Byzantine Style Bronze Reliquary Cross Pendant

20TH CENTURY A.D.

4 1/8 in. (126 grams, 10.5 cm).

Hinged suspension loop, two recessed halves hollow to the reverse, low-relief figure in orans pose to the obverse, geometric ornament to the reverse. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Acquired 1980-1990s.
From the private collection of H.N., Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire, UK.

Literature

See Pitarakis, B., Les Croix-Reliquaires Pectorales Byzantines en Bronze, Paris, 2006, for original examples from the Eastern empire.

Footnotes

Usually the reliquary crosses or enkolpia, were composed of two separate halves, inside of which a relic of a saint was contained; this could have been a piece of cloth or a bone. The practice, in the Orthodox Church, is still in place today, sometimes by using reproductions of ancient styles, like our specimen, probably realised at the beginning of the last century.

CONDITION

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LOT 1449