Necklace
Label Text
With the onset of the neoclassical style, Martha Washington updated her jewelry as well as her clothing. Small seed pearls, imported from China and India to be strung on horsehair or silk and fashioned into elegant earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and hair ornaments, were widely popular in federal America. Mrs. Washington may have purchased this intricate "festooned" necklace from one of the many New York and Philadelphia jewelers who advertised similar articles, selecting it for its fashionability as well as the republican ideals of classical Greece and Rome to which it alluded.
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Datec. 1789-1797
Medium/TechniquePearls, gold, silk
DimensionsOverall: 1/2 in. x 12 1/2 in. (1.27 cm x 31.75 cm)
Credit LineGift of Colonel and Mrs. Edward Parke Custis Lewis Cumming, 1990
Object numberW-2369
DescriptionPearl necklace composed of three sizes of pearls woven onto a framework of two silk cords; the smallest pearls are strung to form four strands, which are joined together at regular intervals with a rosette of larger pearls; at alternating intervals, the two strands of pearls on the top and on the bottom are joined together with rosettes of larger pearls and in the central gap created between the strand is strung the largest pearls; the strands of pearls entwine around a large gold ring at one end.B: Green paper box for W-2369
Published ReferencesCarol Borchert Cadou, The George Washington Collection: Fine and Decorative Arts at Mount Vernon (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2006), 251.
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