Berkshires - Necklaces

With a distinct silver twisted toggle clasp and multiple kinds of nubby rondelles dating to the late 1920s, Parisian parurier Louis Rousselet's workshop handcrafted this glass beaded...

This antique amuletic bronze framed pendant cages a dozen 7mm-diameter single-cut rock crystals that each feature a table-cut decagon crown, deep pavilion, 21 facets and uncut girdle, while the culets range from off-center to blunted. They are tightly set within four linked rings to overlap at the same angle in a sparkling single row. Seeming to retain a little of its original yellow-gold gilding on just the interior, the frame that surrounds each of the four sections of three crystals enables them to reflect pale-yellow-and-lime light when the pendant is viewed from certain angles. Suggesting French heritage, the Medieval Frankish culture in northern France made jewelry in similar segmented or openwork shapes of wheels or whorls, which were worn as gem-decorated disk-shaped brooches or gold-caged rock...

This vintage cherry-fruit charm necklace featuring red hand-painted wood is constructed of silver chain links and its clasp extension-chain is decorated with a single red bead. The green leaves that trim the berry beads are a surprising two-tone plastic, indicating that they were also handcrafted. Notably, the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli is famous for including custom plastic elements in her mostly unsigned jewelry that accompanied her couture collections in the late 1930s. Please see TheMet online archive to view Schiaparelli's most well-known couture necklace structured from plastic supporting metal insects...

Among the most in-demand designs by Trifari artistic director Alfred Philippe were his flora and "jelly belly" fauna jewelry from the 1940s. Both iconic styles can be mixed as the go...

While contracted as an independent craftsman to create one-of-a-kind costume jewelry for French Masion Degorce from 1953 until it closed in 1957, Parisian goldsmith Robert Goosens (1927-2016) was initially commissioned by Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel to craft one-of-a-kind Byzantine-style long decorative-chain necklaces with sculptural gilt-metal or faux-pearl charms, while she intended to layer many of them to accessorize her couture clothing for clients and herself. Relevant to the unclear designer of our vintage nine-pendant ribbed-chain sautoir with an unsigned gold-gilt silver barrel clasp and five unique kinds of intricately textured vermeil and baroque faux-pearl charms, a similar lost-wax-cast center pendant with three-lobed-foliate prongs also in the shape of oak leaves can be seen in the book (p.28), Bijoux de Haute Couture: Collection Robert Goossens, by Gilles Plazy and Chantal Bizot published in Paris in 2000. The same year, that Chanel-signed pendant necklace was auctioned by Christie's in a lot including an unsigned long chain sautoir attributed to Chanel. Further, another 1stDibs dealer currently has a $12,500 listing for an unsigned but book-published early-1950s faux-pearl sautoir for Chanel that also features intricate pinecone talismans like ours, but decorated with poured glass and crystals crafted by Maison Gripoix. When Chanel relaunched her post-war business ventures, Goosens soon became her favorite parurier before founding his eponymous Maison Goosens, whose venerable workshop later designed metal work for its own jewelry-and-furnishings brand Goosens Paris. Notably, Chanel did not add a brand signature to costume jewelry until the late 1950s, while some pieces prior to this by multiple paruriers are documented to lack any identification that Chanel was earlier known to stamp such as "France", "Made In France" and/or "Depose". Recently, a similar unsigned/unmarked longer chain sautoir with fewer filigree-and-pearl pendants that was believed to be by Robert Goosens for Chanel...

A versatile piece from Monet in hard-to-find silver tone metal. Multi chains terminating in pointed elements held in center with a barrel-shaped silver slide that moves up and down t...

Gold tone necklace composed of boomerang-shaped components in graduated sizes is attributed to Oscar de la Renta, but unmarked. Chain in back is adjustable. Great statement necklace....

Miriam Haskell's first designer Frank Hess--before 1947 when the brand mark was added and while couture-style adjustable-hook necklaces were in demand in post-war America--produced t...

Featuring stamped-brass findings c1930, this Miriam Haskell collar necklace was made by her first designer Frank Hess in an Art-Nouveau style with ornate floral motifs for its 15 dangling bud-shaped or fluted-ball pendants, along with intricate textural patterns on the stamped bands that link the oval-ring chain choker. Among the festoon of graduating charms, the largest centered pendant is 1.5 inches long and 0.75 inches in diameter. One of our photos show that the surprisingly light-weight pendants are hollow--some with a hole punched at the bottom. The distinct stamped bands, which include a fold-over clasp, are found in more obviously Haskell-Hess pre-WWII jewelry...

