Gold Necklace with Pearls and Stones of Emerald Plasma

Date:: 6th–7th century

Culture:: Byzantine

Medium:: Gold, pearls, emerald plasma

Dimensions:: Overall: 16 3/4 x 13/16 x 7/16 in. (42.5 x 2.1 x 1.1 cm) Wt: 64g

Classification:: Metalwork-Gold

Credit Line:: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917

Accession Number:: 17.190.153

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 301

This elegantly simple necklace alternates luminous white pearls with soft green gems worked from a type of quartz, one of several stones that were called emeralds in Byzantium.

Cyprus Treasure, found at Karavas, Cyprus, 1902; J. Pierpont Morgan, London and New York (until 1917)

Dalton, O. M. Byzantine Art and Archeology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911. pp. 534-549, fig. 317.

Dennison, Walter. A Gold Treasure of the Late Roman Period from Egypt. Studies in East Christian and Roman Art, Vol. 2. London and New York: University of Michigan Studies-Humanistic Series, 1918. pp. 145–46, fig. XXXIV.

Stylianou, A. and J. Hoi thesauroi tes Lampouses. Vasilia, Lapethos, Cyprus, 1969. pp. 49-64, fig. 42.

Brown, Katharine R. "The Mosaics of San Vitale: Evidence for the Attribution of Some Early Byzantine Jewelry to Court Workshops." Gesta 18, no. 1 (1979). p. 59, fig. 7.

Yeroulanou, Aimilia. "The Byzantine Openwork Gold Plaque in The Walters Art Gallery." The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 46 (1988). p. 6.

Humphrey, Lyle. "Collecting Christianity on the Nile: J. Pierpont Morgan and The Metropolitan Museum of Art." In Age of Transition: Byzantine Culture in the Islamic World, edited by Helen C. Evans. New York: Yale University Press, 2015. pp. 3-4, fig. 3.

Age of Transition: Byzantine Culture in the Islamic World

Department

Medieval Art (7,125)

Object Type / Material