ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

In anticipation of this year's Belmont Stakes—where American Pharoah and his rider Victor Espinoza will race to end a 37-year drought on Triple Crown winners—we offer a collage of spirited stallions by Gustav Manz and others. 

From top left: detail from manufacturing order for a Manz horse brooch and other jewelry, c. 1911 (Ferdinand Hotz stock book, courtesy Hotz family archives); yellow-gold and water-green tourmaline ring from F. Walter Lawrence's atelier, most likely carved by Manz (The Keystone, July 1905); Rosa Bonheur's iconic painting of the horse market held in Paris on the trued-lined Boulevard de l’Hôpital, completed in 1855 and given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1897. According to the Met's website, Bonheur sketched there twice a week for a year and a half, "dressing as a man to discourage attention."

Buyers for this and other equestrian motifs included Tiffany, Cartier, Shreve Crump & Low, T.B. Starr, F. Walter Lawrence, Udall & Ballou, Marcus & Company, Black, Starr & Frost, Bailey, Banks & Biddle

Image from "A Master Sculptor in Precious Metals" 

Arts & Decoration, January 1926

 

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HORSE SENSE

Illustration from a profile of designer and manufacturing jeweler Gustav Manz ("A Master Sculptor in Precious Metals") featured in Arts and Decoration magazine, January 1926

In the late 19th century, Harlem River Drive was a popular racecourse for horse-drawn carriages. Known as the "Speedway," it ran along the river from 155th Street under the Washington Bridge (not to be confused with the George Washington Bridge, which spans the Hudson and opened in 1931) and up to Dyckman Street.

We don't know whether Gustav Manz, who lived in Washington Heights at that time, was fond of betting. That he was adept at carving equestrian motifs is clear from his business ledgers, which record sales of figural and diamond-studded items to Cartier, Tiffany & Co, Ferdinand Hotz (owner of the Maximilian Diamond), Udall & Ballou, Marcus & Co, Black Starr & Frost, T. B. Starr, Charlton, and Shreve Crump & Low. 

Trotting along the Harlem River, 1903 

Image from NYPL

Lucky horseshoes stickpins and brooches were an Edwardian favorite and turn up in Bailey, Banks & Biddle's ledger books, including one manufactured in 1908 by McTeigue, Manz & Co (Walter P. McTeigue and Gustav Manz). An accompanying sketch indicates 25 stones set in a alternating bands of sapphires and diamonds, evoking racing silks.  

The lilliputian herd on a circa 1900s ring retailed by jeweler F. Walter Lawrence (shown below), evokes Rosa Bonheur's famous painting depicting the horse market in Paris. Manz's close association with Lawrence, and his own reputation as an animalièr who often placed his subjects in leafy surrounds, points to him as the likely carver. 

Inspired by Rosa Bonheur's painting "The Horse Fair," this gold ring set with green tourmaline retailed by jewelry merchant F. Walter Lawrence, here attributed to designer-goldsmith Gustav Manz

Photo from The Keystone, July 1905, p 1073

Completed in 1855, Bonheur's scene of muscular Percherons barely restrained by their trainers as they circle a plaza was already famous by the time Cornelius Vanderbilt acquired the artwork in 1887 from department store magnate Alexander Turney Stewart and gave it to the Metropolitan Museum the following day. When the Met first opened its doors to the public on Sundays in 1891, the gigantic (8 x 16 1/2 foot!!) painting attracted tens of thousands of visitors. 

The miniature frieze of stallions on the "Horse Fair" ring surely created a minor sensation when a photo of it ran in The Keystone in July 1905, shortly after the opening of Belmont Park. Another equine ring sold to Lawrence, depicting horse and trainer, is recorded Manz's cost book records in summer 1910. Due to anti-gambling legislation targeting horse racing, Belmont and other New York tracks closed that season. Perhaps, that season, Lawrence's customer wore it to Ascot or Longchamp.

Entry in Manz's costbook for a gold and lapis seal ring with "Horse & trainer group" carved on the mounting, sold to F.W. Lawrence on June 2, 1910 

Courtesy Winterthur Museum Library

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TOTEMS

Lady Abdy (Iya Grigorievna de Gay) models Cartier 'Pylon' pendant 
Vogue, December 1928 

One can stare at Lady Abdy's Egyptian ornaments in Sotheby's upcoming sale only so long before needing some kind of elixir to ward off envy. Researching Lady Abdy led us back to a Cartier event that took place in the firm's New York salon at 712 Fifth Avenue. Pierre Cartier, whose wife was American, perched there for a few years before he acquired the firm's flagship building across the street, famously swapping a strand of pearls for the deed. On 11 November 1913, Messrs. Cartier previewed a 5-days-only exhibit of refitted gems acquired "...from the Hindoo, Persian, Arab, Russian and Chinese..."  

