Made in the early to mid 1950s, this exquisite necklace is designer signed Hattie Carnegie. All of the beads on this necklace are spectacular and have fascinating history.
In 1918 in Thuringia, the town of Gablonz, which has produced glass beads since the mid 1700's, was given to Czechoslovakia after the war. All of the German bead makers there were forced to leave. They left the Iser mountains and went southeast into Bavaria and formed a new center for bead making called Neu-Gablonz. The Germans' attitude was basically : Fine, you don't want us here then we will leave and continue producing glass beads elsewhere! Hence, a new era in bead making was born.
The blue and white and green and white marbled fit-together flower caned beads was one of their new bead designs. In the 1950s many US jewelry designers imported beads like these (ornate flower beads and other multi-color beads) and Hattie Carnegie imported some of the best they made. The white satin glass faceted beads that look like rock crystal were also made in Neu-Gablonz. They are drawn and cut glass beads and were very complicated to make. The hollow gold barrel beads are a fish net pattern and are gold gilt.
A nice long design, the necklace is 32 " or 81 cm long. There are 20 flower bead pairs and 12 white satin glass beads. The gold metal barrel beads are large at at about 7/8" or 23 mm long. The necklace has the original Hattie Carnegie gold metal hang tag without copyright, or pre 1955.
The entire necklace is in excellent clean condition and there are no cracks or chips on any of the glass beads. The gold metal barrel beads have some light gold wear and the brass links between the beads have a darkened patina from age.
Comes gift wrapped and shipped in a new luxury presentation necklace box.
