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Title:Necklet
Date:18th–19th century
Geography:Attributed to India
Medium:Gold
Dimensions:Average diametre, 10.8cm
Classification:Jewelry
Credit Line:John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1915
Object Number:15.95.47
Two Gold Necklets: 15.95.47, .49
One of the most important traditions in jewelry making in India is that of flexible chains and plaited and knitted structures. Not only were all the major types of loop-in-loop chains known in ancient times, but certain knits which give an effect similar to that of a woven loop-in-loop chain were also known; the latter are, however, more economical in the expenditure of effort involved and in the use of material, being made of a continuous wire rather than of hundreds of discrete and separately made links, and being typically hollow. The present pieces–hollow, finely knit, and drawn through a drawplate–have such dense surfaces they almost belie their method of manufacture.
Another typically Indian feature is the screw-post clasp. All non-Indian Islamic jewelry in our experience, with the exception of two fourteenth-century tubular bracelets also with dragon-head terminals, uses the friction-held split-pin keeper post.[1 It seems likely that these bracelets are of Golden Horde Mongol origin, especially in light of parallels with material from the Simferopol Treasure (The Simferopol Treasure. Moscow, n.d., middle illus. on p. 10). Indeed, the only other historical jewelry known to us that uses the screw arrangement is from the late Roman and Tribal Migrations period, which is known from finds in Europe and includes not only fibulas but also bracelets with affronted dragon-head terminals.[2]
It is notable that the Indian jewelry screws are constructed exactly as those in late Roman and fourteenth-century examples-that is, by soldering a tight coil of wire to the post and inside the cylindrical element that receives it. Precisely when the screw-post principle was first used in Indian jewelry is unknown, but one is lead to suspect, partly on the basis of its virtual absence in medieval Islamic material, that it was known in India from ancient time.
[Jenkins and Keene 1983]
Footnotes:
1. Segall, Berta. Museum Benaki, Katalog der Goldschmiede-Arbeiten. Athens, 1938, no. 319; Rosenberg, Marc. Geschichte der Goldschmiedekunst auf technischer Grundlage, Munich, 1908, vol. 1, fig.141.
2. E.g., Feldhaus, Franz M. Die Technik der Antike und des Mittelalters. Potsdam, 1931, fig. 252, nos. 4, 5; Rosenberg, 1908 (see note 1), vol. 1, fig. 142.
Necklet
Various types of flexible chains and plaited and knitted structures belong to an Indian jewelry-making tradition of unusual variety and quality that has roots in ancient times. Not only all the major types of loop-in-loop chains (single, double, quadruple, and even sextuple) were known then, but also certain knits that give a similar effect to that of woven loop-in-loop chains. The knitted pieces are more economical of effort and material, since first, they are made of a continuous wire rather than of hundreds of discrete and seperately made links and second, they can be, and typically are, hollow. This example—each hollow tube finely and densely knitted and subsequently pulled through a drawplate—presents such a dense surface that it almost belies the method of manufacture.
Another typically Indian feature seen here is the screw-post clasp, although it too has a very long if checkered history, the earliest and largest known groups of jewelry pieces to have used it being of late Roman and Tribal Migrations manufacture. Except for Indian pieces and a small group of fourteenth-century bracelets, perhaps of Golden Horde Mongol manufacture, Islamic jewelry uses the friction-held split-pin keeper post. Two other necklets of the same group, 15.95.48 and 15.95.49 are also in the Metropolitan's collection.
Manuel Keene in [Berlin 1981]
Lockwood de Forest (American), New York (until 1915; sold to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Islamic Jewelry in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 22–August 14, 1983, no. 63.
"Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York." In The Arts of Islam. Berlin, 1981. no. 140, pp. 324–25, ill. (b/w).
Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn, and Manuel Keene. Islamic Jewelry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1983. no. 63, p. 120, ill. (b/w).
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