgettable chaotic several-month experience orchestrated by Bradshaw--recounted this show in his retrospective hardcover book "Live The Art". When Bradshaw drowned in the Parisian-river Seine in August 2005 while living the high life of his skyrocketing success in Europe, he left a small body of large installations that is mostly distributed among the world's top private art collections. Notably, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has acquired one of his multimedia works. Last year, another assembly of his chain-curtains made a rare public appearance at new modern-art museum, Heidi Horten Collection, during its inaugural exhibition in Vienna. Since winning a major British visual-art prize in 2000 that marked Bradshaw's art-world ascent following fellow Goldsmiths-College YBAs who were close friends, this sculpture evolved from one of his most elaborate jewelry costumes that he created in London while seducing the American who became his girlfriend. Unlike other pieces of jewelry that he made as gifts to participating acquaintances while video taping...

Louise Nevelson, an American modern sculptor who enhanced found objects throughout the 20th Century, in the 1980s transformed found, crushed and gilt m...

Vase sign: Daum Nancy France. Evidenced by this Daum sculptural colorless blown and hot-shaped lead-crystal heavy vessel vase, the finest irreproducible artistic works in the history of the French glass maker featured ornamental thick glass applications, while its most in-demand ArtDeco-period pieces were made between 1925 and 1935 with very few major pieces remaining in private hands and even less without damage. As a significant gift acquired from Don Jacques Daum in 1950, a similarly shaped, constructed and sized circa-1925 vase with "stylized foliage" motif is in the collection of the French Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris as Inventory #36309. A later-produced clear vase with a similar application motif at the rim, but in a "Champagne" bubbled style, is in the published book about the Leo and Irina Esterkin acquisitions from 1910-1940 titled Daum Art Deco Glass--A Private Collection. On our prime-condition antique vase, applied transparent glass is styled in high relief into a flowing undulating motif that evolved from Daum's Art Nouveau foliage designs. The angular and curvilinear shapes of this vessel epitomize the bold vases, bowls and sculptures for which Daum is best known. Its tiny pencil-etched signature on the side near the bottom reads "Daum (plus the Lorraine-cross symbol) Nancy France", which resembles some published signatures since 1925. Revealing how ahead of its time this particular design was--after WWII in 1945 coinciding with the revitalization of the French glass industry--Daum used...

This couture 1980s fuchsia-pink evening bag by Christian Lacroix in ribbed silk moire features a double-bow stitched handle and his script-monogram "CL" embroidered on the exterior of the snap-fastening flap. The interior is printed in gold with "Christian Lacroix Paris". Signs of wear that are not visible until inspection of the wavy reflections and shadows of the textural shiny fabric include: a lighter area below the closed flap that could be part of the moire-watermark pattern; interior loose threads at top corners; and thread-bare spots underneath at two of the four corners. The handle, back side and interior of the bag are in excellent condition. As we found it difficult to capture the bag's bluish-magenta color, our photos include some taken with studio lights and others in sunlight. We have listed this evening bag among bracelets, boxes and cases because we assume that the buyer will be a collector of Christian Lacroix jewelry...

Like Alexander Calder's handmade wire jewelry since 1929, whose smallest one-of-a-kind sculptural subjects ranged from aerial acrobats and dancers to mono...

Kenneth Jay Lane--whose monogram KJL is signed on the white-rose-decorated gold-tone clasp of this double-strand black-beaded resin necklace--is only one of four bylined jewelry designers collected by The Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection At The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the two-decade period between 1970-1989, which was dominated by such bold big shapes in mostly black, white and gold. A must for any collector of the world-renowned American-founded beauty-brand Avon, its rare limited-edition retailed necklace by Lane titled "Midnight Rose" is among the most distinctive that it produced among its lines of primarily perfume, cosmetics, and personal-care products whose origin dates back to 1886 in New York. Notably, the life-sized shiny cast-acrylic rose has the look of a far more expensive carved stone, such as one cut and polished from light-filled saturated-white chalcedony, which is a hard semi-precious stone favored by Lane. Like Lane's own line when it was originally signed KJL, the decorated clasp is uniquely designed. It locks underneath with a semi-circular hinge, which enables the stylized three-dimensional smooth rose to be perfectly positioned on the right side of the upper chest with the bud facing upwards above its three-leaf sepal in contrasting gilt textured metal. This position adds sparkle from above to the three pave rhinestones in a gold-tone setting at center of the rose, as if its dew-covered bud was beginning to open in strong moonlight. To balance the bold rose shape, the black strands cross each other below at a single point, which adds another eye-catching element to the concealed-string-tied necklace. In mint condition with no sign of wear, the necklace was acquired in its original lavender Avon retail box. In contrast, the paper shows wear and tear from handling, while still featuring the jewelry designer's full-name script signature, title, and text details like how to care for this synthetic jewelry. The metal-stamped hallmark is "KJL for Avon...