The eccentric Sam Kramer billed himself as the maker of “Fantastic Jewelry for People Who are Slightly Mad.” Dubbed a “Surrealist Jeweler” by The New Yorker in 1942, Kramer maintained a Greenwich Village shop and studio that was an artistic environment—as bizarrely decorated as his jewelry—and a gathering place for Village artists. For the Lovers brooch, Kramer collaborated with his wife, Carol, also a talented jeweler. The artists fabricated three metal planes, each riveted and hinged, so that the two lovers can be manipulated, moved apart, and brought back together. Bezel-set cabochon stones strategically placed on the male figure add color and dimensionality to the dynamic, erotic ornament, which has been described as “a battle of the sexes . . . a Rorschach Test in metal—deliberately ambiguous, multivocal, and provocative.”