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Renaissance FleurDeLis Niello HighRelief GiltEngraved Heraldry Reliquary Jewelry
About the Item
Demonstrating the epitome of miniature decorative art by Renaissance European goldsmiths who fashioned quatrefoil and/or cruciform jewelry with heraldry or religious symbols, this centuries-old intricately engraved gilt-copper-and-silver brooch, pendant or button/badge, which features a central niello fleur-de-lis surrounded by dense punchwork adorning its high-relief crossed bars, reflects the size, materials, construction and decoration of mid-to-late 15th-Century pieces of jewelry collected by leading museums.
Like our barbed-quatrefoil-shaped ornament, TheMet accession-17.190.967 pendant for its European Sculpture & Decorative Arts collection is a richly engraved gilt silver 3.8-cm ornament made by a goldsmith and decorated with niello in the shape of a barbed quatrefoil that is framed by highly textured motifs. Given its hollow center, the museum notes that it was possibly commissioned as a miniature reliquary in Northern Italy in the second half of the 15th Century.
Since the two bars that cross on the front of our hollow piece appear to symbolize the Christian crucifix, as well as Medieval peaked reliquary caskets that housed martyr relics, its elegant three-sectioned niello-inlaid engraving may be a crested staff representing the Holy Trinity. Further supporting that our piece is a reliquary, TheMet accession-17.190.499 portable Crucifix (see our photo) is a 15th-Century Italian intricately-engraved and niello-inlaid gilt silver-and-copper-over-wood processional cross featuring distinct multiple barbed quatrefoil sections, which had housed relics. Notice that our piece matches the elongated barbed quatrefoil at the center of the cross where the upper body of the dying Christ is depicted, which further suggests the religious symbolism of the shape.
For comparison to older 14th-Century gilt ornaments--whose figurative decoration is also clearly based on the Christian stories of the Crucification or the Christ-Mother--we included our photos taken of other museum pieces with some of our key elements. Two French gilt-copper pieces at the Louvre (accessions 0A 11981 and MRR 251) are decorated with champleve enamel (which could have disappeared from at least the base of our piece), while both have barbed quatrefoil shapes and high-relief elements like ours. Notice that one, which is noted to be about the virgin Christ-mother Annunciation by an angel, likewise has a central bar decorated with a fleur-de-lis as a symbol of the unborn Spirit.
Slightly smaller and more refined like ours, while dating to the mid-15th Century, TheMet accession-57.261 mostly gold brooch/pendant for The Cloisters collection has remarkably similar construction (see our photo of its back) with a multi-piece layered high-relief front decorated in multiple ways, and more so on the reverse where its backplate is pierced by a hook to act as a hidden bale, plus its c-clasp and T-bar hinge are directly soldered to the backplate and fasten with a sharp silver pin. The museum states that tiny brooches like these were often betrothal gifts given by the groom to the bride as tokens of love during courtship.
Our more versatile ornament can otherwise be vertically pinned to fasten a button loop with its hook, or flipped upside-down as a brooch (whereby the vertical fleur-de-lis will appear the same when positioned either way) to horizontally dangle another pendant when its hook is located on the bottom.
We also found in The British Museum collection even smaller c.1500s cast, high-relief, engraved, chased, soldered, layered, riveted and/or gilded English men’s-cap jewelry (such as the multiple “heraldry badges” photographed within the listings for accession numbers 2001,0701.1 & 2001,0703.1).
If our piece may not be a reliquary with something hidden inside or a marriage engagement gift, the 10mm-long black foliate decoration could otherwise represent such evolved heraldry since the fleur-de-lis was stylized in many European countries during the Renaissance to represent a family, army, or city. As a symbol of French conversion to Christianity, the French King Louis in the 12th Century made a fleur-de-lis element of the Holy Trinity vector into the official emblem of his royal authority on shields. Later, English kings adopted it when claiming the French throne. By the 14th Century, the fleur-de-lys was used in family insignia that was sewn onto a knight's coat-of-mail surcoat. This coat-of-arms insignia could identify them if found on a battlefield.
Beyond the punchwork found throughout the front of our piece like early Anglo-Saxon square-headed brooches, its intricate chasing features star-like rays, flowerheads, scroll-like waves, swirling clouds, and notched semi-circular curved edges. Such motifs had evolved from European ribbon-like curvilinear textures into much more refined representations by the mid-16th Century, as seen in the pen-and-ink designs found in the Jewellery Book drawn by Hans Holbein the Younger. His c.1532-43 works on paper at The British Museum detail motifs and cartouche-shapes resembling ours to be reproduced as men's clothing ornaments. According to museum-curator notes: “This type of jewelry finds its origins in the medieval pilgrim badge…the transition from this type to a fashionable male ornament is attributable to the arrival of the French king, Charles VIII, into Naples in February 1495. On his cap, the king wore a gold circular jewel and his men had similar jewels (though not of gold) on their caps or sleeves. The Italians soon adopted this fashion and it then spread north reaching most European courts.”
Based on construction seen in Renaissance men's-cap ornaments in the collection of The British Museum photos (“dress-hooks” accession #s 2002,0712.1 & 2001,1105.1), the hook that pierced the center of our ornament’s backplate near its top likely has a hidden recurving other end like an S-shape that is soldered to the underside of the possibly hollow rectangular bar on the front. This central 5mm-wide bar acts like a rivet to sandwich the 10mm-wide double-peaked smooth cast bar in between. Similar clothing ornaments are detailed in the 2017-published book, Bejeweled: Men and Jewelry in Tudor and Jacobian England, by Awais-Dean.
As signs of age and use, our good-condition brooch/pendant has minute oxidation and dark spots, along with a front hair-line scratch across a textured edge and a pinpoint indentation at the side peak of one of the bars. These are not visible with the naked eye, while they are apparent in our closeups. The spots of verdigris and white-metal indicate the metal beneath the gilding.
We took some of the photos in natural light to best show the metallic colors. While the brooch/pendant has red tones associated with copper in some light, it otherwise appears matte gold.
The ornament had been a family heirloom found at a U.S. estate in New York without any shared history.
- Metal:Gilt Metal,Niello,Silver,Copper
- Weight:6.88 g
- Dimensions:Height: 1 in (25.4 mm)Width: 1.5 in (38.1 mm)Depth: 0.5 in (12.7 mm)
- Style:Renaissance
- Place of Origin:Europe
- Period:16th Century
- Date of Manufacture:1450-1550
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Chicago, IL
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU3244219297952
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