While European jewelry houses were shaped by royal courts, aristocratic patronage, and centuries of tradition, American jewelry makers emerged from a culture of entrepreneurship, industrial innovation, and self-made wealth. The result was a distinctly American style—bold, technically innovative, gem-driven, and often less constrained by tradition. Beginning in the 19th century, companies including Tiffany & Co., Marcus & Co., J.E. Caldwell, Billy Banks & Biddle, Harry Winston, David Webb, Oscar Heyman, Verdura, Raymond Yard, and Seaman Ships helped redefine fine jewelry, creating an American tradition that eventually influenced collectors and designers around the world.
Now, cultural institutions across the country are using America’s 250th anniversary to bring attention to American artists and designers in many creative fields, including jewelry. In New York, for example, Sotheby’s sale exhibition “250 Years of American Art and Culture” includes a special display of archival and contemporary creations by David Webb. The display will include a never-before-seen collection of peridots from the 1950s, an innovative modern iteration of David Webb’s famous totem pendant, antique coral pieces and one-of-a-kind emerald and ruby brooches from the 1960s. Frank Everett, vice president of Sotheby’s jewelry department, told the Observer: “We only thought for two minutes that it would be David Webb. They have been good friends for years.” “He’s the quintessential American jeweler. He was just the right fit.”
Maverick’s designs and salesmanship are its distinguishing qualities
According to Everett, there are two specific factors that set American jewelry makers apart from their European peers. The first is their rebellious nature when it comes to design: “I think there’s just a real maverick spirit here. I don’t mean just innovation. I think it’s one thing to be innovative and it’s another thing to be rebellious. When you look at someone like Louis Comfort Tiffany, who focused a lot of attention on American materials and American stones, things like Montana rubies that had never been used before, and then used materials in unusual combinations. I think that was very ahead of his time, kind of innovative. And then fast forward to David Webb in the 1960s.” In the 1970s, he was known to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art every Saturday, and he combined all the kinds of influences he saw there in an unconventional way. He did what he wanted to do, and it was daring beyond that.
The second crucial factor was that many of the major jewelry houses were managed by salesmen. “Many major companies have been leaders in entrepreneurship,” Everett said. “Harry Winston was a salesman. Raymond Yared was a salesman for 20 years. Same with Paul Plato, and even Charles Lewis Tiffany (who founded Tiffany & Co.). He started out as a stationery salesman and then moved into jewelry. I think the entrepreneurial spirit is pure America.”
Meanwhile, New Orleans antiques dealer MS Rao is hosting a virtual exhibition, “American Icons: Artists Who Defined a Nation 1776-2026American jewelers have helped define a luxury identity rooted in ingenuity, ambition and self-invention: “From the artistic vision of Louis Comfort Tiffany to the legendary diamonds of Harry Winston, the exceptional gemstones of Oscar Heyman and the bold designs of David Webb, American manufacturers have proven that this country can produce objects of extraordinary precision and originality,” Elle Spear, a researcher, writer and MS Rau specialist, told the Observer that American jewelers have helped define a luxury identity rooted in ingenuity, ambition and self-invention. Their work reflects the rise of American wealth, taste, and confidence on the world stage.
When asked about her selections for a museum exhibit that would best represent the American experience in jewelry, she said, “Tiffany will establish the foundation of American luxury. Marcus & Co. will represent turn-of-the-century artistic refinement. Oscar Heyman will represent artistic mastery and excellence in gemstones. Harry Winston will tell the story of the important diamond. David Webb will bring the bold, sculptural confidence of mid-century American design. Together they tell the story of American jewelry from refinement to innovation.”
American influence abroad
It is commonly believed that American fine jewelry was influenced by European jewelers, but Ariel Saidian of Joseph Saidian & Sons, a New York-based antique jewelry dealer, has argued that America’s success in fine jewelry design also influenced the major European houses. “I think the great American jewels have influenced the great European houses, in that not every detail of the jewel needs to be greatly improved,” he told the Observer. “An American-made jewel that may be a bit heavier, heavier or bolder compared to the way the same piece was made in Paris, for example, no longer means it is ‘worse’. In fact, I think the bolder, more daring American style is becoming more popular all over the world now. Far Eastern customers who didn’t even know brands like Verdura and David Webb 15 years ago can’t get enough of them today.
