Gold strap necklace with seed-like pendants. This necklace consists of a gold ’strap’ chain of three doubled loop-in-loop chains interlinked. Attached alternately along the lower edge of the strap are two-tier rosettes and ivy leaves filled with green enamel and with a blue disc below. These support a festoon of small and large seed-like pendants. The small pendants are plain; the large ones are ribbed and have a grain at the apices and interstices of the zigzag calyx on the top. Above the smaller pendants are discs which have a blue enamel outer zone and perhaps green centres; above the large pendants are rosettes.

Curator’s comments (Williams and Ogden 1994)

This necklace was repaired by Alessandro Castellani in the 1860s or 1870s. He reattached the terminals and replaced missing rosettes, leaf motifs, chains and pendants. His work can be identified on the basis of the techniques used and by the way in which his elements have discoloured.

This necklace is very close to the example from Asia Minor (New York MMA 99.24; Williams and Ogden 68): they may even be from the same workshop.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

BMCJ 1947; Ruxer, pl. 20, 5; Higgins GRJ2, pl. 49b.