DEVOTIONAL PENDANT. OIL ON AVENTURINE, ENAMEL, GOLD… SPAIN, 17TH CENTURY.

Devotional pendant or reliquary. Oil painting on aventurine, enamel, gold. Spain, 17th century. Devotional medallion or pendant or reliquary made of aventurine or aventurine with an octagonal shape and faceted fronts, enhanced with a series of enamels combining black and gold, which protect two oil paintings of a Catholic Christian religious theme, located one on each side of the piece. Protected, you can see a very particular Madonna and Child inspired by the Icon of the Madonna del Popolo (Rome, Italy), and a simplified Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (the saint, the grill and an angel with a crown and the palm corresponding to the theme are shown). The edges of the piece have been protected with simple metal elements. The painting of San Lorenzo follows a composition common in the Spanish school, and would recall works such as the painting of the main altar of the Church of San Lorenzo in Huesca, for example, although also others such as the engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi (executed around 1527) in some details. The so-called icon of the Madonna del Popolo was well known because it was considered to have been made by Saint Luke, and was brought to the church of the same name by Gregory IX from the Sancta Sanctorum of the Lateran Palace after a flood caused a terrible plague in the city and through a solemn procession with the image to Santa Maria del Popolo. As for the material of the piece, aventurine or aventurine are known as a certain type of glass and a type of quartz (which can be green or reddish brown, and usually has tiny elements of yellow mica that give it golden reflections). In the first case, it is known that "venturine" or "stellaria" is mentioned in the workshops of Murano for the first time during the first quarter of the 17th century, in reference to a very complicated production paste (it is said that the name comes from this circumstance, that is, that its creation was due to luck or fortune) that imitates the effects of that stone (from India and Russia at that time) thanks to the inclusion of copper particles, and that was used as if it were stone (cut) given the complexity of its use in blowing (practically impossible). And, dealing with this material, it is necessary to mention “The Nativity” by Pietro da Cortona, dated around 1656, which is preserved in the El Prado Museum (Madrid) because it is an oil painting on aventurine. Compare this work with the reliquary medallion with an image of the Virgin painted on aventurine dated between 1600 and 1633 from the Lázaro Galdiano Museum (Madrid); with another devotional medallion in gold and aventurine from the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas (Madrid) dated in the 17th-18th centuries; or with the medallion that is also a reliquary that presents an Immaculate Conception painted on aventurine, dated between the 18th and 19th centuries from the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas (Madrid); or with the 16th-century Spanish devotional pendant from the Metropolitan Museum of New York with Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin (which combines black and white enamels, in a different way to the present piece); or with the 17th-century triangular-shaped pendant of black and white enamel and gold from the Valencia Institute of Don Juan in Madrid. Weight: 103 grams.

· Size: 9x0.7x8 cms.