Hmong silver necklace from Laos

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Source eBay

It is difficult to date these things but the heavy silver and quality of workmanship could put this in the mid-to early twentieth century. It is not a tourist piece and was brought out of Laos years ago by a reliable dealer. Often these things would have some chainwork or other items attached to them. What is notable and I hope shows up in my first photo is the item's sculptural quality--it is a beautiful minimalist piece of modern sculpture on the one hand and a classic piece of ethnic art on the other. For the first picture I mounted it on a block of wood with some dental wax which would be one way to display it. A similar piece can be seen on p. 119 of "Peoples of the Golden Triangle" by Paul and Elaine Lewis and another but nearly as nice a piece can be seen on p. 253 of "Contemporary Southeast Asian Arts and Crafts" by Thelma Newman. This necklace measures roughly 5 3/4 inches at its widest and 5 1/2 inches at its tallest. As the last picture shows the bottom is somewhat dented--the whole piece is hollow by the way--and has some dark material on it which comes off with scraping my fingernail. Can probably be more carefully detarnished than I have done. It is a nice and attractive piece of used ethnic art at a low downsizing price less than we paid for it over 20 years ago. Overseas shipping would be $20.

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