Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s jewelry post might seem familiar to some longstanding readers. You’d be right because the skull on this necklace is the mate to a ring I have had for about 8 years. At least I think I may have included it in a prior post (or not since I can’t find one) and I have mentioned Muriel Chastanet Jewelry in Los Angeles, a family business where wonderful jewelry can be found. You all know that in addition to antique cats, I am a woman who likes her jewelry.
While I don’t know the precise history or age of these skulls there is a Victorian tradition of memento mori bone skulls in jewelry. The Victorians were notoriously fascinated with the ultimate connection to death and the idea that we should mind that life is fleeting and can end abruptly, therefore we should make use of today. (Skulls and those made of yak bone in particular, were and are a popular Tibetan motif and I own some necklaces of carved skull bones from my trips there. They are distinct in their carving style, often made into what we might think of as rosaries and different as shown below.)
These Tibetan bone beads available on the internet.
The skull in this pendant and that of my ring are extremely similar, with the pendant being slightly larger and arguably more finely detailed. Different kinds of animal bones were used really as a visual substitute for ivory which was more expensive although still used at that time.
However the carving on both of these these is particularly fine and while many bone skulls labeled Victorian or Georgian are available, with a quick look just a few at auction have this much detail and are as nicely carved. The skulls are both in new settings. I saw the ring for sale about ten years ago now. At the time I didn’t think I was leading the sort of professional life where a large skull ring set in gold was appropriate. (At the time I advised older people on charitable gifts through their estate plans – a Victorian skull ring seemed a little pointed!)
When I left the Met a few years later to take the job at Jazz at Lincoln Center somehow it didn’t take long for the ring to roll back into my consciousness. I reached out and asked if by chance it was still available and Gizelle laughed and said that it was clearly meant for me and no one else. I wear it frequently and receive many compliments on it. The markings of the bone and the carving etched into my mind from staring at it day in and day out.
My much worn ring with a similar antique skull bead.
Fast forward a number of years. I always knew she had a couple of more of the skulls which could be set and the idea of a pendant nagged at me cheerfully for a bit and I finally told her I wanted it. For a number of reasons many things slowed the design and execution on both sides and it was about a year before it was completed and in hand.
Gizelle made the thoughtful suggestion that as my mother Betty had passed recently what would I think of including her initials in the design? That seemed very meaningful and as you can see there are intertwining B’s for Betty Butler in the back. (All of the photos are in antique boxes I have collected and are in no way connected with the skull pieces.)
The back with a double B for Betty Butler.
The skull is somewhat heavy, perhaps too much for a gold chain I decided and so thus far it is living on this silk cord quite happily. It will never be quite as intimately familiar to me as the ring since it lives on my neck and I don’t get to look at it daily the same way. I rarely wear them together (that is a lot of skull, let’s face it) although I sometimes I can’t resist. I have read that Victorian jewelry is becoming more popular and influencing current designers. I am ahead of the curve on that one I think and this one, with Mom’s initials tucked in, is most special to me indeed.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I purchased this pin back in August and it arrived during an especially hectic period while I was traveling and Blackie was in the kitty hospital. (He is slowly returning to his handsome, suave, feline self. I have promised him I will not post any photos of him until he is back to his full glory however.) I have written about my occasional dysmorphia when buying online – slightly enormous and smaller than anticipated toys show up all the time. (A post addressing that can be found here.) There is, for example, a huge wax cloth Uncle Walt doll on our shelf that I have not found a proper spot for yet. (Future post, I assure you.) Most famously, there is a beloved Mickey Mouse by Dean’s Rag that was a store display which is the size of a six year old in our bedroom. I have taken to measuring more often, which lead to my not buying a rather splendid Felix decorated drum that came my way. Alas, life in a small apartment.
I had my heart set on this sterling silver Victorian arrow as soon as I saw it posted in a coming attraction reel with some other items posted by one of my go-to’s, @marsh.and.meadow (Heather, one of these days I will be in Ohio with the band and say hello!) and I set my cap for it. I was admittedly rushed when it came up for sale. All this to say, I had not really stopped to consider that it’s three and a half inches is about an inch longer than expected. But it is a solidly beautiful item and frankly, it has sat on my desk where I have just delighted in it over recent weeks.
