Wolfgang Skoluda Antique Goose Amulet Millefiori Glass Gold Pendant

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AMULET PENDANT WITH FIGA Spain, c. 1620–1630 Jet, silver, and enamel Weight 60.7 grams; dimensions 85 × 49 × 18 mm Large pendant in the shape of a hand carved from jet with a clinched fist in the figa (Spanish higa) gesture. In the palm of the hand is a heart carved in relief and on the back a six-ray star in a circle. The silver mount covers the wrist like a cuff and is decorated with a frilled border, and on the front with collet-set bosses with silver C-scrolls against blue enamel; on the back is a roundel in relief with floral motif. Domed base for the pendant loop in pea-pod form. The figa (also fica or higa) represents an age-old symbol of protection against the evil eye and other demonic threats. Its origins were pagan and buried deep in antiquity. Roman examples, such as one found recently in an archeological excavation in London, also make it clear that the protective qualities are based in a sexual symbolism–particularly the power of the phallus. The Roman bone figa/phallus in effect represents the phallus twice; that is, the gesture made by the figa hand is generally explained as fingers representing the female genitalia (vulva) penetrated by the phallus of the thumb. But other interpretations are less specific, including explanations that the left hand is the feminine principle, and the right hand is the masculine. In Spain, jet figa are common; we see one in the portrait of Anne of Austria the infanta (p. 75). That is not to say that the objects are not sumptuous or treasured. Jet was a very valuable material, and in many examples like this one, the figa is embellished with beautiful enameling or is even gem-studded. Comparable objects occur in equally sumptuous materials such as rock crystal. The enameled setting allows a dating of these objects that otherwise might prove difficult, given that the production of such objects in Spain is so consistent over centuries. Indeed, there is another, even more elaborately carved example in this collection, attached to the “magic belt” (no. 9). That example may belong to an earlier group. That figa includes deeply excavated carving, including on the upper surface, an M-shaped design that Walter Leo Hildburgh links to the heart shape (as it occurs more explicitly on this example). Hildburgh argues that its presence is especially common on these objects and that it originally represented the Sacred Heart of Mary...

This is an antique Qing dynasty hollow silver Ox amulet attached to a flower chain. The year 2021 is the year of the Ox. It is theorized that a person's...

This antique amuletic bronze framed pendant cages a dozen 7mm-diameter single-cut rock crystals that each feature a table-cut decagon crown, deep pavilion, 21 facets and uncut girdle, while the culets range from off-center to blunted. They are tightly set within four linked rings to overlap at the same angle in a sparkling single row. Seeming to retain a little of its original yellow-gold gilding on just the interior, the frame that surrounds each of the four sections of three crystals enables them to reflect pale-yellow-and-lime light when the pendant is viewed from certain angles. Suggesting French heritage, the Medieval Frankish culture in northern France made jewelry in similar segmented or openwork shapes of wheels or whorls, which were worn as gem-decorated disk-shaped brooches or gold-caged rock...

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18K Gold Hamsa Amulet Pendant Necklace HAMSA AMULET SYMBOLIZES: Protection from Evil and Negative Energy MEANING: Hamsa originates in ancient Midd...