AN EXCEPTIONAL BYZANTINE GOLD CROSS WITH EMERALD & PEARL, WITH REVERSE INSCRIPTION, CIRCA 6TH-EARLY

拍品描述

A BYZANTINE GOLD, EMERALD AND PEARL PECTORAL CROSS, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, CIRCA 6TH-EARLY 7TH CENTURY A.D. Of Latin form with flaring arms terminating in straight outer edges, the cross constructed from sheet gold over a shaped core, each arm framed by a raised border and punctuated at the corners by small applied granules. A central cabochon emerald is set within a plain collet at the crossing, from which four oval pearls project on short prongs at the inner angles between the arms. The principal decoration consists of a continuous plaited gold filigree band running the full length of both the vertical and horizontal axes, dividing each arm along its centre and meeting at the central setting. The upper terminal rises to a trapezoidal extension surmounted by a transversely set tubular suspension loop wrapped in a band of plaited filigree of the same pattern as that on the arms. The reverse, as noted by the cataloguer, carries an inscription, The form belongs to the well-attested type of Early Byzantine pectoral cross worn suspended from a chain at the breast, both as an article of personal devotion and as a marker of Christian identity and status. The combination of central stone with pearls at the four inner angles reproduces, in miniature, the decorative scheme of the great processional and altar crosses of the period, in which a gemmed crux gemmata stood as the triumphal sign of the Resurrection rather than as an image of the Passion. The plaited filigree running along each arm derives from the goldsmiths' vocabulary shared between Constantinople and the major provincial centres of the eastern Mediterranean, where loop-in-loop chains and plaited wire borders are characteristic of sixth- and early seventh-century production. The choice of materials is itself a statement of rank. Gold of this purity, worked in thin repoussé sheet over a former and finished with applied filigree and granulation, was the medium of court and ecclesiastical commission rather than ordinary devotional production. The emerald, almost certainly drawn from the Egyptian mines of the Mons Smaragdus in the Eastern Desert, which supplied the Roman and Byzantine world throughout late antiquity, carried associations of paradise and incorruption appropriate to its placement at the centre of the cross. Pearls, gathered from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and traded into the empire at considerable expense, were the gem most closely associated in Byzantine writing with purity and with the imperial regalia; their disposition at the four cardinal points around a central green stone follows a hieratic arrangement found on imperial diadems, book covers and reliquary crosses of the period. The presence of an inscription on the reverse places the object within the recognised group of inscribed personal crosses of the late sixth and early seventh century, which carry invocations, owner's names, dedicatory formulae or short apotropaic texts addressed to Christ, the Virgin or named saints. Such inscriptions transform the cross from an ornament into a personal phylactery, worn directly against the body of its owner. This cross exemplifies the refined goldsmiths' work of the eastern Mediterranean in the generations immediately before the Arab conquests, when the gemmed pectoral cross had reached its most fully developed form as both luxury ornament and devotional object. The integration of sheet construction, filigree, cabochon emerald and projecting pearls within a single small-scale composition places it within the most ambitious tier of personal Christian jewellery surviving from the period. Height: 5cm

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