Sotheby’s sold this Victorian diamond tiara hinged with 18K gold to a blonde tortoiseshell comb for $7500 on Sept. 20, 2011.
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For more scholarly research, please examine
Victorian Jewelry: Unexplored Treasures
Jewellery in the Age of Queen Victoria: A Mirror to the World
Today, The Creative Museum walked in the front door of Le Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême, France.
Thirty combs from the family, who devoted 30 years to comb scholarship, were combined with headdresses from the Antoine de Galbert collection. The exhibition was called EN TÊTE À TÊTE.
It divided combs and headdresses to show four cultural themes: birth and initiation, marriage, social status, and death.
The Creative Museum made a film tour of the exhibition. Look at how many people came to learn.
The galleries were packed.
Thank you, Alain, Catherine, and Joel for making a “dent in the universe” and bringing hair combs to the environment in which they belong.
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For more scholarly research, please examine
The catalog from this exhibition, which will be available in the museum shop soon. Or, you can contact the museum and request a copy.
However, the comb was dubious. The carving was not correct. The material had no grain. Whale bone has grain. Sperm-whale bone also has some grain. Although I did not record the exact measurements, the comb’s size indicated that it could have only come from the ivory tooth of an elephant. A whale tooth couldn’t possibly have been that big.
Here is the front and the back of this fake comb.
The back showed that the coloration of the sides was not congruent with the potential age it was supposed to be. The spikes were too uneven. Also, it did not have a single nick on the edge.
Here is a real one: the front and back of a 19th Century whale-bone Heru comb from North Island, New Zealand, which is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand. It is 65 mm wide and 165mm long. The carver is unknown.
This is a picture of how it was worn by a warrior. The picture also comes from the Museum of New Zealand. In Māori culture, men wore their hair long with a top knot. The Heru was inserted behind the top knot. These combs only decorated the heads of top-ranking men. They were a symbol of mana, or status and prestige.
There is a Māori myth surrounding Heru combs. In 1200, Rua-tupu, the second son of Chief Uenuku, wore a Heru without permission. These combs could only be worn by the elder sons. His father belittled him. To get revenge, Rua-tupu took children of tribal noblemen into his canoe, traveled far into the ocean, and sank the boat. It is an incident in Maori history called “Te huri-pure-i-ata.” His older brother, Kahutia-te-rangi survived with the help of a whale, and his name changed to Paikea, or whale rider. The myth says Paikea had the help of the goddess Moa-kura-manu.
Heru combs like these depict Kahutia-te-rangi, or Paikea (the small carving on the left) riding the whale.
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With thanks to Mark Blackburn, Pierre Loos, Hugues Bienaymé, Charles Moreau, David Norden, Maureen Zarember, Jyrki Lammi, Guy Vdp, and Kajetan Fiedorowicz.
For more scholarly research, please examine
After the big September 23rd auction, there have been three French combs, c.1790 – 1850, which went for varying prices. The one that sold for $315 was a steal because the photograph did not show its complexity, nor my instinct that there were pearls dangling from the gilt circles decorated with lapis flowers. Here is the record of what sold, when, and for how much:
Coral Empire comb. Superb Condition. Sold: $1045.51, Oct. 5, 2011. Ebay France.
French Tiara comb with pearls and lapis jewels surrounded by seed pearls, c. 1800, Sold: $616.58, Oct. 5, 2011, Ebay France.
French Empire comb, lapis enamel flowers on gilded silver with dangling pearls, excellent condition, Sold: $315, Oct. 6, 2011, Ebay.com
The plique-a-jour enamel top looks like a Tiffany stained glass window. It was made by Norwegian jeweler Arthur Andersen, c. 1924 – 1939. His father, David Andersen, started a gold- and silversmithing company in Christiania, now Oslo, in 1876. Arthur took over the company in 1901, when his father died, and put a hyphen in the name: David-Andersen. He also introduced plique-a-jour enameled silver pieces with amazing success.
