RARE Designer Maxwell Chayat Modernist Hefty Sterling Chrysocolla Brooch 1950's

Measurements: 2.45"L x 1.1"W x .5"Thick (6.22cm x 2.79cm x 1.27cm)

Markings: Chayat

Weight: 27.2g

Striking vintage sterling silver modernist brooch featuring a large polished blue-green natural stone cabochon, likely chrysocolla or a related copper-bearing stone. The stone has beautiful oceanic teal and green tones with natural mottling and small coppery/rust-colored matrix inclusions throughout, giving it an earthy, organic look.

The setting is sculptural and expressive, with flowing sterling silver ribbons that loop and curve around the stone in a dramatic freeform design. The silver frame has a bold modernist feel, almost like abstract waves, leaves, or tendrils wrapping around the cabochon. The dimensional openwork setting gives the piece wonderful movement and presence.

This brooch is a beautiful statement piece for collectors of vintage sterling silver jewelry, modernist studio jewelry, and natural stone brooches. It would look wonderful worn on a jacket, coat, scarf, shawl, or displayed as part of a modernist jewelry collection.

Brooch is in excellent condition with no damage of any kind. Great patina! Included with purchase is a silver converter so it can be worn as a pendant if preferred.

Mannequin is a life-size torso representation

Bio:

The following section about Maxwell Chayat was written by Victoria Tillotson from the book, "Modernist Jewelry 1930-1960, The Wearable Art Movement." and is used with permission.

Maxwell Chayat is remembered for his numerous Jewish religious objects. One in particular is his well-known commission for The Ark in Temple Beth Ahm in Springfield, N.J. Orange, N.J. The sensual lines and elegant forms which first found expression in his silver and gold jewelry achieved their highest enunciation in his unusual, fluid silver and aluminum Torah crowns, menorahs, and other religious and memorial objects. And unlike many of his fellow Jewish studio jewelers working in the 1950s and 1960s, Chayat’s aesthetic identity and production were deeply inspired by, and inseparable from, his religious identity.

Born in Paris in 1909, Chayat came to the United States as a child during World War I, and was apprenticed to jewelers as a teenager. Later he received a B.A., M.A., and part of a doctorate in Fine Arts at Columbia University in New York. He taught art in New York until the start of World War II, when he left to serve as a Combat Intelligence Officer in the Pacific. Following the War, he began teaching art at New Mexico State Teachers College, and went on to serve as the Head of the Art Department. Around 1948, Chayat moved to Clinton, N.J., where he became a professional craftsman.

Following more than a decade of jewelry making, Chayat was approached in 1960 by Rabbi Reuben R. Levine of Temple Beth Ahm, and asked if he would contribute to ritual art for the temple. Chayat’s modest response was to ask, “What’s wrong with what you have now?” and added that he knew nothing about religious art. Rather than withdraw from the challenge of creating religious art, however, he responded enthusiastically.

Rabbi Levine helped Chayat with the religious background of the commission and they were joined by architect Percival Goodman, who designed the temple. Chayat’s contributions to the newly designed space included The Eternal Light, which hangs above the Ark in the temple’s interior beside a seven-branched menorah also created by Chayat. Created out of aluminum, The Eternal Light incorporated the Hebrew letter “Shin” into the design, meaning “Shaddai” — God — and is the first letter in “Shma Yiroel.” An accompanying open breastplate for the Torah, executed in silver with five semi-precious stones, has seven tongues of flame representing the seven days of the week, and bears a Hebrew inscription reading “Torah Or [Torah is Light].” Chayat also created all the Temple’s mezzusot. Next to it is his graceful “Bima [Pulpit] Menorah,” standing six feet tall. Sculptured in aluminum set into a walnut base, it has curved, flattened reed-like forms standing among the seven candleholders.

Like all of Chayat’s creations, these objects represent a fundamental concern with fluidity of form and lyricism. Sophisticated use of negative space and thick and thin variants in the metals gives the feeling of spontaneity and openness of form, expressing both delicacy and internal strength. Chayat’s use of archetypal symbols such as flames and forms taken from nature further emphasize the feeling of timelessness in his designs culled from strong inspiration from his religious belief.