Alfred Philippe's Mr. Monkey of 1939, in rhodium-plated silver metal with crystal rhinestones and glossy enamel. This is a dress clip from the years when Trifari was making its most ambitious work, and Brunialti rates...
A fish trailing bubbles, in vermeil over sterling — one of the 1940s figurals Trifari made during the war years, when restrictions on base metals pushed the house into sterling and, as it turned out, into some of its ...
An Art Deco clamshell in vermeil over sterling, set with blue rhinestone. This is Joseph Mazer working in the 1940s, when wartime metal restrictions sent the good houses to silver and the results were often the best w...
Mazer was one of the master design houses of its era, and this brooch is the reason people say so: a cactus flower in a basket, built with real dimension, in citrine amber and emerald green rhinestone on a gold-plated...
Trifari made very few sterling necklaces, and almost all of them come from the early 1940s, when wartime restrictions on base metals pushed the house into silver. Those pieces are among the most prized things a Trifar...
The companions to Alfred Philippe's "Two Birds on a Branch," and considerably harder to find than the brooch they were made for. Two birds perched on a branch in silver rhodium, worked with multicolored enamel, garnet...
A proud American eagle above the words REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR, cut through in bold block capitals with a pearl set at the center. This is Staret's 1942 patriotic brooch, and it is one of the great achievements of the f...
A two- and three-strand faux pearl necklace in a gold-plated finish, set with ruby red, sapphire blue and emerald green cabochons for a frankly regal effect. This is Moghul Jewels of India, most likely from Trifari's ...
A large floral brooch with berries from Trifari's Esplanade collection, in a gold-plated finish set with topaz rhinestone. The Esplanade pieces came out once a year at Christmas, in very limited numbers and only to a ...
