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KineticPuppetStringsPinocchio GoldTexturedChainLink3Strand Early20thC. Necklace

About the Item

Acquired in The States and likely inspired by the American 1938-commissioned animated-feature movie, Pinocchio, that was produced for two years by Walt Disney based on an Italian children's story, this unsigned pre-WWII yellow-gold-gilt brass necklace with elegant draping chains features a three-inch-long playful kinetic multi-textured faux-carved-wood puppet-on-strings pendant with pointed hat, filigree-capped collar and waist, and flexible geometric-shaped limbs. Structured with three chains, notice the additional texture on the slightly larger links of the upper necklace. Unlike the movie, as the marionette on our necklace wears a lace-like collar resembling the original character illustrated by Enrico Mazzanti in the book by Tuscany-born Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), the necklace otherwise could date no earlier than the turn of the 19th Century when the spring-ring clasp was first in use. Since that time, Pinocchio became one of the most reimagined characters in literature based on multiple authors whose protagonist was a similar anthropomorphic puppet. To be conservative about its age as the necklace is in good condition, we suspect that Austrian-born Hattie Carnegie commissioned it to accessorize her "hat-to-hem" custom-made or ready-to-wear clothing that frequently featured amusing figural subjects with articulated parts, such as mythical creatures, fauna or clowns. Before her death at the age 69 in 1956, not all of the pieces in the costume-jewelry parures of her eponymous brand since 1919 were signed, while based on experience we assume that at least clip earrings accompanied this creative necklace where there would have been space to add a legible stamp or cartouche. By the late 1930s, Carnegie was selling her Parisian-inspired clothing and accessories beyond her flagship Manhattan made-to-order shop to leading fashion department stores throughout The States. Relevant to this character-inspired necklace, during that time many Hollywood stars wore Carnegie fashions, while her sales were particularly high in California. So no doubt that the European-story-cum-movie-star Pinocchio escaped her cultural taste. The film was released in February 1940 nearly two years before America entered WWII. We priced the necklace in line with another 1stDibs listing for an unsigned Hattie Carnegie similarly-sized mythical-creature brooch from the 1930s, which is also in good condition.
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