Description
1940's Hobe Sterling Modernist brooch with flowers 1 13/16" wide with no damage<br>13.9 grams.<br><br>Hobé Cie was founded in 1887 by goldsmith Jacques Hobé, but when costume-jewelry<br>collectors think of Hobé, they picture the tasselled and beaded necklaces made<br>by Jacques’ son, William, who established an American offshoot of the company in<br>1927. That put Hobé at the beginning of the American costume-jewelry boom<br>between the two world wars.<br><br>In fact, some scholars believe that Hobé actually had a hand in the phrase<br>“costume jewelry” itself. After the younger Hobé landed in New York, but before<br>he started his company, one of the his first assignments was to make costumes<br>and jewelry for the "Ziegfeld Follies." According to some historians, Florenz<br>Ziegfeld described the jewelry that accompanied Hobé’s costumes as costume<br>jewelry.<br><br>Hobé’s showbiz origins served the company well. By the 1940s and ’50s, Hollywood<br>stars such as Bette Davis and Ava Gardner were wearing Hobé. Especially prized<br>today are the floral pins of that era, which featured tight clusters of vermeil<br>petals. Earlier Hobé pieces that remain popular with collectors include<br>filigreed bracelets and pins, some of which featured Victorian-style portraits<br>or Japanese netsuke-like figures as focal points.
