Necklace

George W. Shiebler & Co.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This chain link silver-gilt necklace is composed of circular double links with a simple hook and eye closure. Fifteen circular pendant medallions, imitating ancient coins, are attached to the chain by single links. The medallions are graduated, each one featuring a unique classical head in profile, stamped in low relief. Though the profiles are finely delineated, the bodies of the medallions were finished with an irregular hammered surface. George W. Shiebler and Company was a highly innovative and influential New York City firm that produced a diverse array of artistic silver wares and jewelry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During the later years of the nineteenth century a passion arose in both Europe and America for jewelry inspired by ancient coins, and this necklace is one example of the Shiebler firm's interpretation of that trend. An 1892 “Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review” article on the Shiebler firm described this "curio medallion work" as looking "as though it had been unearthed at Pompeii and Herculanaeum." The same article attests to the popularity of the line, stating that sales of what Shiebler described as his "Homeric Style" jewelry were "unprecedented perhaps in the history of the trade."

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art