Necklace
Artist unknown, Pacific Islander
Artist Unidentified, Pacific Islander
20th century, 1950–2000
Object PlacePapua New Guinea
Medium/TechniqueMelo shell, tortoiseshell, braided fiber
DimensionsOverall: 33 x 16.5 x 2 cm (13 x 6 1/2 x 13/16 in.)
Credit LineGift of Geneviève McMillan in memory of Reba Stewart
Accession number2009.2670
On View
Not on viewClassificationsJewelry / Adornment
Collections
Only recently did collectors develop an interest in personal adornments from Papua New Guinea. Such adornments reflect the variety of materials used by artists of the Sepik River area. Organic materials found locally or exchanged via trade are worked and arranged in dramatic juxtapositions. In Melanesia, men wear kapkap-concave shells with openwork tortoiseshell decoration-as breast ornaments, on the forehead, or, most commonly in the Sepik area, in the hair mounted on a pin. Here the kapkap has been mounted as a necklace.
Provenance1967, acquired in Angoram, Papua New Guinea by Geneviève McMillan (b. 1922 - d. 2008), Cambridge, MA; 2008, to the Geneviève McMillan and Reba Stewart Foundation, Cambridge; 2009, gift of the Geneviève McMillan and Reba Stewart Foundation to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 17, 2009)
