47 Corals, Silver Chain Necklace. Old small native-cut beads from South India, 3 to 4mm approx in size, proper gemstone quality of good solid orange-red colour. The English imported Mediterranean branch Coral into India from the 1700s and earlier. Much of this Coral found its way to South India where it has been appreciated since antiquity. A very common use of this gem-quality Coral in South India was as small beads such as the above, handcut and threaded into fine necklaces, with Gold or just with the Coral on its own.
In the above strand each Coral bead is flanked with a bead of handcrafted flat granulated Silver, and each such segment securely twist-wired onto a closed small Silver ring, allowing a high degree of articulation; very labour-intensive work, the work of a skilled craftsman relaxed in the task.