NEW American Jewelry Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin 1930’s-40’s Hollywood Glamour

Description

The Jewels of Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin: A History of American Style and Innovation by Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
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DESCRIPTION:
Hardcover with Dustjacket.  Publisher: Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2014).  Pages: 140.  Size:  9×6 inches.
From the mid-1930s through the 1940s, the collaboration of the American jewelry firm Trabert & Hoeffer with the Parisian house Mauboussin produced some of the most extraordinary high-style jewels of its time. Hollywood stars such as Claudette Colbert and Marlene Dietrich appeared on-screen and off flashing the firm’s historic gems mounted in diamond-studded platinum settings. Even during the Depression and World War II, Trabert & Hoeffer–Mauboussin prospered and expanded across the country, not only by continuing to supply stylish custom jewelry to celebrities and socialites, but also by marketing more affordable ornaments. Its best -known invention was the Reflection line of semi-custom jewelry–“Your personality in a jewel.” Crafted from interchangeable parts, it made a bold new modern look available to a wider range of customers by allowing them to mix and match preconstructed parts with their own choice of gemstones. Drawing on historical sources that include part of the firm’s design archives, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this book tells a story of design and marketing innovations, shrewd business decisions and adaptability to changing times that produced a legacy of dazzling jewels.
CONDITION
:  NEW.  New hardcover with dustjacket. Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2014) 140 pages. Unblemished and pristine in every respect. Pages are clean, crisp,
unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, unambiguously unread. Satisfaction
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#7932a.
PLEASE SEE DESCRIPTIONS AND IMAGES BELOW FOR DETAILED REVIEWS AND FOR PAGES OF PICTURES FROM INSIDE OF BOOK.
PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.
PUBLISHER REVIEWS
:
REVIEW
:  Yvonne J. Markowitz, with contributions by Elizabeth Irvine Bray, Nonie Gadsden, Elizabeth Hamilton, Frederic A. Sharf, and Toni Strassler From the mid-1930s through the 1940s, the collaboration of the American jewelry firm Trabert & Hoeffer with the Parisian house Mauboussin produced some of the most extraordinary high-style jewels of its time. Hollywood stars such as Claudette Colbert and Marlene Dietrich appeared on-screen and off flashing the firm’s historic gems mounted in diamond-studded platinum settings. Even during the Depression and World War II, Trabert & Hoeffer–Mauboussin prospered and expanded across the country not only by continuing to supply stylish custom jewelry to celebrities and socialites, but also by marketing more affordable ornaments. Its best-known invention was the Reflection line of semi-custom jewelry – “your personality in a jewel.” Crafted from interchangeable parts, it made a bold new moderne look available to a wider range of customers by allowing them to mix and match preconstructed parts with their own choice of gemstones. Drawing on historical sources that include part of the firm’s design archives, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this book tells a story of design and marketing innovations, shrewd business decisions, and adaptability to changing times that produced a legacy of dazzling jewels.
PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS
:
REVIEW
:  Publishing true stories must include two things: amazing resources and immense knowledge. Yvonne J. Markowitz possessed the knowledge and the Museum of Fine Arts, the resources. This amazing true story was wonderfully documented. It is an ‘homage” to talent and style, from both side of the Atlantic Ocean and tells the story of two incredible Jewelry houses from France and the USA. Both houses perfected the recipe for success: vision, creativity, and entrepreneurship. This fabulous jewelry was fearlessly crafted and marketed perfectly.
This detailed, accurate reference to timing, names and historical events makes this a fascinating read. In addition to the imagery of the jewelry, and the movie stars that wore the jewelry, makes this story alive as one reads it. It seems that Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin were “trendsetters” understanding the importance of publishing and advertising; especially when they referred to cinemas divas, as a marketing tool. In fact, it feels like they started what is called today “the Red Carpet”!
This book was absolutely needed! The contemporary look at this important “period” of the jewelry history is now recorded for ever and will be welcomed by all jewelry lovers and those who study jewelry or simply curious about it. Every public library shall be proud to have it in the future. It also shows that, no matter the crisis of a specific time in history, Art (in this case jewelry) is what matters and stays.
Congratulations Yvonne J. Markowitz and the MFA team of the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Jewelry department of the Museum of Fine arts.
[Gerard Riveron, Executive Director, Dorfman Jewelers, Boston].
