Antique Precious Coral Double Row Necklace, c. 1900

The natural salmon red of coral has always inspired jewellery designers and artists. Hardly a portrait of an Italian beauty is conceivable without the red pearls from the bottom of the sea embellishing earlobes or a décolleté. But while in the 19th and early 20th centuries the Mediterranean still produced many jewellery-quality corals, it is due to both climate change and overfishing of coral reefs that our modern age can hardly harvest this precious natural material. This necklace from around 1900 features beautiful salmon corals up to 9 millimeters in diameter. Their colouration is a fairly uniform shade of salmon, typical of the so-called "Corallo Sciacca" found off Sicily. the Two rows of hand-cut beads are arranged in graduated order and become thicker towards the center. A coral-studded clasp made of gold-plated tombac completes the beautiful necklace, which is strung with some room for movement so that it falls beautifully. Thus, a dream of longing from turn-of-the-century Italy has been preserved and continues to charm today.

Estimate:£1,010.82

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