Marcus & Co.: Three Generations of New York Jewelers

About Beth Carver WeesSheila Barron Smithie

Beth Carver Wees is Curator Emerita The American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and formerly Curator of Decorative Arts at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown Massachusetts. An international lecturer she is the author of English Irish & Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (1997) and Early American Silver in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2013). Beth was one of six organizing curators for The Mets museum-wide exhibition Jewelry: The Body Transformed and was a contributor to its catalogue (2018). In 2019 she curated the Mets special exhibition Jewelry for America. Since 2000 Sheila Smithie has been a jewellery specialist and appraiser for Skinner Auctioneers Bonhams and Macklowe Gallery. She is a Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain and recipient of its 2005 Christies Prize. From 2013 she consulted for Beth Wees jewelry curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art helping to research the museums holdings for the 2018 exhibition Jewelry: The Body Transformed. She designed and taught the course Gems and Jewelry: History and Markets for masters degree students at Sotheby's Institute in New York. A graduate of Harvard College she spent her early career in investment banking working in Europe and Latin America.