Necklace

A prosperous woman of high social status would have worn this stunning and expertly crafted gold necklace made by a Moorish master jeweler from Oualata, Mauritania. This small town in southeastern Mauritania has long been recognized as an important center for the fabrication of gold jewelry. The necklace is ornamented with delicate linear and raised patterns using the techniques of filigree and granulation. These techniques were brought to northern Africa by Jewish artisans who moved to the region centuries ago from southern Spain. The triangular pendants recall the form of protective amulets. It is said that the sophistication of jewelry from Oualata is a reflection of the refined social, spiritual and cultural traditions of the Moorish peoples who live there.

For centuries Oualata served as a crossroads for the trans-Saharan caravan trade (first by camels, nowadays by camels and trucks) linking present-day Morocco in the north with the contemporary West African nations of Mali and Senegal. For more than a millennium, worked gold and gold dust from West Africa were traded north along these routes. Over time, North African artisans and their techniques traveled south, influencing the direction of jewelry production along the edge of the Sahara and in much of West Africa, particularly in Mali and Senegal.

The techniques used to fashion this necklace required a high degree of skill. To create the round beads, thin sheets of gold were hammered over a mold into two spherical halves, which were soldered together. In a similar way, the triangular pendants with rectangular attaches were formed with hammered and soldered sheets of gold. Thin wires and tiny balls of gold were then applied without the use of solder to create the delicate and decorative patterns that ornament the necklace. While Islamic populations in the region prefer silver, valued for its purity and clarity, Moorish populations--and especially women--continue to prefer gold for the ornaments they wear.

Necklace composed of a single strand of round gold beads and a central design element of seven triangular gold pendants each with a rectangular attachment and bordered by a round gold bead. The beads are ornamented with linear and raised patterns using filigree and granulation techniques.

Unknown jeweler, Oualata, Mauriania; sold to unknown woman, Oualata Mauritania, before 1979; by descent to her granddaughter (name unknown), Oualata, Mauritania, before 1979; sold to unknown traveling jeweler in Oalata, Mauritania, 1979 [1]; sold to Ivo Grammet, Essaouira, Morocco, 1980; sold to the National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., 2003.

[1] The unknown woman sold the necklace to a traveling jeweler because she was moving from Mauritania to El Ayoun to start a business

Caravans of Gold Fragments in Time, Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL, January 26, 2019–July 21, 2019; The Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada, September 21, 2019–February 23, 2020; Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., July 16, 2021 – February 27, 2022

African Mosaic: Selections from the Permanent Collection, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2013–August 12, 2019 (deinstalled August 28, 2018)

African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., November 19, 2010-November 13, 2013

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