Philippe Wolfers a Rare Art Nouveau Gold Silver Pliqueãƒâ jour Enamel
One of the finest independent craftsmen working in the French style of Art Nouveau jewelry at the turn of the 20th century was actually Belgian. A breathtaking example of Wolfers' "ex unique" jewels is coming to America, to bring together the permanent collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Phillipe Wolfers (1858-1929) was built-in into a family business founded in 1812, with an atelier that produced jewels for several European royal courts.
While learning the trade, Phillipe Wolfers studied art at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. In 1873, he visited the earth fair in Vienna and was struck by the Japanese decorative arts on display. This led him, as information technology did so many others, to the Fine art Nouveau movement.
Wolfers dove in with a passion. In 1889, he set up an Fine art Nouveau-manner villa in La Hulpe and, a few years later, opened his own workshop in the Square Marie Louise with a team of craftsmen.
Information technology was a small operation compared to his more famous Parisian colleague, René Lalique, who had thirty men working in his atelier past 1890. Like Lalique, Wolfers employed skilled craftsmen to realize his designs, and produced astonishing things with plique-à-jour enameling and carved semi-precious stone. He even looked a bit like Lalique.
Wolfers' jewels are rare, and notable for their finely sculpted stone and ivory. Of the 152 Fine art Nouveau works he produced – including vases, fans, lamps, and sculptures – 109 were jewels from a series made betwixt 1897 and 1905. They are marked "ex [exemplaire] unique" to distinguish them from jewelry fabricated by his family'southward firm.
A beautiful instance known as the "Glycines" choker, designed by Wolfers in 1900 and made in 1902, is coming to America. The Virginia Museum of Fine Art just bought it from the Belgian-based jeweler Epoque Fine Jewels.
I posted about this piece in 2016 just before it sold at Christie'south Geneva for $277,000, virtually iv times what was expected. It's always nice to see a behest war over something other than big diamonds.
In this case, the ethereal dazzler of plique à jour leaves, that fragile and translucent style of enameling Fine art Nouveau jewelers made famous, perfectly integrated with blossoms carved from opals and watermelon tourmalines, two of Wolfers' favorite gems. His wisteria vines curl effectually a gilt frame studded with garnets and rubies formed in that familiar Fine art Nouveau-style whiplash.
A brooch Wolfers designed effectually the same time sold at Sotheby'southward for $51,000, with plique à jour, rubies and diamonds in the shape of an insect. While clearly influenced by Lalique and depicting like themes, Wolfers appeared to be following his own muse. Wolfers' moth was stiff and symmetrical compared to the lifelike insects Lalique was known for. And so stylized, it's about abstract.
As the wisteria choker and this brooch/pendant (to a higher place) shows, he could summon the fluid forms that typified Art Nouveau merely preferred symmetry. Like other jewelers of this movement, Wolfers was affected by the rebellious spirit of the Belle Epoque. All were challenging convention and redefining fine jewelry, replacing faceted gems with carved rock and drinking glass, conventional goldsmithing with Japanese-way metalwork and enameling. Inspired by Japanese craftsmanship, their jewelry celebrated exoticism and experimentation.
Wolfers, in particular, helped popularize the utilize of carved ivory in jewelry, and several of his pieces feature carved opal also. While he worked with similar imagery – winged goddesses, snakes and insects – his interpretations were heavier than Lalique's and frequently unsettling: scowling Medusas and earthy nudes, nothing like the ethereal French versions.
Wolfers never achieved the fame of Lalique, only both contributed to that captivating chapter of jewelry design we know as Art Nouveau. In one case that chapter ended, both men abandoned jewelry altogether. Lalique went on to fine art glass, and in 1908, Wolfers turned his attending to sculpture.
Wolfer's "Glycines" choker is a treasure of Fine art Nouveau jewelry. I'm always happy when something like that ends up at a museum, so the public can see what an amazing art class jewelry can exist. And I don't fifty-fifty have to visit Europe to see this one.
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Source: https://thejewelryloupe.com/art-nouveau-master-philippe-wolfers/
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