It’s not often that I scour the auction cases for jewelry. It’s not one of the things that capture my attention when I’m doing my walk-through at any auction house.
But usually there’s plenty of it: costume jewelry, sterling silver jewelry, vintage men’s pocket watches, pearl necklaces and earrings, and loads of rings.
I did bid on a mother lode of jewelry a couple months ago while visiting an auction house in South Jersey for the first time. I gave up $20 for the contents of a vintage orange Tuppeware pitcher filled with earrings and brooches. The pitcher contained about 100 items, and I gave them away as parting gifts at the We Are Black Women Tech Camp last October. As you can imagine, they were a hit.
At auction recently, a single piece of jewelry forced me to stop and take notice. It was a lovely gold pin of a lady. What really struck me was the beautiful large red-ruby-like stone she was showing off, offering it up like a model trying to make a sale.
She was wearing what looked like a tutu encased in small clear rhinestones, which were also on her shoes and in her hair. Unfortunately, a few of the stones were missing. Didn’t matter, though, because the pin was stunning.
In another auction case, I came across two Victorian-style pins that were just as nice. One looked like brass hat pins stuck in a twisted curlicue base. The other was a stone and gold bracelet.
Later, I realized that the gold lady reminded me of the famous dancer, singer and actress Josephine Baker and her banana skirt. Baker was the toast of Paris in the 1920s when she strutted across stages in flimsy outfits, performing sensual dance routines and offering comic overtures. She was most famous for what became known as her banana costume, which consisted of a string of bananas hung on a skirt. Scandalous, but Parisians apparently loved her. She thought nothing of going topless on stage, either.
She was exotic, daring and without inhibitions. Even she admitted that her performances were extreme: “Since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life,” she said.
Here’s what she had to say about performing:
“… I improvised, crazed by the music. … Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.”
Baker had gone to Paris for a new show, but like many blacks during that time, she stayed there to escape the racism in this country. She was heralded there, loved there, proposed to there and appreciated there. When she came back to the States to appear in the Ziegfeld’s Follies in 1936, she was treated badly by white audiences. Later, she became very involved with the civil rights movement in this country.
The lady on the brooch exuded an air of defiance and elegance much like the real Baker. My auction buddy Janet was interested in the brooch but only at the lowest price.
When it came up for sale, the auctioneer described it as a “retro female pin with a red stone.” He noted that some small stones were missing.
The brooch didn’t produce heated bids, and only two bidders went after it. The lady sold for $18. The two Victorian pins sold as a lot for $11.
Lovely buy, La Baker.
