Elaborately enameled Spanish devotional pendant

Double-sided cross pendant with figure of Christ crucified wearing white enameled loin cloth on double-faceted cross arms with scrolling foliage and flowers in translucent green and red enamel. On the flat reverse side are the Instruments of Passion (with traces of the same enamel color combination). Above Christ’s head is the titulus scroll with INRI inscribed and below his feet a white enameled skull’s head. On top pendant loop with ring, and on the ends of the vertical cross arms and lower arm small loops from which pearls would have been suspended. The enamel especially on the reverse shows typical signs of wear through age. The pendant is in good wearable condition.

Elaborately enameled and elegantly designed, this crucifix pendant with its triangular cross section represents a typically Spanish design, also found in parts of Portugal. Similar works can be found in a number of museum collections, for example in the Lazaro Galdiano Museum, Madrid (Letizia Arbeteta Mira, el arte de la joyería en la colección Lázaro Galdiano, Segovia 2003, no.121, late 16^th century with further references); and suspended from a necklace in the Hispanic Society of America, New York (Priscilla E. Muller, Jewels in Spain 1500-1800, p. 63-64, fig. 78, 16^th -17^th century). For further parallels, see J. Kugel, Joyaux Renaissance. Une Splendeur Retrouvée, Paris 2000, nos. 78-79. 

The pendant may have either been worn suspended from a necklace, gold chain or rosary. 

Literature:

Published in Deborah Elvira, Love & Devotion. Jewels from the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries, Oropesa del Mar, Castellón 2017, no. 8.

Exhibitions:

Must-haves: Jewellery Created by Greats of the Craft & Must-sees: Jewellery in the Arts, Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim (21 May-10 September 2017)

 J-35102