Every once in a while, a newly found piece of Juliana jewelry gives us more than another design to add to the record. Sometimes it gives us another clue to the way DeLizza & Elster actually constructed their jewelry.
This recently acquired brooch and earring set is especially interesting because it remains on a Juliana store card.
A card alone is never absolute proof of attribution. Jewelry can be moved from one card to another over the years. In this case, however, the card is accompanied by design and construction details that are consistent with known DeLizza & Elster work.
And one construction detail immediately stood out.
Look Closely at the Wire
The open design is created with smooth, heavy wire that loops around a rivet. That rivet, in turn, secures a rhinestone setting.
The wire is not simply decoration added around the stones. The wire, rivet and rhinestone setting work together as part of the actual structure of the jewelry.
It looked familiar.
DeLizza & Elster had used this construction before — but in a very different way.
Where We Have Seen It Before
The closest earlier examples appear in two different Juliana turtle designs with no toes. Although the bodies of the turtles are different, both use the same smooth heavy wire looped around a rivet that secures a rhinestone setting. In these turtles, the construction can be seen not only in the feet, but also in the eyes.
In the turtles, the construction is used only for small figural details. In the newly discovered set, however, the same method becomes a much more prominent part of the jewelry design itself.
That is what makes this newly found set so interesting.
The Same Construction — Used in a New Way
In the brooch and earrings, that familiar construction is no longer being used simply for a small figural detail.
Instead, the smooth wire and riveted rhinestone settings have become a major part of the jewelry design itself, creating the open, dimensional framework of the pieces.
The importance of the set is not that the Juliana card settles the attribution by itself. Rather, the card, the overall design and the construction reinforce one another.
It also gives us another glimpse into the DeLizza & Elster workshop. A construction method used in one type of jewelry could be adapted and used in an entirely different way somewhere else.
That is one of the reasons studying construction is so valuable. Sometimes a newly found piece does more than add another Juliana design to the collection.
It adds another piece to the DeLizza & Elster construction story.
See the Set Featured in This Article
The Juliana brooch and earring set featured in this article is available through Our Vintage Rose Jewelry.
View the Vintage Juliana Atomic Modernist Rhinestone Brooch & Earrings Set
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