Reliquary Pendant - 18th Century

Small circular reliquary in filigree silver, with finely worked openwork decoration in volutes and crosspieces, enhanced in the center with a floral motif in half-relief. The reverse is closed by a glass protecting a liturgical or devotional cloth of the period, often taken from a sacred vestment or an altar ornament and preserved as a contact relic. The setting is in unhallmarked silver but of controlled fineness, common practice for devotional works and religious jewelry at the end of the 18th century. This type of case was used to protect and carry relics or fragments of blessed cloth, a pledge of spiritual protection and a mark of attachment to a sanctuary or a particular saint.