Gold Devotional Pendant With Miniatures. Spanish, Around 1700.

Gold devotional pendant with miniatures. Spanish, circa 1700. A gold mounted devotional pendant set on each side with eglomized glass miniatures of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint John of Nepomuk. Spanish, circa 1700. Measures 4.4 x 3.7 x 1 cm. Saint Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of Emperor Maxentius. She was both a princess and a renowned scholar who became a Christian around the age of 14, converted hundreds to Christianity, and was martyred around the age of 18. More than 1,100 years after Catherine's martyrdom, Joan of Arc identified her as one of the saints who appeared to her and counseled her. Saint John of Nepomuk (c. 1345 – March 20, 1393) was the saint from Bohemia (Czech Republic) who was drowned in the Vltava River at the behest of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. Later accounts indicate that he was the confessor of the Queen of Bohemia and refused to divulge the secrets of the confessional. Based on this account, John of Nepomuk is considered the first martyr of the confessional seal, a patron against slander, and, due to the manner of his death, a protector against flooding and drowning. Églomisé glass is a French term referring to the process of applying both a design and a gilding to the back side of the glass to produce a mirror finish. The name is derived from the 18th-century French decorator and art dealer Jean-Baptiste Glomy (1711–1786), responsible for its revival. Glomy's technique was a relatively simple technique of applying decorative designs in a combination of solid color and gilding, usually on glass frames. However, over time it has come to be used to describe almost any process involving reverse painted and gilded glass, no matter how elaborate.