Abigail Adams' faux pearl necklace

This faux pearl necklace belonged to Abigail Adams. In the eighteenth-century faux pearls, or “Roman pearls,” were small blown glass beads coated on the inside with a mixture of ammonia and fish scale to give them an iridescent pearl like finish. The beads were filled with wax to give them weight, but the wax sometimes melted in higher temperatures. The beads in this necklace are hollow so the wax filling may have melted at some point before they were donated to the museum. These may be the pearls depicted in the 1766 portrait of Adams painted by Benjamin Blyth.