Wreath-shaped brooch of various pearls, rhinestones, crystals, and micro gold beads by Robert, c.1960. Hook in addition to pin, so can be worn as pendant. Some of the Original by Robert...

Between 1948-1955 this early Vendome crystal set was made for a high-end line by Coro to include a three-strand tricolor beaded necklace with flowe...

Signed "Trifari" with a crown and without a post-1955 U.S.-copyright symbol on all three matching pieces, this likely late-1930s highly-textured yellow-gold-plated demi-parure was designed by American Trifari's French-born head designer Alfred Philippe after he had honed his fine-jewelry craftsmanship while creating luxury parures for Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels. The set features a heavy tasseled eight-strand chain sautoir necklace and earrings with dropped fluted-ball pendants, With French-style signed clip fastening, the contrasting-texture two-inch-long earrings each have two twisted fluted round beads in different sizes, with the larger one capped at both ends with additional shapes and textures. On the necklace, this textural contrast is amplified with the inclusion of many chains. The decorative chain caps and...

In a rare scissor cut dating to the 1500s, this centuries-old prong-set hogback rock-crystal pendant produces a fascinating play of refractions in low light. With its rectangular nar...

A statement necklace from 2010 by Rodrigo Otazu, known for his extravagant creations for Madonna, Lady Gaga, and for the Sex and the City cast. Fashioned from multiple layers of gold...

This mid-century shiny yellow-gold-plated snake-chain multi-strand necklace features a sculptural finely-textured gilt-metal bow that is positioned to rest on the upper left chest to...

Since 1920, French costume-jewelry glass-master Louis Rousselet was among a handful of paruriers favored by the leading Parisian couture houses, primarily Chanel. Beyond the stamped ...

Most likely made in Germany during the Art Deco period, this vintage unsigned long heavy 12-pendant gold-gilt chain-link bib necklace features ball charms of gold-ringed emerald-green matte Bakelite. Hanging 13-inches from the back of the neck, the long necklace is constructed with elegant double-ring links, while it fastens with a large toggle and decorative bar. Each end of the toggle bar resembles stacked balls, recalling the oval-cartouche stacked-cannonball signature of German jewelry chain-specialist Jakob Bengel, who founded his business in Idar-Oberstein in 1873. Due to WWII, the Bengel factory, which is now a museum, permanently closed. His pre-1940 unsigned designs were largely overlooked until his factory catalogues were rediscovered decades later, which enabled 21st-Century books to be published about one of the leading manufacturers of Art Deco costume jewelry. Bengel pieces without the cartouche can be distinguished by thin metal chain links combined with single or bi-color Bakelite pendants in repeating geometric shapes like balls, semi-circles, rectangles, bars, rings or ribbed texture. As Germany was the first country to license Bakelite for factory production since the 1910s, during the next 20 years its costume-jewelry designers began to feature locally-produced colorful Bakelite instead of glass or early semi-synthetic plastics. Between the world wars during poor economic conditions in Germany, its jewelry producers who were manufacturing for export were not motivated to stamp their country on such products. The design of this Bakelite-charm necklace seems inspired by one-of-a-kind chunkier-chain charm necklaces commissioned for couture clothing ensembles by international fashion leader Parisian Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. She only produced her trend-setting commissioned jewelry...

Dolce & Gabbana featured silk-rose jewelry like this versatile pale-peach seven-inch-diameter accessory on many of the runway looks from the design-duo's Spring/Summer 2000 collection (see photo). The rose is a signature motif of this pair of Italian designers, while the Dolce & Gabbana brand tag is sewn to the back of this piece that was "Made in Italy" in 1999. The unusual "cufflink" hardware on the back of the faux rose enables it to be secured through a buttonhole or as a pendant for a necklace, neckerchief, or narrow belt...

This early 16th-Century Renaissance silver-repousse round medallion "lovers" pendant depicts a romantic encounter in a rural landscape between a man and smiling woman wearing Europea...

