Fig. 146.—Spanish Pax. (R.)
Fig. 147.—Spanish Jewel; Seventeenth Century. (R.)
A special feature of church furniture of this period in Spain was the Monstrance, or Custodia, an object of architectural design made in gold, silver, or bronze-gilt metals, which has a central part—the lumule or viril—generally made of rock-crystal, in which the sacrament was exposed; sometimes a sun with rays is represented on the monstrance, and usually it is surmounted by a cross in gold and set with jewels (Fig. 144). The designs are in the Renaissance and sometimes in the Gothic style, and they are often eight feet in height. Some of them are carried in procession on Corpus Christi Days. Many works in gold and silver are in Spain that have been made in Mexico, but of Spanish design, in which forms of American flora and fauna are worked into the designs.
A Spanish chalice of Gothic outlines with some Renaissance details is shown at Fig. 145. A beautiful pax of Renaissance design in the Kensington Museum is shown at Fig. 146.
The pendant jewel of the seventeenth century shows the beginnings of the decadence in design (Fig. 147), and the silver dish (Fig. 148), though very rich in effect, is a pronounced step in the direction of unrestrained space-covering that characterizes the design of the late seventeenth century in Spain as well as in other European countries.
Fig. 148.—Spanish Silver Dish; Seventeenth Century. (R.)
