First of Its Kind, Last of Its Kind tells the story of an exceptional accessory and the archival piece that inspired it.
As a teenager, David Webb apprenticed at his uncle’s jewelry shop in Asheville, N.C., where he made dogwood-shaped pins and copper ashtrays. In 1942, at age 17, he moved to Manhattan, where he worked as a repairman in the diamond district before opening his own boutique on West 46th Street a few years later. In 1957, he produced his first animal bracelet: a gold cuff resembling a two-headed sea creature covered in diamonds and emerald cabochons that Richard Burton later bought as a gift for Elizabeth Taylor, his wife at the time. Inspired in part by Felix Sutton’s “The Big Book of Wild Animals” (1954) and the penannular wristbands of ancient Greece, which were often decorated at the ends with fauna motifs, Webb created a menagerie of golden accessories featuring frogs, monkeys, snakes, elephants and a zebra; a mid-1960s brooch took the form of a Lipizzaner horse with red enamel reins.
Now the New York-based jewelry house that bears Webb’s name has released a double-headed horse bracelet that nods to his original stallion. The piece is composed of roughly 400 carats of aquamarines and over 17 carats of brilliant emeralds, which make up the animals’ eyes and adorn their bridles. Hand-carved at the brand’s Madison Avenue workshop, it took more than a year to finish and is a stunning tribute to the company’s founder, who once said, “Women are tired of jewelry-looking jewelry, and they want one-of-a-kind pieces. … Animals are here to stay.”
Digital tech/first photo assistant: Max Bernetz. Second photo assistant: Frida Fitter
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