Elsa Schiaparelli famously embraced "shocking pink" for her Surrealist-aesthetic couture clothing and handcrafted costume jewelry, which she commissioned from Parisian paruriers beginning in the late 1920s--when some of the most expensive gems were fuchsia Burmese rubies. In this antique glass-beaded sautoir tassel necklace, 37 unusual fuchsia faux-pearls are each delicately caged like hot-air balloons by seven textural strands of faux-pearl-and-gold seed beads. These spherical stations are spaced by lustrous white medium-size faux pearls, ending in a four-strand seed-bead tassel that cages four of the fuchsia beads. The beads are strung on bright magenta silk cord without a clasp. Sautoirs were an essential element of flapper style since Schiaparelli's couture-mentor Paul Poiret changed the silhouette of clothing in the 1920s, while the long necklaces remained popular until wartime 1939. To compete with her rival couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, Schiaparelli (1890-1973) relied on the same French glassmakers, Maison Gripoix and Louis Rousselet--the masters of faux pearls at the time who added organic-ingredient coatings to their handmade glass beads. Either glass workshop that was established by the 1920s could have been commissioned to make the progressive hot-pink pearls for this unsigned necklace that dates to the Art-Deco period. The design of this highly-textural tricolor sautoir featuring fuchsia spheres could suit the style of one of Schiaparelli's most frequent paruriers through the 1930s, Jean Clement. Some of his relevant unsigned work for Schiaparelli is in museum collections like The Met, including highly-textural tricolor sphere-decorated buttons/brooches and a fuchsia-toned metal-rosebud bead necklace. After Schiaparelli had become associated with fuchsia, she made particularly prolific use of this bright magenta in the late 1930s. In her demi-couture collections such as "Circus" and "Comedia del' Arte" (see our 3 photos), fuchsia jackets are adorned with similar colorful spherical glass beads among embroidered appliques and animal/clown brooches, as well as whimsical painted-ceramic buttons...

During the Art Deco period, Miriam Haskell's first designer Frank Hess designed this blue-and-white glass-beaded hand-sewn torsade set of dangle earrings and a choker necklace, whose knotted string is capped with their characteristic Russian-gilt brass flora filigree. Coinciding with the American Great Depression, to offer some less expensive costume jewelry than her initial ready-to-wear styles featuring Parisian hand-crafted materials found in French couture, Haskell reduced the cost of some of her findings by locally sourcing stamped metal and incorporating hand-pressed glass beads from Germany and Czechoslovakia. With a loop, the line from hand pressing the glass can only be found on the blue beads, while the white ones are coated in an organic material like authentic French faux pearls. The ends of the textured cords that string the beaded set were frayed to form a fuzzy opaque dome that hides the knots attached to the filigree caps. No Haskell jewelry was signed before 1947. The unsigned necklace...

Acquired in The States and likely inspired by the American 1938-commissioned animated-feature movie, Pinocchio, that was produced for two years by Walt Disney based on an Italian children's story, this unsigned pre-WWII yellow-gold-gilt brass necklace with elegant draping chains features a three-inch-long playful kinetic multi-textured faux-carved-wood puppet-on-strings pendant with pointed hat, filigree-capped collar and waist, and flexible geometric-shaped limbs. Structured with three chains, notice the additional texture on the slightly larger links of the upper necklace. Unlike the movie, as the marionette on our necklace wears a lace-like collar resembling the original character illustrated by Enrico Mazzanti in the book by Tuscany-born Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), the necklace otherwise could date no earlier than the turn of the 19th Century when the spring-ring clasp was first in use. Since that time, Pinocchio became one of the most reimagined characters in literature based on multiple authors whose protagonist was a similar anthropomorphic puppet. To be conservative about its age as the necklace is in good condition, we suspect that Austrian-born Hattie Carnegie commissioned it to accessorize her "hat-to-hem" custom-made or ready-to-wear clothing that frequently featured amusing figural subjects with articulated parts, such as mythical creatures, fauna or clowns. Before her death at the age 69 in 1956, not all of the pieces in the costume-jewelry parures of her eponymous brand since 1919 were signed, while based on experience we assume that at least clip earrings accompanied this creative necklace...

Featuring yellow-gold sinuous-pattern rondelles and carnelian rock-crystal round 8mm beads, this ancient-revival heavy necklace is knotted in stations a...

In the late 1920s during the Art-Deco period, this Miriam Haskell white mostly glass-beaded sautoir was created in New York City by her first designer Frank Hess. This uniquely hand-...

