The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Bulletin

Temple Pendant and Stick
Byzantine (Constantinople), late I ith-first half of the
zth century
Gold and cloisonne enamel
Pendant: height (including loop), si5/,6 in. (4.9 cm);
stick: length, z in. (5.i cm)
Rogers Fund, I990
I990.z3
5a,b
These new acquisitions are among the few surviving examples
of secular Byzantine cloisonne enamel. The pendant, a hollow,
crescent-shaped gold receptacle, has an opening and a suspension
loop at the top. The convex sides are covered with
exquisitely worked cloisonn6 enamel of colorful patterns of
florets, interlocked palmettes, variegated borders, and a
medallion with a beardless male head that may represent an
angel or possibly Saint John the Evangelist. The accompanying
thin, tapering stick is embellished with a pattern of crosses in
cloisonne enamel.
The meticulous craftsmanship and minute scale of the enameling
on both objects, as well as their individual motifs, ally
them with a small group of enameled works that may be the
luxury products of a highly specialized workshop active in
Constantinople during the late eleventh and first half of the
twelfth century.
The purpose of the pendant is clarified by the presence of its
vessel-like cavity, which relates it to the Kievan Russ gold and
cloisonne-enamel pendants of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
given to the Museum by J. Pierpont Morgan in 1917. Several
of these pieces, referred to since the nineteenth century by the
Ukranian ethnographic misnomer k6olti (ear pendants), are
thought to have been worn in pairs by both men and women
near the temples or cheeks, suspended from caps, headbands,
the hair, or from the flaps of a headdress. They probably
contained bits of cloth soaked in aromatic oil. This type of
ornament, as well as the cloisonne-enamel technique, may
well have originated with Byzantine craftsmen in or from
Constantinople, and our pendant is the first physical evidence
to support this theory. The enameled gold stick was most
likely an aid for inserting the cloth into the narrow cavity of
the pendant.
Back
WDW
Ex coll.: [Robert Haber Ancient Art, New York].
Bibliography: Barbara Deppert-Lippitz, in Early Christian and Byzantine
Art (exhib. cat.), London, The Temple Gallery, 1990, pp. I8 (color
illus.), 56-57, no. ii; William D. Wixom, "Two Cloisonne Enamel
Pendants: The New York Temple Pendant and the Cleveland Enkolpion"
(forthcoming).
Related reference: Katharine R. Brown, "Russo-Byzantine Jewellery in
The Metropolitan Museum of Art," Apollo, iii (January 1980),
pp. 6-9, figs. I-6, I1-I5.
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