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A Pearl Necklace

1926 silent film

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 8, 2026
Entity authorityQ52592729 ↗
Source-derived summary

A Pearl Necklace (Chinese: 一串珍珠; pinyin: Yichuan zhenzhu), also translated as A String of Pearls, is a Chinese silent film shot in 1925 and released in 1926. It is adapted from Guy de Maupassant’s short story "The Necklace". The screenplay was written by Hou Yao and directed by Li Zeyuan (referred to as Lee C. Y. in the film), produced by Great Wall Film Company.

Synopsis

The movie begins with an introduction to a white collar Chinese family. They are living in a modern style house, and the husband, Yusheng, is sitting in his living room reading a newspaper. He is accompanied by his wife, Xiuzhen, and their infant son. Yusheng is an accountant and Xiuzhen does not work.

To celebrate a holiday with their friends, Yusheng and Xiuzhen borrowed a pearl necklace as an accessory, which drew great admiration from their friends. Xiuzhen lies to another guest at a party she is attending and states that her husband gave her the necklace. After hearing this, the guest has a thief to break into their home and steal the necklace.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “A Pearl Necklace” as 1926 silent film. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pearl, Necklace and silent.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1925, 1926—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1926-01-21. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Pearl, Necklace and silent providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “A Pearl Necklace”, the useful work is to connect “1926 silent film” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q52592729. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1925 and 1926.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “A Pearl Necklace”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow A Pearl Necklace primary sources, A Pearl Necklace archive and Pearl research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “A Pearl Necklace”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “A Pearl Necklace” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.