Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs & Carpets
Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs & Carpets
A ‘NAV LARA’ JEWELLED AND ENAMELLED NINE-ROW PEARL NECKLACE, INDIA, LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY AND LATER
Auction Closed
June 10, 06:00 PM GMT
Estimate
40,000 - 50,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A ‘NAV LARA’ JEWELLED AND ENAMELLED NINE-ROW PEARL NECKLACE, INDIA, LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY AND LATER
designed with nine strands of cultured pearls, each suspending a central gem-set and polychrome enamel foliate-form pendant with polychrome enamelling to reverse featuring a bird, between multiple smaller pendants throughout, carved emerald bead at tip, triangular form gem-set and enamelled clasps with string for fastening
43cm. max. length
Previously property of an Indian maharani.
Private collection, UK, since the early 1970s.
The nineteenth century, fuelled by the Great Exhibition of 1851 and gifts of Indian jewellery to Queen Victoria by the East India Company, witnessed a resurgent interest among European nobility for Indian jewellery. Opi Untracht reproduces a painting of Queen Alexandra of Great Britain wearing a similar (seven-strand) necklace on 2 July 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, although only worn as a costume for the occasion, it testifies to the cross-cultural mood of the period (Untracht 2008, p.372).
A famous closely comparable example is a magnificent nine-row pearl necklace which once belonged to the famous Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, sold at Christie's Dubai, 29 April 2008, lot 147, was recently exhibited at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. It was gifted in the early 1970s by His Highness Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan al-Nahyan, the late ruler of the UAE.