Okay folks, here’s the deal…I believe this to be an unmarked vintage Bezalel Sterling Silver Cuff Bracelet. It is definitely a vintage Middle Eastern Judaic inspired design in keeping with the distinguished silversmith Bezalel art form Israeli jewelry pieces from Jerusalem, but I cannot say for sure other than pieces I’ve seen that are similar to this one in design. This includes interpretations of the art spanning the Byzantine, Renaissance, Edwardian and Art Nouveau eras. Filigree traditions and techniques represent many styles including Yemenite, Turkish, Norwegian and Russian designs. So I leave that decision up to the buyer. However, this is a fantastic cuff for any collector who can appreciate the finesse and exquisite work that went into this piece of silver-smithing jewelry. I can only imagine how many hours were spent on creating this highly detailed ancient looking design. There are similarly designed pieces of this type called Siam, however they may have been copied from the Bezalel art style at a much later more period.

Filigree also known as filigrann or filigrane is from the Latin ‘Filum’ (thread), and ‘Granum’ (seed). Fine, thread-like wires of precious metals are twisted, shaped and soldered into highly ornamental lacy designs. The filigree design can also be built upon to create multi-layered designs, such as flowers. Often, a piece of metal, or a wire frame, is used to give substance to this delicate work. Filigree is an ancient art form with a rich history from the Greeks and Phoenicians to contemporary designs.


DESCRIPTION: The delicately beaded florets throughout front show a rope twisted design around the perimeter of each flower base, small silver beaded balls, and layer upon layer of filigreed silver petals culminating on top with a larger silver beaded ball. There is so much detail to this cuff that it’s really hard to describe. This is really a great piece of vintage art jewelry. I also have some matching earrings that I will be listing on another page

CONDITION: The vintage cuff shows some patina on the substantially filigreed outer band and a shiny smooth sterling silver inner band. The cuff measures 7” inches around the curve and (1.25” inch wide) at the center, and (.75” inch wide) at both ends; with a total weight of (40 grams) or (1.4 ounces). Of course, the underside has some indentations from the handcrafted shaping of this cuff and also a few scratches from normal gentle use.

HISTORY:

Boris Schatz (Kaunas, Russian Empire, 1867 – Denver, Colorado, USA, 1932) was a Lithuanian - Russian-born Jewish artist and sculptor, who founded what is now known as the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem.

Schatz's father, a teacher in a cheder (a religious school), sent him to study in a yeshiva in Vilnius, Lithuania, but Schatz left the yeshiva a short time later and cut all ties with his family so that he could study painting and sculpture in the in Vilnius, 1882–1887, and Warsaw, Poland, 1888–1889. In 1889, he moved to Paris (there until 1895) so that he could study at the Académie Cormon and with some of the noted artists there, including Mark Antokolski whom he knew from Vilnius. In Paris he was trained as a sculptor and painter in a traditional, academic style. While in Paris he began to achieve recognition for his own work, and at the invitation of Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Schatz moved to Bulgaria in 1895 as an official court sculptor, and there founded the Royal Academy of Art in Sofia. In 1900, he received a gold medal for his statue, Bust of an Old Woman.

Three years later, in 1903, he met Theodor Herzl and became an ardent Zionist. At the Fifth Zionist Congress of 1901, he proposed the idea of creating a Jewish school for crafts as well as graphic arts. In 1906 he founded an art center in Jerusalem, which was later named "Bezalel" after Bezalel Ben Uri, the biblical artisan who designed the Tabernacle and its ritual objects. Schatz added a small museum to the school, which was the foundation for the Bezalel Museum and later the Israel Museum.

In the following years, Schatz organized exhibitions of his students' work in Europe and the United States; they were the first international exhibitions of Jewish artists from Palestine. The exhibitions of Bezalel works in Europe and the United States arranged by Schatz were the first occasion that works from Eretz Yisrael were exhibited abroad. During World War I, the school was closed by the Turks, and despite its reopening after the war, suffered major financial difficulties.

Schatz, known to be fascinating, tempestuous, and visionary, wrote in his will: "To my teachers and assistants at Bezalel I give my final thanks for their hard work in the name of the Bezalel ideal. Moreover, I beg forgiveness from you for the great precision that I sometimes demanded of you and that perhaps caused some resentment ... The trouble was that Bezalel was founded before its time, and the Zionists were not yet capable of understanding it." Schatz's will was publicized for the first time in 2005.

Due to Bezalel's financial difficulties, it was closed in 1929. While fundraising in the USA for the school, Schatz died. His body was brought back to Jerusalem and buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. However, the institution was reopened posthumously, in 1935, as the New Bezalel School for Arts and Crafts.

The artists in the Schatz family abounded. There was Boris himself, his daughter Zahara Schatz (1916–1999), son Bezalel Schatz (1912–1978), nicknamed Lilik, and Bezalel's wife Louise (1915–1997). Testament is the 1955 Israeli Prize for Art to Zahara in recognition of the whole Schatz family.

The themes for most of Boris Schatz's artwork are based on the Bible and represent the rebirth of the Jewish people. The school he founded turned its backs on the founder/father's predilection for Romantic Classicism and his development of a Jewish Eretz Israel style. Bezalel Schatz became successful, lived in California in the 1940s, was a brother-in-law of Henry Miller for a time and together published in a limited edition (400 copies) the album Into the night life. Bezalel Schatz returned to Israel in 1951 and his sister Zahara returned to Israel in 1979 after many years of fruitful artistic work and during which she exhibited in various international installments and among them the MoMA where she was also awarded the MOMA prize.

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