Around 1930, Miriam Haskell's first designer Frank Hess designed this Russian-gilt brass ribbed-chain link bib necklace featuring 27 strands of varying length each wired to aqua faux-turquoise pressed glass beads with characteristic gold pronged-bell caps and thumbless spring-ring clasp. After the Great Depression began in the United States in 1929, to keep her popular European-style costume jewelry affordable among fashionable ladies, Haskell began using less expensive imported handcrafted glass beads, which included Czech and German pressed glass. Initially when she opened her handmade ready-to-wear costume-jewelry business in 1926 in New York City's downtown McAlpin Hotel, she had used only the finest Parisian glass beads and findings like French couturiers including Coco Chanel who soon became her competition. which Haskell promoted with the French name of her first boutique Le Bijou de L'Heure. If interested in assembling a suitable set of early Haskell-Hess pieces with similar aesthetics, please see our other listings for the aqua glass-and-enamel scalloped button clip earrings and the "peacock" coil arm-band bracelet with Parisian lampworked glass, faceted crystal, painted galalith beads, and cupped rose...

Stamped "Western Germany" on the gold-tone underside of its box clasp, this double-strand long necklace with cherry-red beads and decorative clasp features the reflective glossy face...

On this Art-Deco period glass micro-bead 20-strand necklace, the yellow-gold-plated clasp is stamped with a crown-topped Trifari signature without a U.S.-copyright symbol, which Indi...

Victorian Belle-Epoque and Edwardian styles transitioned to Art-Deco period jewelry with semi-precious materials and machine-age shapes around WWI when this unique 20-link choker nec...

Featuring a relatively heavy fringe of dangling Russian-gilt brass bars and contrasting French-blue textural hand-pressed glass beads topped with filigree caps to resemble flower bud...

This is an excellent mid-century Japanese reproduction of a Miriam Haskell glass green-tone and metallic three-strand choker necklace. It features the American designer's characteristic use of colorful hand-crafted lampwork, seed and faux-pearl beads, along with Parisian-style silver-gilt metal filigree caps and findings. A supplier of Haskell's post-WWII Japanese-made beads and findings also made its own unbranded designs using the same materials. Whereby "Japan" is discreetly stamped on the hook that enables fastening along the extension chain. The faux-nacre coating of the pearls has partly disappeared on only the gold-accented smallest round beads. This does not detract from the necklace because similar irregular patterns with a mix of colors are among the multiple styles and sizes of beads (see closeups). The many colors include gold, ecru, brown, seafoam green, olive, mint, and vivid green. If you want the look of an authentic Haskell necklace for a fraction of the price, then you may want this piece. Otherwise, we pride ourselves on being able to identify unsigned Haskell...

Featuring 12 large patinated pearlescent charms distinctly handcrafted by Parisian Louis Rousselet--the master glass-and-metal-ornament parurier for French couture fashion houses since 1920--this heavy silver chain necklace is made in the unique chunky style of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel that she introduced in the late 1920s. Capping Rousselet's signature Art-Deco-period handmade beads, his intricate multi-texture metal tops for these balls resemble organic shapes like the stems of acorns or fruit. In a bib arrangement, the duotone reflective heavy spheres--in black glass, blue-gray enameled galalith, and silver metal--conform to the cleavage of the wearer. Aside from chain jewelry commissioned by Chanel, Rousselet-style jewelry was usually constructed with thin wires or braided string to enable his beads to attract the most attention. Notably, this necklace fastens with an enlarged spring-ring clasp that became associated with increasingly heavy Chanel costume jewelry. Like 1920s Chanel jewelry by Rousselet, the necklace is both unmarked for French origin and unsigned. In subsequent decades, variations of chunky-charm chain necklaces were reproduced by Chanel with her other paruriers using different materials in which they specialized, such as a similar Chanel-signed piece in the 1960s by bronze-maker Maison Denez...

Goldtone and black bead necklace by Jonné, a short-lived division of Schrager, sits gracefully at the nape of the neck. A double row of various face...

This mid-century like-new Bakelite and yellow-gold-gilt beaded double-strand necklace still sports the CoroCraft pegasus 1940s retail foil-tag as if never worn. As an elegant take on...

