Blood Milk Jewels
* Ready to Ship * Elisabetta’s Scorpion Necklace { Mother of Pearl Tomb }
$250.00
Blood Milk Jewels
* Ready to Ship * Elisabetta’s Scorpion Necklace { Mother of Pearl Tomb }
$250.00
Please note: This necklace is Ready to Ship and will leave the studio in 3 - 5 business days. The chain is 18 inches in length. If you would like a different chain length you must email us with your desired length immediately after placing your order.
If you purchase this item with any other jewel, please be aware that our jewelry is handmade to order and takes approximately 6-8 weeks to create before shipping, meaning your Ready to Ship jewel will ship with the rest of your order. This cuts down on multiple shipping costs for you, and unnecessary waste for the environment. If you would like this Ready to Ship jewel sooner than the rest of your order, please reach out to us via email.
Elisabetta's Scorpion series was created in homage to a 1500's portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga ( see last image for a detail of the portrait ). I've long been fascinated by this painting as I find her head pendant contemporary, as if it could be worn by anyone at any time through the ages, and have always wondered as to its meaning.
After a deep dive, it seems that body of the scorpion was most likely made of black Venetian glass and the stone inside ranged from anywhere to aquamarine to sapphire. Interestingly, her choice in this piece of jewelry was most likely due to esoteric beliefs based on her husband's infertility as it was believed that wearing a scorpion helped with fertility as it was certainly not her zodiac sign. However even more interesting was that by the time of this portrait it was known that she had accepted her situation and remained a virgin. So there isn't really a known answer for her choice of wearing this specific piece of jewelry while sitting for this portrait, at least in the essay I read, aside from the fact that it became personal to her, a symbol perhaps, of her devotion to her husband. What once was used as talisman to cure, became something so special to her that she decided to be painted with it on her in a place of prominence. In this way, I feel it illustrates how talismans and jewelry in general can become so important to us, can become part of us, how this woman from the 1500 is speaking to us about this even now, through a similar gemstone.
Scorpion:
Over 400 millions years old (older than the Dinosaur or the Spider) the ancient Scorpion has been an image of both destruction and healing over the ages. Like the Spider, it is both nocturnal and poisonous, carrying potent venom in its stinger as well as a fierce strength in its front pincers. Many species of Scorpion are subterranean, often waiting underground in solitude, emerging to ensnare and devour its prey. This links Scorpion the Underworld like Spider; its unconscious, instinctual nature helps him conquer transformation within the shadowy depths.
Often feared with venom strong enough in some species to mortally poison man, these Scorpions act as a protective talisman and also a talisman of transformation. As an added layer of meaning: Scorpion also speaks to the Shadow Self of Carl Jung’s ideas on ‘Inner Alchemy’. Its ability to transform, its destructive and links to the underworld ( realm of shades and shadows) underline the idea of the Shadow; which is seen as the repressed, unwanted or unaccepted parts of oneself.
An extension of ‘Darkling, I Listen’ ~ this collection of jewels urges the wearer to move towards self-acceptance through the jewels as talismans. The process of individuation or transmutation is the process of becoming ‘whole’. For Jung, this didn’t mean becoming ‘good’, but becoming complete in the sense that one accepts all of their unconscious ‘faults’ as well as their experiences (their pasts) to become whole or complete. In ‘Inner Alchemy’ each phase of the alchemical process from antiquity was re-assigned new meanings: i.e. the quest for the philosopher's stone is truly a quest to become whole. In the 'Nigredo' process, everything is blackened, putrefied, 'killed' in a sense, to allow for new growth. It is during this phase in 'Inner Alchemy' that we are confronted with the knowledge our darker aspects, a phase in which we must accept our shadow selves. When we accept and acknowledge our more shadowy aspects, the parts of ourselves we have been conditioned to suppress, the parts of ourselves we hide from others as well as ourselves, we are on the path to wholeness. We become more accepting of our flaws, our darknesses. Having struggled with my own shadow self for many years, this talisman represents not only that long tangle with ‘darkness’, but our ability to become whole.
Details:
- 21mm at it's widest
- 48mm from top to bottom
- Solid Sterling Silver
- 10mm Mother of Pearl pyramid tomb
- Both pendant and chain are hand oxidized to achieve our favorite shade of stormy gray and then highlighted to reveal the bright luminous silver beneath
- Second image : Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga. Detail. 1503. Raffaello Sanzio.
Pearls
Have an ancient history of reverence as well as a long legacy of beauty. Pearls are formed when an external irritant, like a grain of sand, breaches the shell of an oyster or shelled mollusk. Once this irritant has gained entrance within the dark fleshy confines of the oyster, it goes to work protecting itself. If this irritant can’t be expelled, it begins to ‘bandage’ the grain, coating it with concentric rings of calcium carbonate, named ‘narce.’ Each layer that is built up forms the shape of the pearl, awash in a brilliant iridescence, a beauty born of a tiny trespass. Thusly, a pearl has at its center, the object of its creation, a foreign intruder.
I associate the pearl and its strange construction to so many things: the jellied caterpillar struggling within a chrysalis, its liquefied body form a new winged shape. An embedded star smoldering within the shell of our hearts. An ink dot, a pin prick, a moon in miniature. History, who has always loved and revered the pearl, writes that we once believed pearls were the result of lightning striking the shell and penetrating the inner skins of the oyster. A small beauty made in duress, a ‘stone’ of initiation. To possess a pearl means to own something that is hidden, sacred.
Lore has it that Cleopatra, to win a wager with Antony, dissolved a large, exquisite pearl in her drinking glass. She swallowed it in one sip. I wonder about her dreams that night.
These mother of pearls are hand shaped/cut and therefore may have very slight differences in size, and may have small signs of the carver's hands along the edges. These are not fabricated by a machine, they are made by hand and therefore aren't uniformly perfect.
The photographs accurately portray the quality of the stones and the cuts. Please note they range in color but traditionally, are light cream in color with a pearlescent flash. Some mother of pearls have a subtle iridescence which includes shades of pink, blue, and green when turned in the light.
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