Striped Ceramic Bead Necklace with Hammered Silver-Tone Discs

• Hand-painted striped ceramic beads
• Hammered silver-tone disc accents
• Mixed round and cylindrical bead shapes
• 27-inch single strand

Each bead is painted and fired by hand, so stripe width, spacing and exact tone shift slightly from one strand to the next.

The cylindrical beads carry the cobalt-on-white brushwork of India's blue pottery tradition. Unlike ordinary clay pottery, it is made from a quartz-based body and colored with cobalt oxide, which holds its deep blue against a white field through firing.

Blue pottery has historically been used for tiles, vessels and decorative ware. The striped banding here is a simplified, geometric version of the freehand floral and lattice patterns typical of larger pieces, resized for a bead only a centimeter or two across.

Each bead starts as a molded quartz paste, dries, then is painted one at a time with a fine brush before being kiln-fired to set the glaze. The silver-tone discs and freeform links are hammered separately, then sequenced against the ceramic beads by hand.

• Technique: Blue pottery, hand-painted ceramic beadwork

Wipe with a soft, dry cloth and store flat or hanging separately, away from other jewelry. Keep the painted beads out of water and away from direct perfume.