Maker And Muse: Women and Early Twentieth Century Art Jewelry

With exquisite pieces drawn from the Driehaus Collection and major museum collections across the US, Maker and Muse surveys the international approach to art jewelry at the turn of the twentieth century, a time of radical change in design approach and in the role of women. Authoritative essays by noted scholars explore the development of this movement in England through the British Arts and Crafts, in France through Art Nouveau, in Germany and Austria through Jugenstil and particularly Wiener Werkstatte, and in the United States through the work of Tiffany Studios in New York and American Arts and Crafts in Chicago.

Looking specifically at the art jewelry, women participated and were perceived differently in each society—as makers in England and America, as unattainable abstract figures in France, and as living models in Germany and Austria. The pieces have distinct characteristics depending on their origin, but they share a common bond of exquisite craftsmanship executed in precious metals and richly colored enamels and stones.