          

               One of the 50 pieces exhibited in New York by Cartier in November 1913, shown with the cover of the catalogue

Next door to this grand display of exoticism, at 714 Fifth, shoppers seeking the latest scents from Paris entered beneath a 3-story glass window that Francois Coty commissioned from Rene Lalique, his bottle maker, to dress up the store's facade. Lalique obliged with a vertical cascade of poppies and vines parted like an Ice Queen's drapery by one course of clear panes. No doubt Gustav Manz strolled uptown from his workshop on East 28th to view Cartier's first pieces in the "modern" geometric style. And to gander at those titanic glass garlands catching the light over Fifth Avenue. 

Glass act: Lalique windows over entrance at 714 Fifth Avenue, formerly known as the Coty Buildling (currently occupied by the Henri Bendel department store)

At the time, Manz was one of a handful of artisans in New York doing the fine platinum work Cartier's firm would become famous for. His cost books and business correspondence reference sales of his own work to Cartier, and his design inspirations—particularly Egyptian themes—were fed by the same historical sources. 

Assorted Egyptian designs by Gustav Manz; hand-carved gold bust mounted on gem from a private collection; scarab and carved gemstone pendant shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Eighth Annual Industrial Arts exhibit (Jewelers' Circular, January 30, 1924); Manz drawing, Mathews family collection

In his early twenties, Manz had visited the Valley of the Kings and made detailed sketches of artifacts in the Cairo museum; his hand-wrought mountings for F. Walter Lawrence's line of ancient glass shards and tear bottles (an early type of vinaigrette) received admiring notice at the National Arts Club exhibit of "Old, Modern, and Oriental" jewels in 1903; many of those gems went on view at the international exposition in St. Louis the next year. 

  "Sphinx and Pyramid" charm with iridescent Cyprian glass fragment in hand-wrought gold by Gustav Manz, exhibited at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis (The Craftsman, April 1903). Below that, same piece photographed in Manz's studio, circa 1901 (Winterthur Museum)

In the late 1880s, Manz landed in Paris, where Lalique was making his name. By 1913, he'd established his own New York studio and was selling his revivalist designs to Tiffany, Marcus & Company and merchants in Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. As a designer/manufacturer supplying mountings for some of the city's most prestigious jewelry houses, he had privileged access to historic artifacts acquired by the Metropolitan Museum and was adapting those motifs into his pieces. In 1924, Manz would exhibit his pieces alongside Cartier's at the museum's 8th annual industrial art show. 

Top: Platinum, gold, diamond, faience and colored stone 'Pylon' brooch, circa 1923, "Property formerly from the estate of Iya, Lady Abdy" (Sotheby's catalog); bottom:

Gustav Manz design for a Pylon-style pendant, circa 1901, Mathews family collection

Cartier has long since moved from No. 712, and the former House of Coty now houses fashion emporium Henri Bendel, now de facto trustee of the window. Coty's gift to the city has given us new respect for vintage perfume decanters offered on eBay, often with desiccated amber residue inside, reminiscent of the ancient tear bottles sought by Gilded Age aesthetes. (More on the history of this fragrant landmark at Daytonian in Manhattan.) 

This week, when Lady Abdy's jewels go on the block, we'll make our own pilgrimage to Bendel's for a whiff of Coty's closest successor to Parfum Styx (introduced in 1911) and a close-up look at the windows that just barely escaped the wrecker's ball when a developer seeking to alter the street-scape was sent packing by preservationists in the 1980s. (People discard perfume atomizers and rework old jewelry mountings, but no one throws stones at Lalique.) 

