c. 1700-25 Italian Enameled Ship Pendant

An early 18th c. south Italian pendant in the form of a four-masted galleon ship, c. 1700-25, crafted in 19k yellow gold (the Italian purity standard prior to 1734) and further ornamented with polychrome enamel and pearls. The enameling palette (black and white with Robin’s egg blue, Naples yellow, Cassius pink) along with the swirl-and-dot painting technique is highly representative of a late 17th – early 18th c enamelwork style then popular in south Europe. Ship pendants in the form of caravels and galleons were made in Europe—in particular, Spain, Sicily, Genoa, Venice, Greece etc.—from the mid-16th to 18th centuries, neatly overlapping with the European Age of Sail. Production of these pendants reflects the percolating influence of maritime trade and exploration upon regional material culture and the popular imagination, linking together a broader Mediterranean world transformed and nourished by access to the sea. The dense and abundant decorative use of pearls is yet another south European and Adriatic trait. According to scholar Maria Concetta Di Natale, creation of these mazy clusters of wire-strung pearls, ‘fiori di perle’ (flowers of pearl), were widespread due to their linked symbolism to purity, and were commonly found on Italian jewelry donated to shrines and holy sites. The present pendant, with its sails entirely decorated with seed pearls, bears much resemblance to late 17th – early 18th c south Italian ship pendants collected by Sidney J. A. Churchill (1862 – 1921) during his stay in Palermo at the end of the 19th c., when he was consul general of Great Britain (see fig. 36 & 38, p. 215 Gioielli di Sicilia by Maria Concetta Di Natale). Another Churchill ship pendant was later sold by Sotheby’s as part of the Martin J. Desmoni Collection (see lot 121 Sotheby’s New York 17 May 1960). Another similar pendant was once in the collection of the Italian noblewoman Donna Giuseppina Maria Spinola (1835-1912); a surviving 19th c portrait of Spinola shows the subject wearing this ship pendant (p. 217 Gioielli di Sicilia by Maria Concetta Di Natale). The tip of the present pendant bears a small gold punch for Rome, in use late 17th – early 18th century. This suggests that the present example is either south Italian but made in Rome, or Sicillian but made for the Roman market. The present example is larger and more detail-oriented than the Churchill pendants, showing a rather faithful hewing to form, with the Galleon’s swirl-tipped forecastle, rigging, mast tops, gallery, rudder, keel, and gunports (represented by larger pearls) all visibly rendered.
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