Pendant

This pendant made in the nineteenth century in the Renaissance Revival style has a lapis lazuli base intended to be engraved with an intaglio like a seal, but in fact the stone was uncut, and the pendant remains purely decorative.

The figure of the mermaid is formed around a large baroque pearl, like some Renaissance pendants made during the sixteenth century which were much admired by the artist goldsmiths and the collectors of the nineteenth century. Renaissance pendants were appreciated as small-scale sculptures which displayed the arts of the modeller, chaser, enameller and jeweller. The greatest compliment that could be paid to a goldsmith in the middle of the 19th century was to compare him to the celebrated Florentine sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71).