PROBABLY SOUTH INDIA, 18TH CENTURY

Details

AN INDIAN MULTI-STRAND SEED-PEARL AND GOLD NECKLACE
PROBABLY SOUTH INDIA, 18TH CENTURY
Comprising fifty strands each with around eighty small seed pearls, each pearl on its individual gold wire, twisted into the a loop at each end to link it to the next one, all grouped together in a loop at each end, with S-shaped clasp with central inset ruby
Overall 17¾in. (45cm.) long

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Sale room notice

Please note that this lot is withdrawn from the sale.

Lot Essay

There is a tradition in South India of multi-strand necklaces. Two examples are published made of gold, one with seven strands (Usha R. Bala Krishnan and Meera Shushil Kumar, Dance of the Peacock, Mumbai, 1999, no.420, p.260), the other with more (Stuart Cary Welch (ed.), India, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1985, no.18, p.49). The second necklace also uses an S-shape clasp similar but considerably cruder than that of the present necklace. There must also be a significance to the number of strands; it is not by chance that this one has fifty while the other two in this sale, lots 394 and 397, each have exactly half that number.

More from Art of The Islamic and Indian World

View All