acquired new variants of Bengel designs, conducted research and began to fill out what was known about the Bengel jewelry company. Intrigued by the Händels’s discoveries, this author researched and produced the book Art Deco Jewelry: Jakob Bengel, Idar-Oberstein (Arnoldsche, 2002/2007), a history of the Jakob Bengel firm, its production methods and marketing and distribution techniques. The book showcases more than 300 pieces from Bengel’s astounding 1930s costume jewelry collections.
In 2001, Christel Braun (née Hartenberger), granddaughter of Ernst Hermann Hartenberger Sr., established the Bengel Foundation and launched a museum in the 19th-century Bengel factory, which had survived intact. Permanent hands-on exhibitions evocatively incorporate the factory infrastructure, including some working machinery. In addition, the gemstone and jewelry design department at Idar-Oberstein University of Applied Science oversees a program at the museum that brings jewelry artists from around the world to present lectures and workshops on contemporary jewelry, linking the current art-jewelry scene with that of the 1930s at Jakob Bengel, its most extraordinarily creative phase.
Last year, the Jakob Bengel Company — the factory, jewelry, employee housing and the Bengel family villa — was declared an historic cultural monument of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and a second extensive publication, Bengel Art Deco Jewelry: Jewelry and Industrial Monument, Idar-Oberstein, edited by Willi Lindemann (Arnoldsche, 2007), was published, featuring more than 70 pieces of Bengel jewelry that demonstrate the wide and varied range of the firm’s top-quality designs.
The Art Deco chains, pendants, brooches and bracelets made of metal and Galalith represent only a small sideline in the 135 years of Jakob Bengel company history, but its rediscovery has elevated the firm to an important position in the history of German industrial jewelry making. Even though some aspects of Bengel’s metal and Galalith jewelry are still shrouded in mystery — including
{SIDEBAR}
Collecting Jakob Bengel Costume Jewelry
Not all jewelry made of Galalith and metal offered for sale as Bengel jewelry is authentic; it is important to take a close look at the workmanship and quality. Small brooches and clips start at $90; simple necklaces and bracelets at $220; prices for long chains and pendants range between $750 and $1,500. In England particularly striking pieces may fetch $4,100 – 5,500.
Sources
Quittenbaum Kunstauktionen,
Theresienstrasse 60, 80333 Munich
+49 89 273702125
www.quittenbaum.de
Von Zezschwitz Kunst und Design,
1a Friedrichstrasse, 80801 Munich
+49 89 38 98 930
www.vonzezschwitz.de
Willy Stix Kunst und Antiquitäten,
11 Lichtentaler Strasse, 76530 Baden-Baden
+49 72 21 39 18 35
Art Deco, Monika Zeidler,
51 Grolmanstrasse, 10623 Berlin
+49 30 31 50 62 05.
www.artdeco-zeidler.de
Tadema Gallery,
10 Charlton Place, London N1 8AJ
+44 20 7359 1055,
www.tademagallery.com
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