Displaying items by tag: jewelry design

An upcoming jewelry exhibition co-curated by the fashion designer Carolina Herrera sheds new light on the Italian Duke Fulco di Verdura, who can be credited with changing the look of 20th century jewelry through his innovative idea to combine precious gemstones with yellow gold.

Born in 1898 to Sicilian aristocracy in Palermo, Verdura was most known for his influences by surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, with whom he collaborated on a collection that was exhibited at an art gallery in New York in 1941. One of the highlights in the exhibition is his “Medusa” brooch (pictured left),which comprises 13 intertwined snakes made of 14k yellow gold and cabochon ruby eyes, framing a miniature painting of Medusa by Dalí set with a 73-carat Morganite.

The roster of small jewelry workshops in Manhattan’s diamond district keeps shrinking, but at least one company that’s winding down is preserving the history of its designs. After six decades of making jewelry at various addresses in the West 40s, Henry Dankner & Sons is closing and donating its paperwork and molds to the jewelry design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

If not for that gift, the family’s story of escaping the Nazis in Hungary and winning renown in New York for their gold mechanical charms (with moving parts) would be largely forgotten.