title: The Necklace: From Antiquity to the Present
author:  Daniela Mascetti 
description: The necklace has been a source or personal adornment throughout history. Mascetti and Triossi, who work in the jewelry department of Sotheby's in London, have compiled an authoritative yet delightful work, lavishly illustrated with reproductions of notable paintings, sculpture, and photographs exemplifying this fact. While the book is primarily devoted to the necklace in the 19th and 20th centuries, the authors have included important finds and research from the ancient world to the present, noting the various roles of adornment in fashion and culture. Virtually every type of material has been used in the design and creation of the necklace, from precious metals and gems to natural objects such as shells and feathers, and many are represented here. This volume is related in spirit to Diamonds: A Century of Spectacular Jewels (LJ 11/15/96) and The Master Jewelers (LJ 10/15/9), but more focused. Highly recommended for popular and academic decorative arts collections.?Stephen Allan Patrick, East Tennessee State Univ. Lib., Johnson City<br />Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  The Necklace  
    
  
  
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  # The Necklace
  
  
  ### Guy de Maupassant
  
  
  
  
  
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  She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a
  mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no
  expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich
  and distinguished man; and she let herself be married to a little clerk at the
  Ministry of Public Instruction.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy
  as though she had really fallen from her proper station; since with women
  there is neither caste nor rank; and beauty, grace, and charm act instead of
  family and birth. Natural fineness, instinct for what is elegant, suppleness
  of wit, are the sole hierarchy, and make from women of the people the equ