Earrings
Small seed pearls, imported from China and India and strung on horsehair or silk to be fashioned into earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and hair ornaments, were widely popular in federal America. Their smooth texture and white color melded with the Neoclassical aesthetic that referenced ancient Greece and Rome. This pair of seed pearl earrings may have been among the "pearl pins and earrings for Mrs. Washington" purchased from New York jeweler Mr. M. Roberts on December 5, 1789.
Published ReferencesJeanmarie Andrews, "Stringing Patterns of Pearls," Early American Life (February 2009): 11.
Martha Gandy Fales, Jewelry in America: 1600-1900 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, England: Antique Collectors' Club, 1995), 108
Martha Gandy Fales, "The Jewelry," The Magazine Antiques 135/2 (February 1989): 517.
M. J. Gibbs, "Precious Artifacts: Women's Jewelry in the Chesapeake, 1750-1799," Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts 13/1 (May 1987): 83.