A beautiful platinum necklace designed by Jessie King for Liberty. Five pendants set with moonstones within decorative floral roundels. The design is sprinkled with small diamonds and the chain is an intricate design so typical of the artist's work. Housed in the original velvet lined Liberty box. In excellent original condition, with just a few small scratches to the moonstones, in very good original box. A gem of Art Nouveau jewellery and Glasgow design.

A rare original Jessie M. King necklace in its original Liberty box.
Jewellery was one of the craft skills Jessie M. King was encouraged to develop at the Glasgow School of Arts, where casting, enamelling and swageing were on the curriculum. In the early 20th century Liberty were commissioning new designs for their jewellery catalogues and in 1905 Jessie, who was already providing fabric designs for them, sent a number of sheets of jewellery designs for the firm's consideration. The drawings were mainly based around floral patterns and drew heavily on her drawings for the headings and borders of her illustrations for 'The Defence of Guenevere' published in 1904. "Necklaces of gold wire, annealed and twisted into loops and flower heads... became the solid equivalent of the fine line drawings. Fasces of briars were easily translated into wax patterns for casting." (Colin White, The Enchanted World of Jessie M. King).
The great period of original Liberty designs in gold, silver and pewter for objects and jewellery lasted from the late 1890's to about 1912, during which time it established the look of English Art Nouveau (Arwas). Liberty's designers worked anonymously, as the firm wished to promote its own brand rather than individual artists, so none of the designs are marked. In some cases it is not possible to identify the artist, but as Jessie M. King was among one of the great British designers working for Liberty many of her designs have been catalogued. This necklace features in Victor Arwas's book 'Art Nouveau in Britain: From Mackintosh to Liberty - The Birth of a Style', page 184. Its design is typical of Jessie's work in that period and very reminiscent of her drawings for The Defence of Guenevere.

LITERATURE: Victor Arwas, 'Art Nouveau in Britain: From Mackintosh to Liberty - The Birth of a Style'

Stock ID: 39485