Byzantine 'Psalm 91 Related' Gnostic Bronze Talisman Pendant

Comprising a flat-section hoop with a starburst motif to the base; openwork shoulders and a square bezel with a pellet to each corner, the bezel engraved with foliate motifs. 3.65 grams, 19.99 mm overall, 18.00 mm internal diameter (approximate size British L, USA 5 3/4, Europe 11.24, Japan 10)



Acquired from London galleries during the 1990s. From the jewellery collection of a London, UK, gentleman.

Some rings from the Balkan territories of the Eastern Empire (for example the ring from Dobrača) bear a square thickened bezel engraved with schematic representations. What sets them apart are the widened shoulders emphasised by a plastic rib and the raised and flattened head, which places them in the group of rings which dates mainly to the 11th century (from the end of the 10th to the first decades of the 12th century).

Substantial cross pattée with pierced lobes to the vertical arms, each end provided with a link and hook; lateral arms pieced to accept similar links; intended for the suspension of polycandela multiple-candle chandeliers. 1.12 kg, 55.5 cm including hook



Ex Surrey, UK, collection of a gentleman, 1960-2000s.

In 563 A.D., Paul the Silentiary visited Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and described the wondrous lighting effects, ‘Thus is everything clothed in beauty…no words are sufficient to describe the illumination in the evening: you might say that some nocturnal sun filled the majestic church with light.’ The church was lit by polycandela, an early type of candelabra that held glass oil lamps rather than candles. The lamps were either conical or shaped like round bowls with an elongated stem attached beneath. Amidst the burning of incense and the chanting of prayers, the flickering light must have helped to inspire pious devotion. Contemporaries certainly attest to this feeling and among the surviving accounts, that of Arculf, Bishop of Gaul, is particularly affecting. In 670 he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and visited the Church of the Ascension, ‘…to the customary light of the eight lamps…on the night of the feast of the Lord’s Ascension it is usual to add innumerable other lamps; and under the terrible and wondrous gleaming of these, pouring out copiously through the shutters of the windows, all Mount Olivet seems not alone to be illuminated, but even to be on fire, and the whole city, situated on the lower ground nearby, seems to be lit up.’

Hollow-formed and hinged at the lower edge, with low-relief crucifixion to one face and robed figure to the other. 24.9 grams, 66 mm



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