Filigree Necklace thumbnail 1
Filigree Necklace thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
South Asia Gallery, Room 41

Filigree Necklace

Necklace
ca. 1850 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This gold necklace was one of the earliest Indian objects bought for what would become the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition as "modern" work from Calicut, and was bought for the considerable sum of £30 for the new South Kensington Museum as an example of the best international contemporary design. The jeweller has manipulated a relatively small amount of gold to maximum effect to create interlinked motifs of filigree to which very small elements have been applied. These were made by hammering pieces of thin sheet gold onto a metal die over shaped depressions thereby producing identical motifs.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleFiligree Necklace
Materials and techniques
Gold wire, with stamped florets and applied flat discs and hemispheres
Brief description
Filigree necklace, made of gold wire with stamped florets, Calicut, India, ca. 1850.
Physical description
Necklace consisting of several bands of florets linked both horizontally and vertically by wire. A flat clasp.
Dimensions
  • Approx. length: 33.5cm
  • Width: 34cm
Object history
This necklace was purchased by the South Kensington Museum from the Great Exhibition as an example of modern Indian work. It represented all the qualities the British commentators admired in Indian craftsmanship.
Production
Kozhikode, Kerala
Association
Summary
This gold necklace was one of the earliest Indian objects bought for what would become the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was exhibited at the 1851 Great Exhibition as "modern" work from Calicut, and was bought for the considerable sum of £30 for the new South Kensington Museum as an example of the best international contemporary design. The jeweller has manipulated a relatively small amount of gold to maximum effect to create interlinked motifs of filigree to which very small elements have been applied. These were made by hammering pieces of thin sheet gold onto a metal die over shaped depressions thereby producing identical motifs.
Bibliographic references
  • Susan Stronge, Nima Smith, and J.C. Harle. A Golden Treasury : Jewellery from the Indian Subcontinent London : Victoria and Albert Museum in association with Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 1988. ISBN: 0944142168 pp.80-81 Ekaterina Schcherbina, ed., India: Jewels That Enchanted the World. Moscow Kremlin Museums, 2014, cat. 17, pp 66-67.
  • Susan Stronge, Nima Smith and J.C. Harle, A Golden Treasury. Jewellery from the Indian Subcontinent, V&A/Mapin Publishing Pvt., 1988, cat. 73, p. 80
  • E. B. Havell,"The Art Industries of the Madras Presidency", The Journal of Indian Art and Industry,vol. VI, October 1894, pl. 19A
  • Catalogue of the objects of Indian art exhibited in the South Kensington Museum / by H.H. Cole. London: Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode and sold by Chapman & Hall, 1874 p. 189
  • Barnard, Nick, Indian Jewellery: The V&A Collection London: V&A Publishing, 2008 Number: ISBN 9781851774838 p. 90, pl. 4.8
  • Traditional jewelry of India / Oppi Untracht. London: Thames and Hudson Limited London, 1997 Number: 0500017808 p. 299, ill. 707
  • Guy, John and Swallow, Deborah (eds.) Arts of India: 1550-1900. Text by Rosemary Crill, John Guy, Veronica Murphy, Susan Stronge and Deborah Swallow. London : Victoria and Albert Museum, 1990, reprinted 1999. 240 p. : ill. ISBN: 1851770224. p.222, pl.197
Collection
Accession number
124-1852

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Record createdDecember 21, 1999
Record URL
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