Tonight, we’ll read about the history of jewelry around the world, from “Jewels and the Woman” written by Marianne Ostier and published in 1958.

Ostier was the principal designer and artistic driving force behind Ostier Inc., the New York jewelry firm she founded in 1941 with her husband Oliver. Marianne was an accomplished artist of painting and sculpture when she married Oliver, a third-generation Austrian court jeweler. The couple emigrated to the United States following the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938.

The majority of the firm’s output was bespoke jewelry for private clients with few pieces ever produced in quantity. As a result, Ostier’s work may be less well known today than some of their contemporaries, but at the time they were considered one of the finest jewelry houses in New York.

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