Kate Flitcroft
Co-Head of Department UK
Lot 45
PHILLIPS BROTHERS: GEM-SET AND ENAMEL CROSS PENDANT, CIRCA 1865
26 April 2023, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £3,187.50 inc. premium
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Jennifer Tonkin
Co-Head of Department UK
Charlotte Glyde
Specialist Consultant
PHILLIPS BROTHERS: GEM-SET AND ENAMEL CROSS PENDANT, CIRCA 1865
In Gothic Revival style, the arms of the cross set with banded agate batons, sky blue enamel borders and a central pearl, within an elaborate border of gold tracery and beaded trefoils, small glazed compartment on reverse, base of cross deficient and two of the finials converted into a pair of earrings, maker's mark, pearl untested, pendant length 9.1 cm, fitted tooled leather case by Phillips, 23 Cockspur St, London
Footnotes
19th century goldsmith and jeweller Robert Phillips (1810-81) was one of the most prominent English jewellers working in the fashionable Revivalist style. Italian craftsmen employed by his firm included Carlo Giuliano and Carlo Doria and Phillips probably also visited the Castellani workshops in Rome and Naples.
Mrs Haweis, in the chapter on "Modern Jewellery" in her book, "The Art of Beauty" (1878), described the "artistic appreciation of good forms and good work" by Messrs Phillips of Cockspur Street, going to to say:
"the most perfect models are sought for the ornaments they furnish. Museums and picture galleries are ransacked for devices of necklaces, earrings and pendants. I there observed an elegant cross copied from a picture by Quentin Massys in the National Gallery..."
Phillips made several cross pendants with intricate goldwork very similar to the cross on the orb Christ holds in the Diptych "Christ and the Virgin", from the workshop of Quentin Massys c.1510-25 in the National Gallery, London. For another example, sold by Bonhams, see lot 504, The Contents of Glyn Cywarch - The Property of Lord Harlech", London, 29 March 2017
