Eight Blossom Sterling Necklace with Bisbee Turquoise

Sterling silver was smelted and sand cast of the basis of each of the eight fleur-de-lis adorned stylized blossoms, as well as the matching naja.  Ingot sterling was hand mill rolled into sheet for bezels and mill drawn wire for rope twist decoration on the naja.  The same sheet was fabricated to the backs of naja and blossoms for stringing with beads, into the necklace you see.  The beads are also made of milled sterling sheet--of two die struck and pierced halves with a prominent solder seam.  They are early "bench" beads created by as many as three Native silversmith, each doing a different step in the hand manufacturing process.  There are 132 hand-crafted sterling beads !

The old Bisbee mine, Arizona turquoise is a beautiful "moody" dark high grade with red-brown and black matrix dancing with and through the dusk blue gem material.  These eleven stones are hand cut and rare.  Assembly is on foxtail, wheat chain with sterling wire attachments and clasp.

"Unknown artist" is appropriate when a work of art is unsigned and a supported opinion about who made it is not available (on Savvy Collector).. "Attributed to" precedes the name of an artist when information suggests that it likely was made by that artist (on Savvy Collector).