Reliquary pendant with the Virgin and Child
Northern Spain, second half 16th C.
Glass under slightly domed clear quartz cover, painted on reverse in eglomisé technique with opaque and lustrous pigments, etched gold leaf, shell gold and silver, tin leaf. In the original silver gilt capsule frame, H 6.5, W 5.0 cm.
Pendants with "églomisé sous verre" plaques were common throughout Europe from the mid-16th to the 18th century. A large number of them are decorated with religious imagery and served as rosary beads and reliquary pendants. They were created for private religious use and cannot be attributed to any single artist. To date, this area of reverse glass painting has not been systematically researched and the attributions of the respective provenances are uncertain. Many works from the 16th and early 17th centuries are attributed to Northern Italy, especially Lombardy. However, they were also produced in other centres of glass painting such as Prague, Nuremberg and Zurich as well as the Iberian Peninsula.
The chased openwork vermeil surround of this double-sided pendant reveals coarse linen fabric inside, which encases the supposed relic. Both oval eglomisé plaques are fluidly painted under the convex rock crystal covers and follow the usual style of depiction with a gold outline running around them. Recto a depiction of the Virgin enthroned with the Christ Child and a stylised saw, the attribute of St. Joseph, verso John the Baptist kneeling with a cross shaped staff.
Provenance
Auctioned by Balclis, Barcelona 2014.
Literature
Illus. in Steiner, Goldglanz und Silberpracht – Hinterglasmalerei aus vier Jahrhunderten, Berlin-Munich 2015, no. 12.