This is a superb hair pin: magnificent technique, beautifully designed and proportioned, and brilliantly colored when backlit. The dealer is selling it for 1600 Euros on Ebay Germany.
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It’s on E-bay for $229 or best offer. I’m not recommending anyone buy it at that price, or at all, but I love this comb, c. 1930. I think it has humor, pizzazz, and is an excellent example of American celluloid art.
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For more scholarly research, please examine
The Creative Museum’s virtual exhibition on American brilliant combs.
I would like to feature four museum combs today. The first comes from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It belonged to the King Wadj, whose name means serpent. His tomb was found near the ancient city of Abydos. He was the third King of the First Egyptian Dynasty and ruled c. 2920 BC. In the comb’s carvings, you can see two serpents.
Our next work was made by Maori master Patoromu Tamatea. This bone Heru comb resides in New Zealand’s Museum of Wellington’s City & Sea under the collector’s, instead of the artist’s name.
Next are two marvelously shaped combs from the Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum in South India. Both were made from the 18th to 19th Centuries.
And last is a breathtaking liturgical comb, which belonged to Saint Heribert (970 – 1021). He was Archbishop of Cologne (Köln) and considered a saint in his lifetime. Pope Gregory VII canonized him c. 1074. This crucifixion comb is one of the prizes in Köln’s Schnütgen Museum and was made in the second half of the 9th Century.
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For more scholarly research, please examine
Carved Histories: Rotorua Ngati Tarawhai Carving
Fragmented Devotion: Medieval Objects from the Schnutgen Museum in Cologne
Born in Mexico City and better known as Matl, Maestra Matilde Poulat started making jewelry in 1934. She became one of the most famous artists of the Mexican Silver Renaissance. Detailing and texture gave her art a delicacy and intricacy few achieved during the the Taxco era. She decorated her pieces with coral and turquoise jewels. This Poulat hair comb also has an amethyst cabechon, the fertility sign of two birds facing each other, a tortoiseshell comb, and I made a deal with the seller at a reduced price to buy it over time, within my means. This is my pick to add to my collection.
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For more scholarly research, please examine
Heritage Fine Silver & Vertu Auction #5016
William Spratling and the Mexican Silver Renaissance: Maestros de Plata
Paul-Gabriel Liénard was a Parisian Art Nouveau jeweler, who reached the top of his craft when he registered his own mark in 1905. As with Louis Aucoc, Liénard was well known for using pearl sprays. I have not found any documentation connecting Aucoc and Liénard except for these three combs. They were made from translucent horn and seed pearls, so light would show through, and the jeweled accents would keep them lightweight. In addition to philosophical influences, there was a practical purpose to these decisions. The combs would be easy to wear.
Liénard’s example, with his maker’s mark, sold at Christies for $21,600 in 2006.
Aucoc’s comb is on sale at The Tadema Gallery for around $8000.
Both combs are superb expressions of the natural world’s asymmetrical shapes.
Christie’s estimated the value of this Aucoc hair pin at £3000 to £4000 in 2009.
To prove how scholarship creates value, I recorded this sale on E-bay in 2007. Comments are welcome, but I believe these hair pins were made by Aucoc. They were damaged, as all the seed pearls were not present. However, the only identification was “French work, 1900.” The dealer was, shall we say, homework-deficient? I remember this auction well, and when I saw the price, well, it was a lot like the recent auction we have all been talking about.
And just for jaw-dropping fun, I’ll revisit this Liénard tiara, made of gold, horn, pearls, and diamonds, which sold for $60,000 at Christie’s in 2009.
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For more scholarly research, please examine
The Comb: Its History and Development by Jen Cruse, page 35, which I’m proud to say is listed in the Tadema Gallery’s provenance for the Louis Aucoc comb.
The stones were amethysts. Shall we compare the comb in this Empire parure on a historical jewelry site to the one that went for $458 in that E-bay auction?
The comb correctly identified.
The amethyst Empire comb that went for $458 on Ebay.
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For more scholarly research, please examine