Shackle Neckpiece

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Shackle Neckpiece

Designer Louise Bourgeois American (born France), 1911-2010

Manufacturer Chus Burés Spanish, born 1956

Dateabout 1947-1948 (design); 1998-1999 (made)

DimensionsH: 6 7/8 in. (17.4 cm); W: 7 5/16 in. (18.5 cm)

MediumSterling silver, forged and drilled

ClassificationJewelry

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2010.45

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 34, Jewelry Gallery

Collections

Decorative Arts

Comparative ReferencesSee also Museum of Modern Art, New York Moderner Schmuck von Malern und Bildhauern. Jewelry by Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, 1967, no. 10 (original 1940s Bourgeois Shackle necklace). cf. Rainer Crone and Petrus Graf Schaesberg, Louise Bourgeois. The Secret of the Cells. Munich, Berlin, London, and New York: Prestel Verlag, 2008, pp. 38-39 (original 1940s Bourgeois Shackle necklace). cf. Musée du Temps de Besançon , Bijoux d’artistes, 2009, p. 94.( Neckpiece no. 3 from the edition of 39 in the collection of Clo Fleiss, wife of the Parisian dealer, was included in this exhibition of her collection.) cf. Diane Küppers (ed.), Künstlerschmuck. Objets d’art, (exhibition catalog), Museum für Angewandte Kunst Koln and Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, 2009-2010, Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2009, pp. 24-25. (Neckpiece no. 37 from later edition with crystals, collection Diane Venet.)Label TextSculptor Louise Bourgeois designed this necklace as a personal statement criticizing the violence she had witnessed against prisoners during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), who were asphyxiated by shackles of this shape. It was also designed as a comment about the period’s attitudes towards women, a metaphor for the social, political, and legal constraints of women before the feminist movement.