We all want to be Excellent! Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Although it is silver there is something vaguely more industrial looking about it, like steel. It is wonderfully solid looking. It was clearly meant for a scarf, shawl, hat or bulky knit sweater. While I had originally envisioned securing it, pointing upward of course, to the lapel of a blazer it is too thick for that and I am now thinking winter coat or hat – which assumes I will leave recent years of nothing but an outer attire of an old down storm coat and watch cap behind and resume wearing a nicer wool coat and with some attitude. (This also assumes that the moth farm I have inadvertently cultivated has left me a shred of wool to wear.)
Back of the pin. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
There are certain symbols that appeal repeatedly to me in jewelry. Although my recent fascination with insects confounds me somewhat (posts on those can be found here and here), I have collected a few old school medals which provide unabashed encouragement – Improvement! Excellence! – and a post on those can be found here. I like the idea of a sly advertisement or hopefulness, a horseshoe perhaps, and a bit of encouragement for myself to be found in my pins.
A favorite insect pin, also coincidentally from Marsh.and.Meadow.
I am far from the first person to wander down this path and for example it has been done much more intelligently by the likes of Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, as she famously signaled her diplomatic intentions with her pins. I like arrows and have been looking for one for awhile. Somewhere I have a nice rhinestone one I acquired all the way back in high school, but I cannot find it and as a friend of Kim’s says, if you can’t find it you don’t own it. (It has become a mantra in this house!) I have made a few attempts to purchase pins that depict Haley’s Comet (yes, those are a thing) which is more like an arrow shooting out of a star.
While piercing is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about arrow, the symbolism of the arrow goes beyond being a badass. They represent triumph over struggle, strength and perseverance. And of course optimism, upward, let’s go this way. I think it is always good to acknowledge triumph over struggles, both large and small, and also a good reminder to be pointed on the path upward and ahead.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: A watery sun is just emerging on this July 4 morning here in NYC. It isn’t a sun that has made up its mind for the day, but it is at least a relief from the downright cold and rain which commenced on Friday and peaked (hopefully) yesterday. If I was planning to picnic I would be guardedly optimistic about the outcome. I will definitely take hazy sun over none today, although my holiday plans are not more celebratory than a long walk along the river later.
Today is a jewelry combined with cat post and I am thinking about this locket which reached our shores from Great Britain earlier this week. I purchased it from Mia, aka @therubyfoxes on IG. I have written about Mia previously (that post can be found here and one about my other Instagram jewelry connections can be found here), and I had asked her about a pretty decorative chain which it turned out would require extra links on the back to make it sufficiently long enough to wear.
While that isn’t a huge project, until I return to visiting the office in midtown on a regular basis I don’t seem to be able to hook up with my jeweler in the Diamond District. They do not have a storefront and these last months have only come from Jersey at odd hours as well. They have had a set of pearls I had restrung back in March of 2020 which we continue to negotiate about. Anyway, I was sufficiently discouraged from the purchase.
However, a thought did scratch at the back of my brain. I had landed on Mia’s online shop recently (therubyfoxes.com) and taken note of an especially nice heavy, silver art deco locket which stayed on my mind. Her description listed it as sterling, Birmingham made circa 1879 via the hallmarks (maker’s initials MJG). Left to my own devices I would have pegged it for the teens here in the US, but what do I know? I can imagine one of my Camp Fire Girls wearing it – or perhaps their older sister?
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Mia points out that the Victorian design was deliberate and the symbols are ivy and belts. According to her listing the ivy is for friendship and connection while the belts represent eternity, loyalty, strength and protection. The idea that this was more of a locket of friendship than romance appealed to me in an odd way – and these days who doesn’t need strength and protection? Mia kindly included a chain to wear it on and the deal was done.
Lockets are interesting things as you consider what, if anything, you will put in them – that which you will then keep close to your heart. I think my younger self saw this as a bit of a responsibility actually, even intimidating. I was years away from meeting Kim still so he wasn’t an option at the time. (Meanwhile, I am also a bit obsessed with these sort of small silver containers to wear on a chain which could hold any interesting tiny thing. I once missed out on one that was Native American years ago much to my sorrow. I could still need one of those and Mia also has one of those in her shop. Hmmm.)
