Design for a Necklace with Pearls and Stones

Drawing with a design for a necklace with pearls and stones, part of a modern scrapbook with 38 sheets showing designs for jewelry with pearls, diamonds and other (semi-)precious stones all done in watercolor and heightened with gold, characteristic of the period between 1870 and 1930, which saw some of the most extravagant and innovative trends in jewelry design. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the naturalistic compositions of earlier decades had become more complex, and the colors in nature mimicked by the color of gemstones used for jewelry design. In the last years of the century, designs for jewelry had become even more elaborate and relied in the natural beauty of cabochon gems, curving, and figurative designs with symbolic meaning, typical of the Arts and Crafts movement. Towards the end of the nineteenth and through the first decades of the twentieth century, diamond jewelry was re-interpreted to create the new 'garland style', and the Art Nouveau movement created sinuous and organic pieces that moved away from conventional stones and put emphasis on the subtle effects of materials such as glass, horn and enamel. During the 1920s, the economic boom following the war saw an increased glamour in jewelry design, with sharp, geometric patterns that celebrated modernity and the machine age. Art Deco jewelry is characterized by dense concentrations of gemstones and the use of platinum in place of gold, with inspiration from all over the world, especially from the Near and Far East. Like most of the drawings in the album, this design is fully rendered with gouache, showing not only the styles for the jewelry designs, but also suggesting choices of precious metals, stones, and other materials to be used in the creation of the jewels. It is also possible that these designs are real-sized, allowing the customer to visualize the jewel fully from this presentation drawings before commissioning its manufacture.

This design for a necklace is made up of a horizontal string of pearls, with a slightly larger pearl every four or five of the smaller pearls. There is a large stone in the center of the necklace, framed by two layers of small round stones, possibly meant to be diamonds or pearls, from which hang another stone, smaller and framed by one layer of diamonds or small pearls, and a large pear-shape stone framed by two layers of diamonds or small pearls. From The larger pearls in the string of pearls hang a smaller pearl and a pear-shaped stone framed by a layer of diamonds or smaller pearls, and strings of tiny pearls or diamonds that go from one of these pearls to the next and are adorned with one pear-shaped stone each. These large stones could have been pearls as well, although there is a possibility that there are other, semi-transparent stones, from the way in which they are rendered, which differs from the pearls in the base of the necklace; they could also possibly made out of glass, a technique that was often used during this period.