The Sacrifice of Isaac

Reinhold Vasters

probably second half 19th century · Enameled gold set with emeralds, rubies, and pearls and with pendant pearls · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

The size and shape of this pendant suggests that its model was not a Renaissance jewel, but perhaps instead an ornamental cartouche from the rim of a Mannerist silver basin, a plaquette of gold, silver, or rock crystal from a jewel casket, or a book cover. The ornament on the frame and the back of the pendant is a mixture of decorative motifs that were in vogue at several different periods during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The central pattern on the back, ultimately derived from sixteenth-century Moresque ornament, is comparable to one of Reinhold Vasters’s designs for a pendant in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, but the identity of the maker of this pendant remains uncertain. [Clare Vincent, The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1984, p. 199, no. 119]

Artist

Reinhold Vasters

Date

probably second half 19th century

Medium

Enameled gold set with emeralds, rubies, and pearls and with pendant pearls

Culture

probably French or German

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, 1982