Forbidden Fruit (click to see full collection)
Oxidized brass pendant with a soft dark golden glow is 1 7/8" x 1 1/4". Sterling silver chain is 18" long.
This pear pendant is part of my Forbidden Fruit series, which includes four fruits meaningful to many cultures throughout history. The pear symbolized longevity, purity and wisdom in China. In his Confessions, St. Augustine wrote about stealing pears in his youth with some friends (possibly one of the first written accounts of teenage peer pressure in action?) Both Albrecht Durer and Giovanni Bellini included pears in certain Madonna and Child paintings. Pears were mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as a vital part of Alcinous' royal garden:
"Therein grow trees, tall and luxuriant, pears and pomegranates and apple-trees with their bright fruit, and sweet figs, and luxuriant olives. Of these the fruit perishes not nor fails in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; and ever does the west wind, as it blows, quicken to life some plants and ripen others; pear upon pear waxes and ripens, apple upon apple, cluster upon cluster, and fig upon fig..."
