c. 1700 Spanish Gold & Enamel Rosary

A c. 1700 Spanish (likely colonial) gold and enamel rosary, consisting of a polychrome decorated crucifix suspended beneath a pierced scrollwork ornament and 67-bead filigree chain. The swirl-and-dot enameling style, along with its color palette (robin’s egg blue, pink, black, and white), is highly representative of enameled jewels made during the late 17th – early 18th c transition. Catholic faithfuls rely on rosaries to count off and recite prayers, which are arranged in sets of tens, also called ‘decades’. The typical rosary consists of 5-15 sets of 10-bead decades, capped on both ends with a divider ornament followed by a single bead; this arrangement represents the conventional prayer sequence of one ‘Pater Noster’ followed by ten ‘Hail Marys’ followed by one ‘Glory Be’. Such is the bead sequence observed on the present rosary, which contains six prayer ‘decades’. A 17th c Spanish rosary in the British Museum (1978,1002.107) displays similar designs for the gold foliate bead caps and pierced divider ornaments. Another highly similar rosary, c. 1700 and likely Spanish colonial, is published in “Luxo, Luxo, Poder e Devoção: Jóias do Século XVI ao Século XIX” by Nuno Vassallo e Silva and Pedro Bourbon de Aguiar Branco (cat. 34 p. 65). This latter example, like the present rosary, consists of beads made from polished seeds. The authors note another gold-capped seed-bead rosary, identified as Spanish Colonial, published in “La Plateria de La Cetedral de Santo Domingo, Primado de América” (Madrid, 1993, cat. 186). These mirror-black seeds possibly come from soapberry trees (Sapindus saponaria), which would support a Spanish colonial identification, as soapberry seeds—known as “black pearls”—have a tradition of being strung into bracelets and necklaces in Central America. Generally speaking, it’s not uncommon for seeds from plants like Jacob’s tears (coix lacryma-jobi) and rosary peas (abrus precatorius) to be polished and strung as prayer beads for their symbolic association with resurrection and faith (e.g. parable of the sower).
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