David Webb Celebrates Its 75th Anniversary in Jewelry
“David Webb is unquestionably one of the leading 20th-century American jewelry designers,” Medill Higgins Harvey, associate curator of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said, “distinguished by his originality, the bold sculptural quality of his work, and the distinctive way in which it reveals a keen and nuanced sense of history and art history, as well as current trends and tastes.”
Ms. Harvey’s assessment echoes a lot of voices in the jewelry world as the American jeweler’s company marks its 75th year.
Since Mr. Webb’s death in 1975, his original designs have remained in production — and in demand — through the Silberstein family’s ownership and now that of Mark Emanuel and Robert Sadian, who acquired the business in 2010.
“We understood that we were buying a great American brand that had all kinds of legs and silos to it, and also a great deal of blue sky and potential,” Mr. Emanuel said.
Born in Asheville, NC, Mr. Webb was just 23 years old in 1948 when he opened his shop on West 46th Street in New York. In Mr. Webb’s heyday from the late ’50s through the ’70s, his jewels were worn by Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline
