Beaux-arts jewelry made in Newark, New Jersey

Magazine Antiques, April, 1997 by Ulysses Grant Dietz, Janet Zapata

17 For the prices of gold and silver mesh bags see Vogue, November 6, 1902, p. 609; December 4, 1902, p. 802; and December 6, 1906, p. 841.

18 For the ubiquity of precious metal mesh bags see the Jewelers' Circular - Weekly, vol. 58, no. 1 (February 3, 1909), p. 103.

19 A Greek sphinx is shown in Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's painting Oedipus Explains the Riddle of the Sphinx of 1808 in the Musee du Louvre in Paris.

20 We are indebted to Yvonne Markowitz of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for pointing out the confusion of the sphinxes to us.

21 Among them were Tiffany and Company, Starr and Marcus, and Theodore B. Starr, all in New York City; J. E. Caldwell Company and Bailey, Banks and Biddle, both in Philadelphia; Bigelow and Kennard in Boston; Duhme and Company in Cincinnati, Ohio; Jaccard and Company in Saint Louis, Missouri; M. W. Galt and Brothers in Washington, D.C.; and Samuel Kirk and Son in Baltimore. As early as the 1860s Alling Brothers and Company of Newark record sales to all of the above firms (see Alling Brothers and Company Day Books, 1865-1867 and 1877-1878 [MG435, New Jersey Historical Society]). Newark-made pieces from the 1920s to the 1940s are known that bear the marks of Tiffany, Cartier, and Bailey, Banks and Biddle.

ULYSSES GRANT DIETZ is the curator of decorative arts at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey.

JANET ZAPATA is a jewelry and silver historian.