Frank Gardner Hale was an important early 20th century jeweler. He was a part of an active circle of metalsmiths working in this city during the first decades of the century. Hale was educated as a designer at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, but abandoned his career as a graphic designer to study jewelry making and enameling in England under C.R. Ashbee and Fred Partridge. He returned to Boston in 1907 and reinvented himself as a jewelry maker, and quickly emerged as an important leader in the field. Over time he became known for his enamel and gemset ornaments in an Arts and Crafts style. This pendant, circa 1910, in gold and tourmaline references the art nouveau movement with its swirling wirework, and its use of gold and green tourmaline is evocative of the style of jewelry Hale and his peers pioneered during the 1910s. Hale and his contemporaries were celebrated in the exhibition Boston Made: Arts and Crafts Jewelry & Metalwork., and in the related publication, Arts and Crafts Jewelry in Boston: Frank Gardner Hale and his Circle (MFA Publications, 2018)—this pendant was featured in both. This pendant is the second example of Hale’s jewelry in the MFA's collection. Hale’s work is closely related to jewelry and metalwork by his contemporaries, such as Edward Everett Oakes and Josephine Hartwell Shaw. The works of all three are in the MFA’s collection and aid in telling the story of the Boston’s Arts and Crafts movement.

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