Bracelet

George W. Shiebler & Co.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This silver link bracelet is composed of five square panels, each stamped with a unique classical head profile in low relief. The profiles are finely delineated against a stippled background, and the bodies of the panels are given an irregular hammered finish. Panels are joined by two rows of oval-shaped, double links. Both ends of the bracelet terminate in a fluted fan-shape element and double tongue-clasp closure. George W. Shiebler and Company was a highly innovative and influential New York City firm that produced a diverse array of artistic silver wares and jewelry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During the later years of the nineteenth century a passion arose in both Europe and America for jewelry inspired by ancient coins, and this necklace is one example of the Shiebler firm's interpretation of that trend. An 1892 “Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review” article on the Shiebler firm described this "curio medallion work" as looking "as though it had been unearthed at Pompeii and Herculanaeum." The same article attests to the popularity of the line, stating that sales of what Shiebler described as his "Homeric Style" jewelry were "unprecedented perhaps in the history of the trade."

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art