Kenneth Jay Lane--whose monogram KJL is signed on the white-rose-decorated gold-tone clasp of this double-strand black-resin beaded necklace--is only one of four bylined jewelry designers collected by The Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection At The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the two-decade period between 1970-1989, which was dominated by such bold big shapes in mostly black, white and gold. A must for any collector of the world-renowned American-founded beauty-brand Avon, its rare limited-edition retailed necklace by Lane titled "Midnight Rose" is among the most distinctive that it produced among its lines of primarily perfume, cosmetics, and personal-care products whose origin dates back to 1886 in New York. Notably, the life-sized shiny cast-acrylic rose has the look of a far more expensive carved stone, such as one cut and polished from light-filled saturated-white chalcedony, which is a hard semi-precious stone favored by Lane. Like Lane's own line when it was originally signed KJL, the decorated clasp is uniquely designed. It locks underneath with a semi-circular hinge, which enables the stylized three-dimensional smooth rose to be perfectly positioned on the right side of the upper chest with the bud facing upwards above its three-leaf sepal in contrasting gilt textured metal. This position adds sparkle from above to the three pave rhinestones in a gold-tone setting at center of the rose, as if its dew-covered bud was beginning to open in strong moonlight. To balance the bold rose shape, the black strands cross each other below at a single point, which adds another eye-catching element to the concealed-string-tied necklace. In mint condition with no sign of wear, the necklace was acquired in its original lavender Avon retail box. In contrast, the paper shows wear and tear from handling, while still featuring the jewelry designer's full-name script signature, title, and text details like how to care for this synthetic jewelry. The metal-stamped hallmark is "KJL for Avon...

Vintage Vendome set composed of a three-strand necklace and earclips featuring large faux pearls interspersed with faceted topaz-toned and iridescent crystals and white beads with go...

This early 18th-Century Spanish Rococo period silver-filigree double-sided pendant with dangle features miniature colorful enamel devotional paintings on both sides of a white porcelain centerpiece, which are associated with an April birth. One side depicts a mountain landscape with a haloed richly-robed dark woman holding a lap-seated dark child and a holy orb...

Created by a gallery-exhibited progressive artist in the 1990s in a way that foreshadowed TheMet museum exhibition "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion", this ingenious signed sterling-silver chain link collar necklace features eight convertible pink-gem-accented pendants that can fasten your own pierceable larger elements, such as fresh flower heads or cut felt. It was initially acquired in the late 1990s from the U.S. avant-garde modern jewelry exhibition space Jewelers' Werk based in Washington D.C., which is printed on the included original black box with gold text. The versatile necklace that fastens with a handcrafted filigree floral clasp enables the wearer to choose from a wide variety of objects that can be pierced by the removable prong-set sparkly fuschia studs--from felt balls to folded origami paper--to attach to the likewise removable oxidized sterling cups. The perhaps morganite or crystal studs, whose silver ends are not visible after affixing such objects, can be mixed or interchanged with your own earring stud(s) or dangling pieces to enable more movement when worn. As shown in photos, a buyer can avoid the contact of such interchangeable objects with long hair by removing studded cups towards the back of the neck, whereby symmetrical sterling-stud fasteners that serve to link the chain necklace will discreetly remain. If the collector would like to use all of the sterling cups that surround the neck, one of their studs is missing its crystal, which can be replaced if entirely pink stones are preferred. We photographed the necklace populated with fresh and dehydrating daisy heads, which slowly wilt or dry while worn. With inspiration from TheMet current museum exhibition featuring beautiful contemporary clothes designed to show the passage of time, along with some of its archived fragile fashion based on the fiction-inspired theme "The Garden Of Time...

This antique rare hand-pressed-glass necklace features semi-translucent grape-green large beads that are capped with gilt-brass filigree. Based on the combination of bead seams, spring-ring clasp, and metal findings on the unmarked faux Chinese-jade necklace, it dates to the late Victorian period most likely from Western Europe. Around WWI, hand presses, which stamped molten glass into a mold to create a bead with a hole and a seam, were often used to produce costume jewelry as a cottage industry in Germany and the Czech region. This was while there was a lack of factory machine presses and finishing tumblers that used sand to polish out the seam lines. Another reason that the cloudy green beads can be identified as atypically hand-pressed is that they are more opaque and therefore harder and less prone to breaking during formation than fully-translucent glass, which was better suited for automated-machine pressing. Also the green beads are an unusual swirled color including white, which suggests that their production was more limited than machine-pressing would enable. Without the bead-seams, this necklace could be mistaken for one by Coco Chanel. Her 1920s couture...

