Jewel in the form of a boat

What was formerly considered to be a sixteenth-century Lombard jewel is now recognised as the work of a Trapani workshop, and a rare example from the collections of the dukes of Savoy. The jewel, which is very small – just a few centimetres tall – is made with precious materials: the hull and foremast are in carved coral, the sailors are in gold with green, red, white, and blue enamel, as are the forecastle and quarterdeck, and the mizzenmast is in gold with three pearls. Coral, which appears in mythology and in the popular imagination for its presumed propitiatory and thaumaturgical properties, was often used, from the Middle Ages onwards, for ornaments and pendants in particular.