Necklace with Pendants (500s): Art, History and Details

Necklace with Pendants (500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Wearing richly decorated gold necklaces such as this one was a common practice among members of Byzantium’s upper classes. In addition to their use as personal adornments and symbols of social status, necklaces with cross pendants and capsules containing relics were also believed to function as powerful protective devices. Here, two hexagonal gold cylinders that may have enclosed either magical texts or holy substances flank a cross pendant on either side.

Object facts

• Title: Necklace with Pendants
• Date: 500s
• Culture: Byzantium, Constantinople?, early Byzantine period, 6th century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: gold, garnets
• Dimensions: Part 1: 56.5 cm (22 1/4 in.); Part 2: 4.5 x 3.1 x 1.6 cm (1 3/4 x 1 1/4 x 5/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Byzantine
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1954.3

A detail from the museum

Just as some of us wear jewelry associated with our particular faith, the original owner of this necklace proudly wore this cross a symbol of their Christian beliefs.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "Byzantine Goldsmith Work." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 41, no. 8 (October 1954): 190-192.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.