17th – 18th c Spanish Devotional Pendant

A late 17th – early 18th century double-sided devotional pendant, probably Spanish, holding egg tempera miniature paintings of Christ Child as Salvator Mundi and Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. The twisted wire and toothed silver frame is extremely typical of 17th – 18th century reliquaries and devotional jewels made in southern Europe (mostly in Spain and Italy). For a similar Spanish double-sided pendant, featuring profiles of Mary and Christ, also dated 17th – 18th century, see British Museum 1978,1002.52. The painting composition of the present pendant bears similarity to several 17th/18th works by Spanish and European artists, namely “Immaculate of El Escorial”, c. 1660-1665, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617-1682);
“La Inmaculada Concepción”, 17th century, by Francisco Rizi (1614–1685); and “Christ Child as Salvator Mundi”, c. early 18th century, attributed to Josef Mages (1728-1769).
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