POST MEDIEVAL PENDANT

1550

TREASURE CASE 2006 T582: Post Medieval gold, diamond and red stone pendant. The pendant is 22.64mm long (excluding suspension loop), 19.44mm wide, 5.23mm thick. The suspension loop has an external diameter of 6.23mm. The pendant weighs 4.99 grams. British Museum Report on 2006 T582 Gold lozenge-shaped pendant with four triangular cut diamonds at the corners, each with three small projecting knops at the edge, and four projecting table-cut diamonds in between them, each also with three projecting knops. At the centre a table-cut red stone in gold collet. Suspension loop at the top attached to finial; smaller suspension loop at the base. On the back the projecting knops are enamelled white with small gold pattern left in reserve, with most of the body green (some enamel missing). At the centre, star motif between two scrolls of gold, perhaps part of an original pin fitting now missing? Keying for enamel visible in some areas. Style and facture suggest a late 16th or very early 17th C date for this jewel. Pendants are one of the commonest types of 16th C jewels to survive and were worn in various ways, attached to clothing or hanging from chains or ribbons. Diamonds of different cuts could be combined as here. Diana Scarisbrick (in Jewellery in Britain 1066-1837, London 1994, p. 127) notes that Anne of Denmark had a pendant "garnished with Lozange, table and triangle small Diamonds having five triangle diamonds pendant all in Collets". Similar pendants were worn at the base of the stomacher or on belts by noblewomen or by the Queen; Elizabeth I is shown wearing a similar pendant to this one in The Armada portrait in the Tyrwhitt Drake collection, which has pendant pearl attached and hangs from a ribbon bow. As such, due to its age and precious metal content, this object qualifies as Treasure under the stipulations of the Treasure Act 1996. Dr Dora Thornton, Curator of Renaissance Collections The British Museum