Certification
Accompanied by SSEF report no. 138785, dated 13 June 2024, stating that the four rubies tested are of Burmese origin, with no indications of heating.
Biography
In 1878 Joseph Marchak opened his jewelry and goldsmith workshop in Kiev, Russia. Within ten years he was an internationally renowned jeweler, second only to Fabergé. Joseph died in 1918, the year after the Russian Revolution, and his son Alexander relocated to Paris and reopened Joseph Marchak on rue de la Paix in 1920. Five years later, he exhibited jewelry at the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, with Robert Linzeler, and won the Grand Prix. In 1956, Jacques Verger took over the company. It was sold to Daum in 1988.
Significance
The 1930s were marked by social upheaval, technological advances, and the rise of Hollywood glamour. The time between the two World Wars was rife with change. Advances in skyscrapers, automobiles, and airplanes gave people hope for the future and the era became known as the Machine Age. The arts were influenced by the perception of the machine as a beautiful combination of gears, cams, and axles as exemplified by the paintings of Charles Sheeler and Fernand Léger and the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang. These ideas were translated by jewelers into diamonds and platinum.
Design in the late Art Deco period know as Art Moderne, was marked by continued use of geometry, but with a more rounded, curvaceous form, as shown in this necklace. The incredible Burma rubies display a deep color and the rounded antique cuts are juxtaposed with an artfully composed selection of diamond. The composition is elegant and masterfully integrated. The elements of a machine are introduced through the semi-circle segments complete with a spine of baguettes, suggesting a spinning gear or other machine part.
The necklace balances the elements of bright white diamonds against deep red rubies translating the effect of 1930s film noir chiaroscuro into a jewel with a heightened sense of drama and glamour. To pick up the dramatic light when emerging from darkness, film stars including Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford would appear on screen in a white silk dress with stacks of flexible diamond bracelets and a glamorous statement necklace. A rare treasure created by Marchak, one of the finest twentieth- century jewelers, this exquisitely composed necklace is a showstopper.
