Necklace with Crab and Palm-leaf Design

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

An ornament of the class that seeks its merit in its ages’ old ethnicity which it seems to have acquired living along the time for centuries, besides its rare craftsmanship, artistic character and visual effect, is a non-rigid flexible necklace that might have been worn with the same degree of pride in olden days, say by a fisher girl, perhaps Satyavati of the great epic Mahabharata, who fascinated by her rare beauty the great king Shantanu to marry her, or by a maid from far off hills, a solitary reaper a flower-like glowing in a mustard field, or by a royal lady, a medieval harem inmate, and could be worn with the same feeling of pride by a contemporary beauty, a ramp-walker or a housewife, seeking distinction in a gathering or on a special occasion.

Flexible and with length as much as to descend down the breasts, it is designed to create rhythm not only by its rise and fall along the heart’s beats but also by ascending and descending along the breasts’ elevation. Perhaps with the exception of a one-unit pendant with similar ethnic character – an amulet type, or a single bead of a bit larger size of any coloured precious or semi-precious stone, stringed with a simple cord or a metal chain, worn close to the neck aligning with the central unit of this necklace, this piece of jewellery, cast from silver, a rather humble metal, though of sterling standard, excludes all breast or neck ornaments and takes on it the role of singly infusing into the wearer’s figure all mesmeric effects that a youthful maiden’s body can house.

Well connected with the soil and its fragrance discovering beauty not so much in things consecrated in classical aesthetics as beauty-objects, this piece of jewellery, while imitating its major design-patterns, discovers beauty in the nature’s strangeness, its crude-looking inartistic and ordinary aspects, a crab, turquoise, palm-leaf, a strange-looking cherry like fruit … The necklace consists of three parts : the end-chains to hold the ornament on the neck, its main body, and pendants or decorative hangings. Unlike the casually cast end-chains in most of the neck-ornaments the end-chains in this piece have been quite carefully conceived imitating the form of turquoise and brackets holding each two together.

The main body consists of the uniformly cast – almost like die-stamped, crab-roundels : thirteen in all, twelve in straight line, and one used like a pendant defining the centre. Each of the these roundels consists of two crab forms, the mound-like elevated abdominal centre itself being a crab-form or a multi-legged spider or octopus. The connector used for holding the two roundels together has been conceived with a form resembling a cherry fruit. The decorative hangings are of three types, five pendant-type conceived with palm-leaf design widely used in medieval courts for designing royal fans, two flames-like designed drops, and a number of decorative balls hung on the main pendants, and two, along roundels. Semi-polished the interplay of dark and brighter zones impart to the necklace magical effects.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books. .

---

Free Shipping. Delivered by to all international destinations within 3 to 5 days, fully insured.

---