David Webb is one of the few American jewelry houses that has remained true to its founding aesthetic. Although Webb died in 1975, the company continues to produce jewelry based on his original designs, bold creations defined by sculpted hammered gold, large colored gemstones and stunning enamel work. Today, two investment companies own a majority of the jewelry company’s shares.
Webb was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, and moved to New York in the 1940s to become a jeweler. “From the beginning, he was fulfilling a very American dream of rising above and chasing his heart’s wildest desires,” Levi Higgs, head of archives and brand heritage at David Webb, told the Observer. “Aside from its origin story, perhaps the most clearly American aesthetic qualities of David Webb jewelry are its bold shapes and dimensions, and its comprehensive design vocabulary developed by incorporating diverse cultural and historical influences.”
Higgs oversees the preservation of the company’s heritage while continuing to make the brand relevant to modern customers. “David Webb was one of the few visionaries who pushed women into the modern and contemporary era through jewelry,” he said. “His work embodies the height of American luxury—a moment in the second half of the 20th century when luxury became bold and uncompromising. He listened to his clients and made them his inspiration in so many ways. The zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s has always served as a lightning rod for defining the power of American sensibility, and David Webb was deeply attached to that moment, and it remains relevant today.”
Immigrant Stories Behind American Jewelry
While David Webb is clearly a homegrown American success story, many of the country’s greatest jewelry houses were founded by immigrants who adapted Old World craftsmanship to the rapidly changing American market. Marcus & Co.’s founder, Hermann Marcus, was born and raised in Germany and moved to New York in 1850. Duke Fulco di Verdura, a Sicilian aristocrat, founded the Verdura Jewelry Salon in New York. Harry Winston was the son of Ukrainian immigrants.
The story of fine jewelry brand Oscar Heymann is also very much an immigrant’s story. The company was founded by Oscar and Nathan Hyman, who immigrated to the United States from Latvia in the 1900s. The brothers were among the few American jewelers who could work with platinum. Oscar was the first non-French craftsman to work in Pierre Cartier’s workshop in Manhattan.
When the rest of the Heyman family came to America in 1912, Oscar and his brothers founded Oscar Heyman & Bros., which quickly became the workshop of choice for many of America’s leading jewelry houses, especially for platinum jewelry, at a time when few American craftsmen possessed that expertise. Between the company’s founding in 1912 and 1942, Oscar Heymann obtained seven patents related to the jewelry industry, and the company quickly gained a reputation for its exquisite craftsmanship and creative use of exceptional colored gemstones.
The company remains family-owned, and is currently led by third-generation president Tom Heyman and second-generation CEO Adam Heyman. It is one of the few significant American fine jewelry companies still owned by the original family and also one of the few that still has a full-service workshop on Madison Avenue.
“Like many of their time, they have worked seven days a week for decades to serve their customers,” Tom Heyman told the Observer. “When the company was originally founded, the brothers and many of their family members worked together to build the company and establish the distinguished reputation we have now. My cousin Adam and I are grateful that we have been able to carry on the family legacy and the company.”
After World War II, Oscar Heyman was the first American jeweler to source gemstones directly from miners and cutters in Asia. “Our stone sourcing team continues to travel internationally to view the largest selection of gemstones so they can sort through the thousands to arrive at what they believe is the best of the best,” explained Tom Heyman. “Oscar Heymann particularly stands out for our use of rare and esoteric gemstones, such as alexandrite, black opal and Paraiba tourmaline.” It is also one of the few fine jewelry companies that does almost all of its business within the jewelry trade, preferring to sell through retailers, rather than directly to consumers.
250 years after the country’s founding, America’s greatest jewelers have created an aesthetic rooted not in inherited aristocracy but in exceptional craftsmanship driven by innovation. In the hands of immigrants, vendors, and self-taught rebels, jewelry ceased to be a record of bloodlines and became something more democratic and daring, not to mention unmistakably American: a record of aspiration.
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