PLATE XXXII
enamelled gold pendants set with pearls and precious stones
german, about 1600
(the property of lady rothschild)
The "nef," or model of a ship, was of frequent use as an article of table plate. Pendent jewels likewise take the form of a small ship completely equipped,[161] suspended by chains, and hung with pearls. In this style of jewel, which is perhaps of Venetian origin, the crescent-shaped caravel or carvel, open and without a deck, but built up high at the prow and stern, with forecastle and cabin, and large ship's lantern, is often adhered to; but the design is not infrequently somewhat conventional. Many of the best-known collections contain examples of these "nef" or "navette" pendants. Their probable Adriatic origin is evinced by the several specimens exhibited, together with jewels from the Greek Islands, in the Franks Bequest in the British Museum. The Victoria and Albert Museum contains a choice example from the Spitzer Collection. It carries three masts, five sails, a lantern, and a high poop and stern. The rigging is of twisted gold wire, and the hull covered with an imbricated pattern in translucent blue, red, and green, and opaque white enamels. A variety to this form is presented by a remarkable piece in the museum at Vienna. It represents a barque manned by two rowers; while at the prow and stern are mandoline players who entertain two passengers seated beneath the framework awning such as was in use on the gondolas of the time. The whole is enriched with polychrome enamels. The figures are in full relief, and the boat, hung by three chains, is further set with diamonds and rubies. We may estimate the extraordinary value attached to such objects at the present day by the fact that a jewel very similar to this last was sold at Messrs. Christie's Rooms in the autumn of 1903 for no less a sum than £6,500. The hull of this jewel is identical with that at Vienna, but figures of Antony and Cleopatra, finely executed, though somewhat out of proportion to the rest, here take the place of the couple beneath the awning; while instead of being hung by chains (as is suitable to this form of pendant) the jewel is backed by a composition of scroll- and strap-work, characteristic of German and Flemish work of the second half of the sixteenth century. A comparison with contemporary designs clearly associates these two objects with the well-known set of engravings for pendent jewels published by Hans Collaert at Antwerp in 1581 (Pl. XXXIII). Another version of this jewel is in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich. The figures are the same as on the Vienna jewel, but the vessel is in the form of a fish.
Just as the great gem cabinets preserve pendants whose jewel-work is confined to richly decorated frames, so there exist a considerable number of mounted medals, which must be looked for in collections of coins and medals, among which they are classed on account of the presumed preponderating importance of their centre-pieces. These pendent gold medals (Gnadenmedaillen), with beautiful jewelled and enamelled mounts, occasionally hung with pearls and suspended by chains from ornate cartouches, were much in favour in Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were given by noble personages, whose portraits were figured on them, as presents and as marks of special distinction. Many examples, as is to be expected, are to be found in the coin cabinets of Munich and Berlin; while others are preserved in the more important public and private collections of jewellery.
These medallions, as was natural, were frequently made in duplicate, and the Waddesdon Bequest, and the Salting and Pierpont Morgan collections each contain a jewel, dated 1612, of Maximilian, Archduke of Austria (1558-1620), in an open-worked border of enamelled scrolls interrupted by four shields of arms, and suspended by three chains, united above by an oval escutcheon with the arms of Austria on one side and the cross of the Teutonic order on the other. The Victoria and Albert Museum has an enamel-mounted medal of Albert VI, Duke of Bavaria (1584-1666), a facsimile of which, hung with a single instead of trilobed pearl, is in the Munich cabinet.
Many of the motives connected with pendants denote associations which appear inexplicable, until it is understood that no small number of them, like the pendent medals, were gifts from princes, the so-called "faveurs" granted in recognition of services rendered. Among the princely gifts we must class that large group of pendants which consist only of one letter or a monogram in an ornamental frame or in open-work, sometimes composed entirely of precious stones. Of these the Victoria and Albert Museum possesses a fine early example in form of a square tablet of gold set with pearls, bearing on one side two enamelled shields of arms, and on the other the initials DA, in a frame formed of bracket-shaped terminal figures and human masks. It is of German work of about the year 1530 (Pl. XXXI, 3). Distinct from these princely monograms are those employed for religious purposes, particularly the monograms of Christ and the Virgin.
PLATE XXXIII