REVIEW
:  In the economic hard times leading up to World War II, when many New York jewelry firms were failing, the American company Trabert & Hoeffer, Inc. not only survived but thrived. Established in 1926 by Randolph Trabert and William Howard Hoeffer, it quickly found a foothold in the New York high-society scene. When Trabert died in 1930, Hoeffer steered the firm to even greater success. A merger with Paris jeweler Mauboussin in 1936 created a strong brand known for innovative and sophisticated jewelry.
“A study of their work is important to understanding American high style in the 1930s and ’40s,” says Yvonne Markowitz, the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan curator of jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Markowitz is working on an upcoming book* about the Trabert & Hoeffer, Inc.-Mauboussin (T&H-M) union, to be published under the auspices of the museum, which has acquired a partial archive of drawings and photographs of the jewels made by the firm.
Very early on, notes Markowitz, Hoeffer had his eyes on Paris. “He understood that Paris was setting the style.” The jewelry designs the firm created “very closely followed Paris fashion.” Seeing Cartier and other French firms gain ground in New York City, Mauboussin Paris opened its own store there in 1926. “They were fairly successful,” says Markowitz, but then the stock market crashed. “They decided that if they were to succeed in America, they needed to follow new money,” something Trabert & Hoeffer was already doing, forging relationships in the burgeoning Hollywood cinema scene. It seemed a natural fit for the two companies to unite.
Pierre Mauboussin and Hoeffer entered into a collaboration in 1936. Trabert & Hoeffer got the Paris name and connection and Mauboussin got the means to establish its reputation in the U.S. in a tough retail climate. “Although it wasn’t a legal entity and no one knows how or if money changed hands,” says Markowitz, the partnership lasted for 17 years.
In the early 1930s, Hoeffer already had made inroads into the Hollywood set. It was the beginning of the golden age of cinema and many of the film production houses were renting jewelry to be used in the films. Hoeffer saw that as an opportunity. The firm received wonderful exposure in an on-screen credit line as the sole supplier of the jewelry used in many successful films. Moreover, it put the firm on the radar of the silver screen’s leading ladies, who not only wore their own jewelry in their movies but around town. It was a practice that he continued to build on after the merger. Paulette Goddard and Marlene Dietrich, says Markowitz, were big T&H-M customers.
The firm’s camera-loving creations from the 1930s through the ’40s were big and bold three-dimensional designs that were very “in your face,” says Markowitz. One of the firm’s signature pieces was a necklace with incredible star rubies set in platinum and diamond mounts that was showcased by Claudette Colbert in the 1935 film “The Gilded Lily.” Explains Markowitz, “Created by Hoeffer and his designers in 1934, these very long  ‘multiuse’ necklaces were designed so that extraordinary gemstones — star sapphires and rubies of 40, 50 and 60 carats — were placed at points where the necklace could be taken apart and worn as separate bracelets, clips, pendants and earrings.”
There was an incredible fashion fad in the late 1930s-early 1940s for star rubies and sapphires, continues Markowitz, “and a lot of that I think has to do with T&H-M and Hoeffer.” The firm produced and heavily promoted rings with fabulous faceted stones accented with diamonds in platinum settings. “Hoeffer liked to make bold colored stones the centerpiece but there are also,” says Markowitz, “a lot of diamonds in the pieces.” T&H-M built a reputation as being an important retailer of significant gem-laden jewelry.
This passion for high-quality gemstones was part of the firm’s raison d’être from the beginning. Among the distinguished stones it acquired: the Star of Bombay, a 181.82-carat star sapphire from Sri Lanka (Ceylon), the Star of Burma, an 83-carat cabochon-cut star ruby and the 25-carat emerald-cut diamond Hoeffer named the Star of Kimberly. The Star of Bombay was made into a ring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. gave his wife Mary Pickford, who bequeathed the stone to the Smithsonian. Ever mindful of marketing opportunities, Hoeffer exhibited the magnificent gems in his stores to attract the public. And along with lending jewels to Hollywood films, he also placed them in ads with luxury automobiles like Cadillac, where the jewelry firm also received a credit line.
In another shrewd move, Markowitz notes, “Hoeffer bought the total output of the Muzo emerald mines in 1945 and became an important dealer in emeralds.” Even the lesser stones were put to use and slices of natural crystals or “emerald rough” were mounted into a variety of smaller items from pendants to bracelet charms and cufflinks and sold as patented “lucky rough emerald jewelry.”
Realizing that many of his clients could no longer afford custom-designed jewelry, Hoeffer created a more affordable but still personalized line. Called “Reflection —Your Personality in a Jewel,” it creatively combined machine-made and hand-finished components. Clients could choose from a variety of precast design elements to design a customized piece of jewelry, explains Markowitz. “It cut down on a lot of the design and fabrication time — a whole suite of jewelry could be made in two weeks.” The Reflection collection was “enormously popular and was heavily advertised in leading fashion magazines,” says Markowitz. “People were encouraged to ‘reflectionize’ their old jewelry” — remounting the stones in new settings.
