Late Renaissance Silver Crucifix Pendant. German, Around 1600.

Late Renaissance silver crucifix pendant

. Possibly German, around c.1600.
A late Renaissance silver crucifix pendant

.
 
German, around c.1600.


 
Measures 10.5 x 4.7 x 1.5cm (excluding loose pendant bail).


 
The limp body of Christ hangs from the crucifix, above his head is the plaque mocking the saviour, hung by Pilate with the initials ‘INRI’, an abbreviation of the Latin ‘Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum’, which translates into English as “'Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews’. 

The reverse of the crucifix is set with a silver relief of the Virgin holding the Christ child, a sceptre within her other hand.

The jeweller has taken tremendous care to imitate the grain, knots and stumps of the wood, a technique typically seen only on processional crosses dating two centuries earlier! A silver drop is suspended from the base of the cross, imitating a baroque pearl.


 
For a similar example, however in gold, see; Sotheby’s, London, European Sculpture & Works of Art, 4th December 2013, Lot 58.