 

Coty perfume bottle with Lalique-style topper 
in silver travel case, c 1920 (eBay)

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BEAUTIFUL BAGUETTES

Detail from a circa 1920s photo of a geometric diamond clip brooch, Gustav Manz archive, courtesy The Joseph Downs Collection, Winterthur Museum

The vintage Parke-Bernet catalog for liquidation of "valuable jewelry" from the estate of John Kirkpatrick seemed, at first glance, a dull census of stones and carats with a modicum of photos to engage Depression era tire-kickers. The Jazz Age had run out of gas—no more madcap soirees, like the night Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald collected jewelry from guests and served it back to them in tomato broth. In March 1932, when the Kirkpatrick gems went on the block, LIFE magazine's cover was an F.G. Cooper caricature of the Big Bad Wolf in Grandma Prosperity's bed, with Little Red Riding Hood cowering in the corner, clutching a passbook and tax bill in her basket of goodies. 

 

Newlyweds Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald at her mother's home in 1921; the following year, Scott published his story "The Diamond As Big As the Ritz" (Time Life Pictures/Mansell/Getty Images)

 Vogue's July 1926 cover by Edward Garcia Benito promoted "Hot Weather Fashions" spelled out in diamonds (image Conde Nast Publications) 

Even with wolf at the door, the Kirkpatrick name drew a crowd of serious buyers to the Anderson Galleries. On day one of the sale, 36-year-old Harry Winston picked up a platinum-set diamond bracelet for $2,100 and a necklace with one hundred and twenty-three Oriental pearls (239.82 grains) and a diamond snap for $2,000. Starting as a wholesaler, Winston purchased and re-sold rare gems using the social register for his mailing list, as The New Yorker's Lillian Ross later wrote. Now he was stocking his first retail store at 527 Fifth Avenue, betting that happy days would come again for his customers whether Hoover or FDR won November's election. 

  Kirkpatrick estate sale catalog, March 10-12, 1932; Margaret Wallace displays assorted gems from Harry Winston's "Court of Jewels" exhibit, August 1949

The first day's session brought in $44,192 according to The New York Times; the second day, $53,497—for a cumulative total of $97, 689 or about $1.6 million in today's dollars. And there was a third session still to come. As we flipped to the final day's lots, what to our wondering eyes did appear but brooch we instantly recognized — Eureka!—as identical to a photo in Gustav Manz's papers at Winterthur (see them side by side, below). Designed as a modern Edwardian bowknot with Cubist/Aztec lines, Lot 303 sported 220 round and 20 baguette (1.54 and 2.24 carat) diamonds in a platinum mounting. An alternate view illustrated the combination brooch magically popped out of its frame and separated into a matching pair of dress clips. 

The undated brooch photo found in Manz's business archive shown with image of Lot 303 in the circa 1932 Kirkpatrick sales catalog

The catalog did not specify the maker, but Manz's business ledgers indicate he made unique mountings in diverse motifs for T. Kirkpatrick & Co. (founded in the mid-1800s by John Kirkpatrick's Scottish-immigrant father, Thomas). Perhaps the jeweler's daughter Doris, who worked as his sales rep, retained the glossy photo as reference for future buyers. Now, if we could just figure out who went home with that zinger of a pin. (Talk to us, Harry Winston…) 

Credits: Scott and Zelda, wire photo of Winston gems, and March 1932 Vogue cover via web. All other images © Gustav Manz LLC

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GUSTAV MANZ LLC

AMETHYSTS IN THE HEDGEROWS

Within my reach (Almost)
EMILY DICKINSON

Within my reach!

I could have touched!

I might have chanced that way!

Soft sauntered through the village,

Sauntered as soft away!

So unsuspected violets

Within the fields lie low;

Too late for striving fingers

That passed, an hour ago.

Gustav Manz violet ring with sapphire and two diamonds 
made for his daughter Helen, circa 1916
Private collection 

During her reign, Queen Victoria's favorite violet sold by the pint in Covent Garden. Some of our favorite posies are pressed into the pages of Gustav Manz's business ledger—among them, his design for an amethyst ring composed of two diamond-studded johnny jump ups with heart-shaped leaves and narrow stems running along the shank. 

Manz rendering for a gold, amethyst, and diamond violet ring purchased in 1920 by Manhattan gem dealer C.G. Bernhardt. Revelers in ancient Greece drank from carved amethyst cups, believing the purple stone warded off hangovers. 

Although he took on some commissioned work for private clients, Manz did not mark the pieces he and several bench artisans produced for his wholesale accounts. But ledgers record more than a dozen iterations of his violet design sold to Shreve, Crump & Low and Tiffany & Co and other prestigious merchants between 1910 and 1925.

