- Museum number
- 1978,1002.764
- Description
-
Gold filigree pomander case in the form of a fruit, constructed in two halves which screw together with a solid gold calyx and stalk and a pendant loop at top, and an applied six petal filigree flower at the base. The filigree very fine and dense, using flattened twisted wire within a plain ribbon wire frame.
- Production date
- 16thC - 19thC
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 3 centimetres
-
Height: 4.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Text from catalogue of the Hull Grundy Gift (Gere et al 1984) no 400:
The filigree work is extremely fine. For a documentary example of sixteenth-century filigree work, see the gold casing of the bezoar pendant with the arms of th Duke of Alva (1508-83), now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no.998), and recorded in the Imperial Treasury in Vienna since 1750 (see Somers Cocks 1980, no.21). In her catalogue entry, Anna Somers Cocks points out that filigree was popular in many areas of Europe, including Spain, Italy and the German towns, and is notoriously difficult to date and to attribute to a country of origin. She concludes that although the pendant belonged to Alva, the Spanish envoy to the Netherlands, it was not necessarily made in Spain; she refers also to two bezoars set in gold filigree owned by Marie-Louise d'Orleans, as well as 'a little gold wire basket of fine work' owned by Kurfurstin Anna of Saxony, at her death in 1585 (see van Watzdorf 1934, p.62). The Kunsthistorisches Museum also contains a gold filigree casket of comparable delicacy, recorded in the Imperial Treasury since 1765 and described as possibly second half of the seventeenth century (see Kris 1932b, no.122. The Alva bezoar pendant is no. 31).
Information supplementary to Hull Grundy catalogue:
The use of a screw thread is more characteristic of European than Indian work, but the delicacy and the particular patterns of the filigree has much in common with Indian work from Portuguese Goa of the 17th century, see Helmut Trnek and Nuno Vassallo e Silva (eds), 'Exotica. The Portuguese Discoveries and the Renaissance Kunstkammer', exhibition catalogue, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, 2002, p. 154, cat. no. 49: a mounted bezoar stone in the Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna, dated to the late 17th century. The filigree pattern is very close indeed with the same use of scrolls alternating with simple loops to form a fan motif within the scroll-shaped frame. The Alva bezoar pendant is also included here as cat.no. 47, p. 151, catalogued as Goa, last quarter of the 16th century. (J. Rudoe, 22.5.2013).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition notes
- S J Phillips, 139 New Bond Street, London W1. Original invoice for £290 (discounted from £345) to Anne Hull Grundy dated 16.9.1974, described as '17th-century filigree gold pomander'.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1978,1002.764
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: HG.764 (masterlist number)