The Necklace

Somewhere between jewelry and body adornment, the necklace offers perhaps the most exciting decorative possibilities of any article of personal display. What is worn around the neck cannot be ignored - unlike the more discreet charms of ear and finger decoration - and the necklace as an emblem of wealth, status and proclivity has been shaped and reshaped through the centuries by successive fashions, techniques and materials, from the Egyptian broad collar and the Celtic gold torc, to the diamond sautoirs of the 1920s and the exuberant creations of the liberated sixties. The major part of this book is devoted to the necklace in the 19th and 20th centuries, as theses are the most acessible to the potential buyer and collector.