From the same 1976 collection by Hubert de Givenchy (1927-2018) as this metallic necklace, TheMet acquired a similar design (accession 1984.598.41). Without the rhinestones of the mu...

In the late 1940s, Trifari French-born artistic director Alfred Philippe, who had earlier created fine jewelry for Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, designed this flora-motif crystal-s...

An impressive piece by ART, founded in New York in the late 1940s as Mode-Art by Arthur Pepper, which can be worn as a necklace or brooch when the neck chain is detached. The central cinquefoil element features five green cabochon stones and clear crystals of various size from which descend one long tassel and two short ones. All in bright gold tone metal with different finishes. Back of central element has pin and loop for attaching chain; marked "ART" with copyright sign. Length of chain: 17" Pendant with tassel...

Like Alexander Calder's handmade wire jewelry since 1929, whose smallest one-of-a-kind sculptural subjects ranged from aerial acrobats and dancers to mono...

c.1960s-'70s Trifari necklace and earrings set, the necklace comprised of three gold chains, the shortest of which features a large pendant with free-...

Tiered goldtone necklace by Hobé consisting of graduated half-circle tubes, the top through which the chain passes. Each tube suspends squared beads, half black, half brown. Signed ...

Unusual vintage necklace composed of a chain caught with a pearl at the hollow of the neck before it continues to down to a pierced medallion ...

Nicely constructed vintage necklace of clear and emerald rhinestones. The main collar sits at the nape of the neck and is fashioned of articulated square settings from which the acce...

What fun! Vendome c.1960s necklace and earrings composed of hot pink beaded spheres alternating with pink crystal rondeles. The double-strand necklace fits c...

This Miriam Haskell chain necklace with large pendant coin is a classic. The large coin, a replica of a 1955 5 Deutsche Mark commemorative coin cele...

This 20th-Century Art-Nouveau style 18-karat white-gold-plated highly textural pendant features a prong-set abalone that is carved into seemingly overlapping flower petals in lustrou...

Robert Goosens, the French haute-couture Chanel-favorite parurier who enjoyed reinterpreting ancient and antique styles of jewelry with rock crystal and faux stones, also collaborated with Madame Alix Gres. Relevant to this statement necklace, the Parisian theatrical-costume designer, who founded the French fashion-house Maison Gres, commissioned Goosens to make spiral-wire adornments for her couture gowns. This handmade hammered brass wire choker necklace with five dropped en-tremblant pendants is decorated with unique colorful beads and wrapped wire. The piece 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 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...

With settings and construction like Art-Deco-period unsigned crystal costume-jewelry by Bavarian-born blacksmith Henry Schreiner (1898-1954), this mid-century unsigned silver-soldere...

With artistic value as a Renaissance chiaroscuro miniature painting with precious ultramarine lapis-lazuli pigment, this early 16th-Century period gilt-filigree silver pendant medall...

This antique French Belle-Epoque-period set incudes eight rare ball-cut moonstones beaded on a delicate gilt choker necklace and wire-hook dangle earrings for pierced ears. The necklace features two 12mm gilt-filigree-capped moonstones with atypical adularescence that glows as a sharply defined wide bluish-white circle below the surface. The pearl-like grayish-white moonstones are among beaded stations of cut-glass crystal that are spaced with tiny gilt balls. The matching earrings each feature a 6mm moonstone like the additional four on the necklace. The luminous moonstone beads look like quahog-clam pearls...

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's earliest fashion motifs of camellias, hearts, and topaz are combined in this Art-Deco period tightly silk-strung metallic-glass couture set of a mixed-bead ...

All featuring white cat's-eyes, the 21 gray 3mm ball-cut moonstones of this necklace are beaded symmetrically on this antique choker between stations of shiny 14-karat gold-filled tu...

Featuring handmade double-spiral filigree links, this vintage collar choker necklace was created by tightly twisting fine silver wire, which was ...

Featuring the earliest white-swirled glass and enameled faux-pearl round beads handcrafted by Parisian lampwork-master Louis Rousselet for American entrepreneur Miriam Haskell and he...

This antique late-Victorian Italian Murano-glass unsigned necklace features three oblong red beads with miniature multicolor swirled-stripe patterns made with the millefiori techniqu...