Beads

Gold Beads from a Necklace

Confirming the Arabian Peninsula as a region rich in the tradition of jewelry art are these remarkable hollow beads from a necklace that was probably completed by additional sections of beads, most likely of turquoise and coral, somewhat irregularly shaped.

The beads might have been considered medieval were it not for their place of origin and the corroborating evidence of the origin of related types (e.g., those in a private collection, reportedly from Riyadh). Ross[1] illustrates several pieces that share features with the Metropolitan beads, such as the prominence and type of the turquoise settings and the use of a swaged wire that resembles a line of granulation. While our beads have distinctive individual features not known on medieval pieces (most notably, the large set turquoises), analogies—particularly of form—with the fine biconical filigree bead in the Museum (1980.456) are obvious. Furthermore, the approach to granulation exemplified particularly on the larger, four-sided beads resembles that on certain sheet-constructed beads from the eleventh-century Caesarea hoard.[2]

The granulation work and the overall technical control of these beads are of such high quality, and their design of such classical proportions, that we may well wonder whether they represent the survival of an as-yet-unknown medieval type.

[Jenkins and Keene 1983]

Footnotes:

1. Ross, Heather Colyer. Bedouin Jewellery in Saudi Arabia. London, 1978, pls. on pp. 92, 104.

2. Katz, Karl; Kahane, P. P.; and Broshi, Magen. From the Beginning: Archaeology and Art in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. New York, 1968, fig. 111; see also MMA 1980.456, 1980.457.

[ Francois Rabier, Brussels, until 1980; sold to MMA]

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Islamic Jewelry in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 22–August 14, 1983, no. 72.

Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn, and Manuel Keene. Islamic Jewelry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1983. no. 72, p. 130, ill. (color).

Metropolitan Jewelry. 1991. p. 11, ill. (color).