Gold and diamond Violet Brooch 
Gustav Manz, circa 1910

Private collection

Several of Manz's floral rings went to family members. His mother-in-law, Sophie Bachem, widow of a diamond ring manufacturer, chose a signet version of the violet engraved with her initials and a pale-blue gem winking at the center of each flower. A niece received a ring of gold iris spears cradling a black opal. A ring with faceted sapphire surrounded by diamond-set violets was the jeweler's Christmas gift to his daughter Helen in 1922 (though her birth month was November). As poet Kate Greenaway said of Shakespeare: "The spring flowers in his hands are nearly as beautiful as themselves."

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Notes

A violet pendant cast from Manz's original may be purchased at gustavmanz.com

Quote from Kate Greenaway letter to John Ruskin, 1896, in Kate Greenaway by M.H. Spielmann and G.S. Layard published by Adam and Charles Black, London, 1905

The phrase "amethysts in the hedgerows" was coined by French herbalist Maurice Messegue

Gustav Manz Violet Brooch seen above was exhibited in "Finer Things: Jewelry and Accessories from the 1880s-1930s" curated by Elise Zorn Karlin at Stan Hywet Museum in Akron, OH, April 2012-October 2012; photos not otherwise marked should be credited Gustav Manz LLC

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THAT DARN CAT! Classic felines by Gustav Manz

     

 

Pencil ring design from Gustav Manz jewelry ledger; purchased by Pickslay & Company, circa 1911
Gustav Manz archive, Wintherthur Library 

Before Cartier's Jeanne Toussaint thought of placing a friendly spotted panthère on cabochon emeralds—or having one jump through hoops, as seen in the firm's recent promo video—quite a few jungle cats loped through glittering cases on New York's Fifth Avenue, and Boston's Washington Street, and Jewelers Row in Chicago. A good number of them, such as the panther confronting a snake in the drawing above, were designed and executed in gold or sterling silver by the early 20th century animalier and jewelry maker Gustav Manz. 

Panthere clip-brooch designed circa 1948 by Cartier's Jeanne Toussaint (Duchess of Windsor collection)

Image copyright Cartier

Okay, we'll admit, L'Odyssée de Cartier IS pretty great marketing candy. It reminds us of the sleepy princess in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Tinder Box"—carried away on the back of a sleek cat rather than a dish-eyed dog... We were equally awestruck when one of Gustav Manz's rare carved panther rings surfaced at Skinner's recent fine jewelry sale this month. 

A Star Sapphire and 14K Gold Panther and Snake ring attributed to Gustav Manz, offered at Skinner's Fine Jewelry Sale, June 14, 2011

Lot 238 carried us back to April 1904, when Manz's hand-wrought gold and sapphire panther ring appeared at the Fine Arts pavilion at the St. Louis world's fair, along with dozens of other pieces he executed for jeweler F. Walter Lawrence's exhibit case. An unnamed fairgoer purchased the ring according to archived correspondence between Lawrence and Halsey C. Ives, Chief of the Department of Art at the expo. 

The gold ring depicting a tiger swiping at a snake in the grass shown above was included in Manz's display at the 8th Exhibit of Industrial Arts held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and appeared on the opening page of The Jewelers' Circular coverage of the show in January 1924. The typesetter inadvertently printed it upside down; nonetheless it was one of his bestselling designs.

Above: Manz sketch for a ring with cabochon sapphire, sold to Moore & Mason, 1925; below, Manz sales record for a panther and snake ring purchased  by Tiffany & Co in 1913; bottom, drawing of a panther stickpin set with a cabochon gem from Manz's design scrapbook 
Image copyright Gustav Manz LLC

Manz's business ledgers from 1910-1925 show multiple variations of jungle cats poised to pounce, stalking snakes and other characteristic poses—on men's rings and sleeve-links and scarf-pins, with cabochon or calibre stones. Buyers included Tiffany & Company, Shreve, Crump & Low, Pickslay & Co, and other bespoke jewelry merchants. Manz's artful evocation of nature tooth and claw evidently spoke to gentlemen and sportsmen of the Gilded Age. You could say they, like Andersen's and Cartier's princess, were carried away.

Check out other historic Gustav Manz jewelry designs on this blog. Below: a transporting moment from Kay Nielsen's circa 1930 illustrations for Hans Christian Andersen's "The Tinder Box"

Extracts from Gustav Manz ledgers courtesy of
Winterthur Museum; except as noted, other images and text 
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Text updated 9/15/2015