Byzantine Gold Filigree Heart-Shaped Pendant

Comprising an L-shaped body with integral loop and fan-shaped finial perpendicular to the body; one side with incised crossed and the other with Christogram. 5.2 grams, 43 mm



Ex German art market, 2000s. Acquired from an EU collector living in London. From the collection of Surrey, UK, gentleman.

Recalling workmanship similar to that found in the floor of the Sistine Chapel and other important Roman churches; comprising a stepped rectangular panel with white marble border, square blocks with cross fourchée motifs on porphyry and other fields; mounted on a custom-made stand. 1.06 kg, 38.5 cm wide (1.4 kg total including stand)



French gallery, Paris, 1990s. From a family collection, London, UK.

The Cosmatesque style was a characteristic type of ornamentation of Eastern Roman origin (opus alexandrinum) used by the Roman marble makers of the 12th and 13th centuries AD. It embellishes floors, ciboriums and cloisters of churches by means of polychrome marble inlays of varied and imaginative geometric shapes. The wider use of this decoration began in the 12th century, at which time techniques were improved: the Cosmati floors were made with pieces of stone cut in various shapes and sizes, a property quite different from the mosaics in opus tessellatum, in which the motifs were made from small units all having the same size and shape, or from the opus sectile, intended to create representations with pieces of multicoloured marble cut out and arranged for this purpose. The stones used by Cosmati artists were often material salvaged from the ruins of ancient Roman buildings.

An imposing panel divided to four sections by a central cross on a stepped pedestal, the lower and upper arm with branch-like extensions; the upper quadrants with a circlet surrounding a palm tree-shaped motif; each lower quadrant with a bird in profile facing back; mounted on a custom-made display stand. 16 kg total, 44.5 cm including stand



Private collection, London, UK. Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12179-221676.

The cross, symbol of resurrection and salvation, carried the meaning of Paradise, and a cross on a stepped base derived from that on Golgotha. The birds represented here are probably a symbol of joy of the afterlife, of paradise conceived as the locus refrigerii or refrigerium of the soul. The panel could have been part of a marble iconostasis of a Church of the Eastern Roman Empire, in Southern Italy, although the use of porphyry can suggest a Constantinopolitan provenance.