I have written a bit about how my taste in jewelry has shifted over the last year. I have surprisingly returned to an interest in vintage costume and everyday pieces of the kind that I collected through high school, college and early adulthood – although most seem to hail from Great Britain this time around. In recent years I had invested in fewer, more singular pieces, almost always gold rather than silver. I had a gorgeous bee ring made for my birthday a few years ago by a genius jeweler in Los Angeles, Gizelle Strohkendt, which I wore virtually daily until mid-March 2020.
I purchased my very favorite (lucky) horse ring from her years ago, which she made from an antique cameo. We have something else in the works now too. (Although I have known Gizelle from my in-person visits to Los Angeles over many years, she too can be found on IG under @murielchastanet_finejewelry or at the Westwood Village, LA shop of the same name. These beloved pieces I mention are definitely future posts jewelry friends!)
Muriel Chastenat, Gizelle’s mother and the eponymous founder of the shop now in the hands of Gizelle and her sister Charlotte, aka Charley. Shown here in an early photo of the shop (which still looks exactly like this) taken from an article celebrating Muriel, published at the time of her death.
Oddly the purchase of this locket represents a desire for one that goes way back to my early days here in New York City right after college. There was a rather excellent store on First Avenue, just blocks above the 59th Street Bridge, which carried some Art Deco furniture and odds and ends, as well as several cases of jewelry roughly from the same era which I focused my attention on. It was a mere block or two above my favorite antique toy store (an early post on that shop which ignited my antique toy collecting passion can be found here) and it was a habit to occasionally treat myself to a wander down from my home in the East 80’s and poke around in both.
I was chronically broke at the time and so there was definitely more looking with only a few purchases. However, I had noted a display of lockets behind the counter in the jewelry shop (can’t bring the name of the shop to mind at all sadly), and one day I wandered down to have a good look and see what the odds were of purchasing one.
Lovely little package arrived earlier this week. It was wrapped in a page from an old tome on London theater which caught my eye and I read.
However, what I found when I got to the counter were kittens instead! It turned out that she also rescued animals. Whereas her regular gig was fostering dogs, this litter of kittens had come her way and had been living in the basement of the shop where they were kept from over the enthused pups residing at home. They hailed from Brooklyn originally. Of course their adorableness frolicking around the shop also had got most of them adopted quickly.
There was a tiny male tuxedo who immediately jumped from his counter perch into my arms, doing the hard sell complete with purrs and kisses, and a clear desire to come home with me. He had had a terrible eye infection he was recovering from and his runny eyes had probably been the deterrent to his speedy adoption. At the time I had a female tuxie named Otto Dix (yep, thought she was a boy) and I had been considering a second cat. Lockets entirely forgotten, I went home to think about this cat acquisition.
Pictorama readers probably don’t need to be told that I was back very soon after to see if the little fellow was still there. The woman told me he was promised to a man, but she felt better about sending him home with me. She lent me a carrier and Mr. Zippy came home with me that day. Silver lockets dismissed in favor of this new family acquisition. Sadly, the shop closed not long after, although I would see her occasionally selling furniture at the big antique shows on the westside Piers in subsequent years.
A polaroid of Zippy as a kitten, curled up in an envelope box.
Needless to say, the twenty years I enjoyed my much beloved Zippy emphatically eclipsed any possible jewelry purchase. However, when I saw this locket in Mia’s online shop my mind went back to the yen that took me to that shop decades ago. Furthermore, I suspect Mia will like this story as she too is an animal person and shares photos of her kitties (fluffy beautiful Enid and remarkable kitten Astrid) along with wildlife around her home in the stunning British countryside.
As I try to put together a vision of Post-pandemic Pam she is evidently sporting British finery (a lot of lucky horseshoe pins showing up) from more than 100 years ago – probably paired with a wardrobe of nice sneakers I am envisioning since I have realized that I am not inclined to consider anything else on my feet going forward. Not sure what will replace sweatpants, workout clothes and the two sundresses I have in rotation, but we’ll see. I intend to sport this find for my first in-person work events in August, sneakers and all.
Pam's Pictorama 