Galerie Golconda

Necklace with 13 green Peridot beads and 12 spacer beads in golden metal. Modern clasps. The necklace is intact with a very good state of preservation.It was part of Mrs and Mr Goddard Dubois antiquities collection that was acquired during their extensive travels in Egypt in the early 20th Century. 
At the turn of the 20th Century, before the discovery of Tutankhamun, an adventurous American husband and wife team took frequent excursions throughout Egypt, acquiring fine examples of ancient jewelry and artifacts. What resulted from these trips was one of the largest privately owned collections to be exhibited in major U.S. museums. Goddard & Josephine Dubois developed a passion for ancient artifacts during their time in Egypt and became experts at assessing ancient Egyptian art. In Josephine’s letters, she mentions that they routinely took their finds to the well known Egyptologists of the day for their added approval. Josephine was particularly proud of her collection of necklaces: some were original arrangements, others she created to match similar examples at the Cairo Museum and some were arranged “with the purpose of producing the most harmonious & effective combinations of form and color with pleasing results” as explained in the 1920 Metropolitan Museum Bulletin of loans commemorating the 50th Anniversary Exhibition. The Metropolitan Museum in New York exhibited the Dubois’ necklaces in 1920 for the opening of their Jewel Room as well as other artifacts and jewelry including Egyptian amulets and Greco-Roman gold. In 1945-1960, the Dubois’ necklaces were loaned and exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and in 1968, the Dubois’ entire antiquities collection became a blockbuster event at the Museum of Man in California. Some pieces were bequeathed or purchased by the museums while the rest were returned to the family. The Dubois jewellery collection was loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York to open the Jewel Room in 1919 where the collection was exhibited from 1920 until 1935. The necklace was exhibited at the Boston Museum of Art between 1945 and 1965. The entire Dubois’s collection was on loan and exhibited at the Museum of Man in California for six months in 1968.