Seed pearl cross
Following Martha Washington's death, her descendants frequently refashioned jewelry so that successive generations might wear a few of the stones, beads, or pearls that graced her ears or encircled her neck. In the mid-nineteenth century, Katherine Williams Upshur, a great-great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, remade her inherited seed pearl necklace into a set of four cross pendants that could be shared equally among her four children. As a deeply religious woman, Mrs. Washington would undoubtedly have approved of the selected form, and it may have been chosen with her sentiments in mind.
Published ReferencesJeanmarie Andrews, "Stringing Patterns of Pearls," Early American Life (February 2009): 11.
Carol Borchert Cadou, The George Washington Collection: Fine and Decorative Arts at Mount Vernon (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2006), 268.
Martha Gandy Fales, "The Jewelry," The Magazine Antiques 135/2 (February 1989): 517.
Martha Gandy Fales, Jewelry in America: 1600-1900 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, England: Antique Collectors' Club, 1995), 108.
M. J. Gibbs, "Precious Artifacts: Women's Jewelry in the Chesapeake, 1750-1799," Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts 13/1 (May 1987): 83.