Lantern-shaped reliquary pendant with engraved... Lot 249

Lantern-shaped reliquary pendant with engraved and gilded silver mount and finely carved ivory subject with polychrome highlights. Hexagonal cylinder with three pinnacle uprights adorned with statuettes representing St. Catherine, St. Margaret and St. Christopher; each face is framed by intersecting hoops at the ends punctuated by a pearl; Crucifixion protected by a glass bulb composed of Christ and two thieves, three horsemen and a soldier holding spears; three-lobed bead at each end with a movable ring. Southern Germany, Nuremberg, ca. 1500 Height: 8.8 cm - Gross weight: 38 g (slight missing parts) Book consulted: K.G. Beuckers, Mittelalterliche Elfenbeinarbeiten aus der Sammlung des Badischen Landermuseums Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, cat.12, pp. 94-99. Several other examples of this type of reliquary are known in public collections: one with a Virgin and Child at the end of a rosary at Badisches Landesmuseum Karlruhe (inv. C 6564, fig.a), another with a figure of St. George in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich (inv. 29/2281.2, fig.b) and also one with a St. Sebastian in the Museum of Applied Arts in Cologne (inv. G 907, fig.c). They are simpler, however, because they do not have statuettes on the uprights like this one. A drawing in the Aschaffenburg Castle Library in Bavaria shows how these small reliquaries were arranged in monstrances (fig.d).