A BYZANTINE GOLD AND GARNET CROSS CIRCA 5TH-7TH CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A BYZANTINE GOLD AND GARNET CROSS, EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN, CIRCA 5TH-7TH CENTURY A.D. Of Latin-cross form, composed of six oval and circular garnet cabochons set in plain gold collets and arranged with one stone at the centre, one at each terminal of the horizontal arm, one above, and two in succession below to form the longer lower arm. The cabochons are domed and unfaceted, retaining the deep wine-red translucency characteristic of almandine garnet. The collets are joined at their junctions by small applied gold granules, arranged in pairs and triplets at the angles of the cross and at the points where the stones meet, lending a beaded articulation to the otherwise plain metalwork. A ribbed cylindrical suspension loop rises from a granulated collar at the upper terminal, designed to receive a chain or cord. The reverse, not visible in the photograph, would have consisted of a plain gold backing plate closing the collets. The cross is the central devotional emblem of Byzantine Christianity, worn upon the body as a sign of faith, as an apotropaic safeguard, and as an affirmation of confessional identity in the centuries following the conversion of Constantine and the consolidation of the Christian empire under Theodosius and his successors. Pectoral crosses of this scale were personal ornaments rather than liturgical objects, suspended at the throat or breast over the tunic, and the choice of a transparent red stone over the heart carried a recognised symbolic weight, associated with the blood of Christ and with the martyrs whose cults defined the devotional landscape of Late Antiquity. Garnet held particular prestige in the Late Antique and Early Byzantine jeweller's repertoire. The finest stones used in Mediterranean workshops of this period were imported over long distances, with sources documented in Sri Lanka and the Indian subcontinent, and their distribution across the Roman and post-Roman world depended on established maritime trade through the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The combination of gold and garnet, set as plain cabochons in simple collets and accented with granulation, is the signature mode of Early Byzantine personal jewellery and was carried by Gothic and Merovingian craftsmen into the successor kingdoms of the West, where it formed the basis of the cloisonné garnet tradition. The unfaceted cabochon setting seen here preserves the older Mediterranean idiom, in which the stone is read as a pool of saturated colour rather than as a faceted reflector. This cross exemplifies the Early Byzantine pectoral tradition in its most direct form, where devotional function, costly imported material, and restrained goldsmithing are brought together without elaboration. The reliance on the inherent depth of the garnet cabochon, framed only by plain bezels and a discreet granulated punctuation, marks it as a product of the mature Eastern Mediterranean workshops of the fifth to seventh centuries, before the gradual displacement of garnet by coloured glass and enamel in the Middle Byzantine period. Height: 4.6cm

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