The Reflection series used a lot of colored gems — amethyst, aquamarines, citrines — the kind of stones associated with Moderne or Retro style pieces, “which were easier to obtain at that time,” Markowitz notes. “For the same reason, with platinum allocated for war use, the Reflection series was almost always done in gold — both 18-karat and 14-karat, which also helped lower the cost point.”
The Reflection jewels are the pieces mostly seen at auction, Markowitz says, noting that “they come onto the market pretty frequently. Prices depend upon the materials. The necklace that Claudette Colbert wore in ‘The Gilded Lily’ was valued at the time by Hoeffer at $1 million.” Jewelry using the more “important” stones doesn’t come onto the market that often because over the years, the gems were removed to be reused or multiuse pieces were broken up into their various components.
In 1953, Mauboussin concluded its collaboration with Trabert & Hoeffer and by the mid-fifties, Hoeffer himself lost interest in the jewelry trade and became a real estate developer in New Jersey. “The firm continued on,” concludes Markowitz, “with a number of shops in Miami, Chicago, and New York City, but the stores, while retaining the name, are basically independent retailers, no longer on the cutting edge of influencing design and style as they were in the late thirties and early forties. T&H-M was a brilliant flash for a very brief period of time but it left a mark.”
READER REVIEWS
:
REVIEW
:  Beautiful photographs! A well written and interesting history of American jewelry design and manufacture’s coming of age in the 20th Century. Read how world history and the role of a clever entrepreneur expanded the American market and defined our choices in jewelry today. Delightful!
REVIEW
:  This small book about the story of Trabert & Hoeffer-Mauboussin jewelry is eminently readable whether you are a jewelry connoisseur or someone who knows very little about the subject. The essays showcase the talents of its authors-curators, historians, jewelry professionals, and collectors. Packed with scholarship and years of experience, each essay is a small gem of writing. This book makes a wonderful companion piece for the exhibition “Hollywood Glamor” now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston until March 2015. Both are well worth a look.
REVIEW
:  This is an excellent history of a great firm about which there is little known. According to the book, the archive at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is fragmentary and consists primarily of a selection of Reflection line drawings and some vintage photos. The drawings are all online on the museum’s website. It’s refreshing to have a jewelry book that is more than a coffee table book with blown-up color plates.
REVIEW
:  I’m a collector of 20th century fine jewelry and have a few pieces of jewelry by Trabert,Hoeffer-Mauboussin. I consulted several jewelry books and the internet and couldn’t find much information on the company. This book fills that gap.
REVIEW
:  I want everything in this book, either real or fake. Glorious pieces and photographs!
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Most of the items I offer come from the collection of a family friend who was active in the field of Archaeology for over forty years.  However many of the items also come from purchases I make in Eastern Europe, India, and from the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean/Near East) from various institutions and dealers.  Though I have always had an interest in archaeology, my own academic background was in sociology and cultural anthropology.  After my retirement however, I found myself drawn to archaeology as well.  Aside from my own personal collection, I have made extensive and frequent additions of my own via purchases on Ebay (of course), as well as many purchases from both dealers and institutions throughout the world – but especially in the Near East and in Eastern Europe.  I spend over half of my year out of the United States, and have spent much of my life either in India or Eastern Europe.  In fact much of what we generate on Yahoo, Amazon and Ebay goes to support The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, as well as some other worthy institutions in Europe connected with Anthropology and Archaeology.
I acquire some small but interesting collections overseas from time-to-time, and have as well some duplicate items within my own collection which I occasionally decide to part with.  Though I have a collection of ancient coins numbering in the tens of thousands, my primary interest is in ancient jewelry.  My wife also is an active participant in the “business” of antique and ancient jewelry, and is from Russia.  I would be happy to provide you with a certificate/guarantee of authenticity for any item you purchase from me.  There is a $2 fee for mailing under separate cover.  Whenever I am overseas I have made arrangements for purchases to be shipped out via domestic mail.  If I am in the field, you may have to wait for a week or two for a COA to arrive via international air mail.  But you can be sure your purchase will arrive properly packaged and promptly – even if I am absent.  And when I am in a remote field location with merely a notebook computer, at times I am not able to access my email for a day or two, so be patient, I will always respond to every email.  Please see our
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