Greek Revival Drop Necklaces

Sautoir necklace designed by Zolotas. Gorgeous dangle necklace, created in Greece by the jewelry house of Zolotas back in the late 20th century. This elegant necklace has been crafted with a mesh of wires made up in solid yellow gold of 18 karats. Designed with two dangle drops elements and an Hercules Knot. Fitted with a push box safety lock and a hinged figure 8 for extra security. Hercules Knot The Hercules Knot was notably a wedding symbol and also represented the virginity of the bride: this coming from the Roman lore that the Knot symbolized the legendary fertility of Hercules - relating to the girdle of Diana (Artemis) which was captured/retrieved from the Amazon Queen Hippolyta. Later on, the Hercules Knot survived its religious uses with the Ancients and was actually still used during medieval times as a common symbol as well as also being Renaissance love tokens. Weight: 139.80 Grams, (89.61Dwt). Size: Totally extended is 36 Inch (91.40 Cm). Measurements: The dangle drops have a lenght of 5.2 and 4.1 inches respectively. Hallmarks: Stamped with the maker's mark, the mark for the assay of the gold and signed, "ZOLOTAS Z04 18KT". History of Zolotas The firm of Zolotas, was founded in Athens in 1895 by Efthimios Zolotas. The jewelry of Zolotas is very well known for their designs inspired by Greek antiquity. In the 1950, they made the decision to create the trademark and branches out into international markets. It was also during this era that the jewelry House of Zolotas began crafting what would become their ancient Greek signature style. In a gorgeous combination of modern and ancient styles. The high karat gold jewelry was fashioned using traditional techniques and motifs with contemporary flair. The symbols which had been sacred to the Greek culture some thousands of years prior were now manifested in ram, lion, snake and bull jewelry...

Robert Goosens, the French haute-couture parurier who enjoyed reinterpreting ancient and antique styles of jewelry with rock crystal and faux stones, collaborated with Madame Alix Gres, the Parisian fashion and theatrical-costume designer who founded Maison Gres, to make spiral-wire adornments for her couture gowns, such as this handmade hammered brass wire choker necklace with five dropped en-tremblant pendants that are decorated with unique colorful beads and wrapped wire. This necklace dates between 1969-1971 based on similar unsigned spiraled-wire "metal" jewelry without goldsmithing marks in the museum collection of TheMet (see our photo), which acquired it from Maison Givenchy founder Hubert de Givenchy, who was one of the most supportive fans of Gres. Like the legendary sculptural clothing designs of Madame Gres, this necklace was inspired by Greco-Roman costumes, while its sculpted shapes by Goosens reference her signature curvilinear fabric techniques that earned her the sobriquet of "the master of the wrapped and draped dress". Goosens (1927-2016), nicknamed Monsieur Bijou, also made jewelry inspired by other periods of antiquity to compliment the couture clothing of Coco Chanel, Cristobal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent. After Goosens collaborated with Gres, he revisited golden spiral designs with Saint Laurent. Similar to the free-flowing fabric manipulated in Gres gowns, this hand-shaped necklace that we photographed in sunlight is a study in motion that drapes across a curvy cleavage. Adding drama to this necklace below its wire choker, the top teetering-wire pendant is a twisted and hammered horizontal double spiral, which is a Hellenistic symbol of life and transformation suggesting the breasts of a goddess of fertility and motherhood. Yet distinctly Goosens, 18 hand-cut and hand-dyed "ancient-Roman-blue" rock-crystal beads are wire-strung to weight a second tier of two separate vertical double-spiral pendants. On each, a wrapped-wire tube divides the blue beads. Between these vertical pendants in two tiers, the central vertical pendants each feature a one-of-a-kind multicolor bead (yellow/blue/red/black/white) in two lengths with abstract organic patterns recalling ancient Italian glasswork. Four more blue beads bracket these larger colorful beads. An additional 10 blue beads and 5 wire tubes decorate the bottom looped wire pendant, as well as the bottom of the wire choker. Like the hammered-wire jewelry designs of modern artist Alexander Calder, the creative complex construction of this necklace surprisingly required no metalsmith techniques, such as soldering or casting, just great skill with a jewelry pliers and hammer. For a bigger picture of couture clothing by Madame Gres during the decade beginning in 1969, she notably designed many museum-collected one-color silk-taffeta draped long gowns with empire waists and simple high collars or geometric cut-outs. Remarkably, the focal points for some of these unique dresses were at the wrists, from where long pouf sleeves voluminously droop around the hands to nearly the floor like two enormous long-petaled flowers. If paired with this equally downward-focused and balanced necklace from this same period, its bold Greco-Roman elements would have pulled a viewer's gaze of the dress from floor to face. Although there is no significant provenance for this necklace, hammered brass and tinted rock crystal were among the few materials repeatedly associated with Goosens from 1969-71. For example, in his overlapping interior-decor collections based on themes of waterlilies or foliage, Goosens hammered gilt brass wire and sheets (see our closeup photo) to represent plant parts or he wired rock-crystal beads to appear as tiny fruits. While the two multicolor glass or resin beads in this necklace are atypical, the combination of blue, yellow and red is a palette that the designer used for other pieces of rock-crystal jewelry and he created many kinds of multicolor faux stones with glass or resin paste, such as faux Tibetan turquoise including black and white. According to journalism based on interviews with Goosens, he often acquired unusual stones and glass for inspiration during his extensive travels exploring museum-collected antiquities. Since Maison Goosens was acquired in 2005 by Maison Chanel, it opened the Parisian showroom Galerie Goosens and associated shops to sell many kinds of reproductions and reimagined works by the founder, which fortunately does not suit the completely handmade elements of this necklace. So this couture piece remains one-of-a-kind. If desiring a vintage haute-couture original by Robert Goosens, we recommend perusing the Maison Goosens website so that a reproduction with a contemporary signature is not mistakenly purchased. Madame Gres (1903-1993) was born Germaine Emelie Krebs, but initially identified her fashion designs with the pseudonym Alix and later Alix Barton...

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