Girls who paved one of the simplest ways: Marianne Ostier

Marianne Ostier (1902-1976) was the primary designer behind Ostier, Inc., a jewelry company she ran collectively along with her husband, Oliver Ostier in mid-century Manhattan. A winner of many prestigious diamond design awards, Ostier was acknowledged for intricately random mountings and pure textures that mirror her teaching as an artist.

Marianne Ostier studied on the Vienna Academy of Arts and Crafts and was a working in direction of painter and sculptor when she met her husband, acknowledged then as Otto Oesterreicher, a third-generation court docket docket jeweler in Austria. They bought right here to the U.S. in 1938, after the Nazi annexation of Austria, and launched a jewelry enterprise beneath their new determine.

Only a few notable objects by Marianne Ostier are up for public sale this month, along with this tiara (at Sotheby’s New York subsequent week) designed merely sooner than Ostier, Inc. was launched. Depicting the Albanian royal crest atop a floral vine and set with about 33 carats worth of diamonds, the tiara went from royal bridal ceremony (1938) to White House dinner (1966). The designer as quickly as described it as “a decorative and distinctive diamond crown.”

UPDATE 4/19/16: Ostier jewels purchased means above estimates at Sotheby’s within the current day. See my captions for particulars. This might improve the price for this designer’s work going forward, notably for her finest jewels.

That price is an occasion of Ostier’s fluid means with diamonds and platinum, and proof of the connections the Ostiers had after they landed throughout the U.S. One different diamond-and-platinum piece in that public sale reveals the designer 17 years later, at her Mid-Century Stylish peak. Observe the excellence.

Proper right here is one different early occasion of the designer’s mastery of platinum and diamonds, from the European years: a primary Deco openwork bracelet made in 1930, up for grabs at Sotheby’s in December.

It was on American shores that Ostier developed a very completely totally different signature mannequin, involving a lot much less symmetrical, further pure form – and an equally astonishing mastery of gold.

Proper right here is the piece that put Marianne Ostier on my radar plenty of years up to now: her crazy dramatic “Voodoo” necklace of 18k gold fringe and cabochon emeralds, interspersed with diamond-set platinum. It looks as if very luxurious seaweed and might want to have been pretty a celebration stopper when it debuted. This necklace purchased for $22,515 at Skinner, Boston, in 2009.

One different assortment of Ostier’s work is up available on the market at Rago Arts subsequent week, and accommodates examples of her award-winning diamond-in-platinum designs along with the artsier sculptural gold objects. Other than the diamond jewels, they carry modest estimates.

Marianne Ostier jewels on sale at Rago on April 17, prime to bottom:

• Bracelet of pink saltwater pearls, platinum, diamonds and pink topaz

• Ear clips of 8mm saltwater pearls, diamonds and platinum, c. 1950, stamped MO

• “Penny” brooch and ear clips of 18k textured gold with diamonds

• Brooch of marquise-shape turquoise and 18k gold, c. 1958

That remaining piece appears a bit similar to the Megaletor brooch Georges Braque designed three years later with the goldsmith Baron Héger de Lowenfeld. That closing problem, merely sooner than Braque died, was the one time the well-known Cubist designed jewelry.

In 1966, three years after Braque’s lack of life, Ostier’s jewelry appeared alongside his and Salvador Dali’s jewels at a specific exhibition at Finch College of Art work titled Art work in Beneficial Jewels. Not just like the better-known artists in that exhibition, Ostier was not designing on the aspect as a celeb artist. She had managed to deal with her creative sensibilities – and have an effect on widespread jewelry design – whereas serving to to pilot a worthwhile jewelry company for 3 a few years.

Assume you might have a bit by Marianne Ostier? Most are marked MO or M.OSTIER. Larger objects have her whole determine spelled out, as you might even see on the once more of the “Fences” brooch pictured above.

Though the Ostiers ran a jewelry enterprise throughout the coronary coronary heart of Manhattan for a few years, Marianne Ostier is not a household determine and her jewelry is pretty accessible. (Uncover I’m not mining Sotheby’s and Christie’s Magnificent Jewels catalogs for almost all of this imagery.) The gold and turquoise brooch (above) is estimated at $800-1,000 and comes with a signed copy of the e-book Ostier printed in 1958, Jewels and the woman: The romance, magic and art work of feminine adornment, a mid-century primer on how one can placed on jewelry.

She is often credited with inventing free-form jewelry. I wouldn’t say she invented it, nonetheless she truly pioneered free-form design in unbelievable jewelry and did a lot to popularize the mannequin. She moreover quietly radicalized diamond and platinum jewelry. She obtained DeBeers’ Diamonds-Worldwide Awards many events and was the first lifetime member elected to the Diamonds-Worldwide Academy.

Marianne Ostier closed Ostier Inc. after her husband’s lack of life, and Park-Bernet Galleries auctioned off the company’s whole inventory in 1969.

Pictures courtesy Sotheby’s, Rago and Skinner

Additional women who paved one of the simplest ways:

Mrs. Charlotte Newman

Jeanne Poiret Boivin

Margaret De Patta

Margaret Craver

Jeanne Toussaint

Suzanne Belperron

Elsa Schiaparelli

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