Turquoise and Coral Beads Necklace

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Ethnic in appearance as would wear a tribal woman from remote east, distant Himalayan hills, Kutch in west, or deep tribal belts in Chhattisgarh, Andhra or Orissa, not rigid and voluminous as used to be the traditional jewellery articles in past, designed with delicate and elegantly cut and polished beads completely alternating the rigid and heavy, by its fineness and fluidity, this necklace, a blend of the old and new, is endowed with such distinction as would stun every eye wherever it enters. However large a gathering a neck bearing it might not pass unnoticed. Designed to loosely lie on the breast, one strand riding the other, surging with delicate ripples, or rocking with the beats of heart, changing profiles, rising and falling as would a hilly pathway, or a rivulet in a mountainous track, the necklace astonishes by its naïve simplicity.

Besides a pair of hook and ring to hold it on the neck the necklace consists of two parts, one, a beautifully crafted strange looking silver pendant, quite large in size and colourfully enameled using inlay of turquoise pieces, coral beads and some silver patterns, and the other, consisting of strands of coral, turquoise and silver beads, seven on either side. Each of these strands is divided into four sections, three main, the fourth on the top, connected with the lock-ring and holding-hook being subsidiary consisting of just three strands on either side, each strand composed of three coral beads and silver connectors and rows of silver beads. Of the three main sections those on the bottom and top consist of coral beads, while the third in the centre, of the turquoise beads. The coral beads are long-cast like a pipe’s pieces, whereas those of turquoise, rounded and buttons-like flat. Each of the fourteen strands : seven on each side, in bottom section, consists of a pair of subordinate strands branching on the base from a two-way silver junction with a beautiful turquoise ball, and are gathered on the top into a silver terminus consisting of two rows of tiny silver beads, and another, a larger one on the top. Each of the strands in the middle section emerges over a fine polished coral ball and terminates on the top into another.

However, the most strange-looking is the pendant cast of sterling silver enameled using mosaic of turquoise pieces, a larger coral bead in the centre affording it appropriate contrast, a smaller one, its base, and two, flanking ones, defining its breadth. A pair of musical pipes-like looking motifs, slantingly laid on either side, the mouths capped with coral beads, crowns the pendant’s apex which as against elliptical bottom is conical. The enameled spaces have been framed, as also contrasted, using courses of chased dots, or tiny beads, and coils. In its totality : elliptical bottom and conical top, the pendant sometimes gives the feeling of ‘Gumukha’ – a cow’s face, or that of Shiva’s bull Nandi, and sometimes it looks like the mother-goddess Durga as her face looks when the rest of her image is covered under a garment, an appearance her images invariably have during Durga-puja – worship-rituals, in Bengal. The ‘Gomukha’ vision is further strengthened by the two ears-like Paisleys inlaid with amber added towards pendant’s bottom along its edges on either side.

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. .