AN ENAMEL AND RUBY FROG BROOCH, BY DAVID WEBB

Designed as a stylised frog with smooth polished body of cream enamel, with fine line linear detail and ruby cabochon eyes, mounted in 18K gold,...

AN ENAMEL AND RUBY FROG BROOCH, BY DAVID WEBB

Designed as a stylised frog with smooth polished body of cream enamel, with fine line linear detail and ruby cabochon eyes, mounted in 18K gold, signed Webb, length 4.2cm, width 3cm

 

 

David Webb:

The list of women who own his diamond and emerald encrusted animals reads like Whos Who. The Duchess of Windsor, Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, and Mrs. Amory wear his green enamel frogs. Eugenia Sheppard, 1964, fashion editor for the New York Herald Tribune.

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David Webb founded his eponymous fine jewellery line in Manhattan on July 28th 1948, at just twenty-three. His creations have come to embody the emboldened post-war era, exuding extravagance and excess which was hitherto disparaged. Webb stands amongst few who in the 20th century lay claim to an aesthetic style which was wholly their own. Webbs design were uninhibited, audacious and mesmerising, fast attracting throngs of American royalty to his 2 West 46th Street address, quickly becoming New Yorks best-known secret. Donned by Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and Estee Lauder, Webb jewellery has presence and demand notice, designed for those with presence in the vast city.

Little is known of Webbs early life, though few from his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, could foresee his meteoric rise to fame just a few short years following his move to New York. Webb got his start in Asheville as an apprentice to his uncle, a silversmith, before landing a job in the Diamond District of New York at the age of seventeen. The independence he exhibited to move to New York at this ripe age only serves to demonstrate Webbs individuated approach to all aspects of design. He completed all of his design work himself, from the conceptualisation of his pieces in pencil sketches in an unmistakably Webb fashion, through to their complete fruition.

A fascination with colour is at the core of all Webbs work, though ultimately this is dictated by his deep respect for form and materials. Webbs command of geometry gave him the liberty to create without compromise, likening him to an architect as well as artist. It is this duality of material and form which caught the attention of Jacqueline Kennedy, who selected Webb to complete seven designs for the Kennedy gifts of state which honoured minerals native the United States. All of these were accepted by Kennedy, prompting a lasting collaborative work relationship between the pair, with Kennedy herself comparing Webbs ingenuity of design to that of Cellini.

In the 1970s, venerable houses such as Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels turned to a resurgence of the art deco style. Conversely, in Webbs typical self-instructed style, he drew influence from innumerable cultures spanning across many periods, holding no reservations in his choosing. This was the penultimate result of Webbs studies of artefacts, utilising the extensive resources which New York city had to offer. He famously found himself on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art weekly, preoccupying his mind with bygone ancient cultures, from the Greco-Romans to the Byzantines. Artefacts from all corners of the world were re-envisaged by Webb. A Minoan bull would become a gold belt buckle and Greek penannular bracelets became the models for Webbs signature gold animal bracelets. He thrust jewellery further away from the abstract, embracing figurative forms and volume like no other. His exuberant animal creations take their place amidst a lineage of figurative animal art, successors of everything from Cartiers 1940s big cat jewels to the legacy of the preserved talismanic mythological creatures he found at the Metropolitan Museum.

It is for this breadth of influence, his stark individuality and boldness of design that brands Webb the Quintessential American jeweller.

 

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