- Museum number
- SL,5308.50
- Description
-
Design for a cruciform pendant, one of nine designs for pendant jewels, from the 'Jewellery Book'; cross with each arm bifurcating into a scroll, a pearl set at each corner, arabesque design extending along the arms
Pen and black ink
- Production date
- 1532-1543 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 68 millimetres
-
Width: 50 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- See also SL,5308.1-179
See S. Foister, 'Holbein and England', New Haven and London, 2004, p.240, fig.240
Rowlands 1993
LITERATURE: Woltmann, ii, p. 136, no. 199, 50; His, pl. xliii, 10; LB, ii, p. 334, no. 27a; Chamberlain, ii, p. 27a, pl. 48.8; Ganz, p. 72, no. 418, repr.; White, p. 561, no. 53; Birmingham, Jewellery, p. 101, no. 444, 1; VAM, Court Jewels, pp. 118f., no. G. 10, 2a; BM Dürer and Holbein, p. 238, no. 206(a), repr.
There is no surviving cross of English origin from the 1530s comparable with this finely executed design, which has Renaissance floriated decoration. Contrary to Yvonne Hackenbroch's suggestion (Hackenbroch, p. 271), there are no grounds for supposing that the cross worn by the sitter in the ‘Portrait of Sir Thomas More’ - a painting after Holbein probably from the mid to late sixteenth century at Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent (S. Morison and N. Barker, ‘The Likeness of Thomas More: an Iconographical Survey of Three Centuries’, London, 1963, fig. 6) — is necessarily based on a design by Holbein, any more than one might consider that the cross worn by Sir Bryan Tuke in Holbein's portrait of him (Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, inv. no. 65; Rowlands, ‘Holbein’, pl. 102) was necessarily designed by the artist. A cruciform pendant with a figure of the crucified Christ which, according to tradition, belonged to Sir Thomas More is now at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire (Birmingham, ‘Jewellery’, p. 74, no. 283c; Hackenbroch, p. 271, repr.): this likewise cannot be associated with Holbein.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1960 BM, Sloane Drawings, (no cat.)
1988 Jul-Oct, BM, 'Age of Dürer & Holbein', no.206a
2003 Jan-Mar, Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, 'Henry Vlll revealed'
2006/7 Sep-Jan, London, Tate Britain, 'Holbein in England'
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Acquisition notes
- Transferred from the Dept. of Manuscripts to Prints + Drawings on 20 July 1860. For a history of the contents of Sloane 5308, see SL,5308.1.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- SL,5308.50
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: Add.5308.a (Dept. of Manuscripts Mss no.)