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Source Description
Prayer beads carved in distinctive black jet with the conjoined, back-to-back heads of Christ and Saint James, both bearded, were popular mementos of the famous pilgrimage shrine dedicated to Saint James (Santiago) at Compostela in Spain. St. James wears the pilgrim’s hat with cockleshell, the badge of his shrine at Compostela. Dealers’ inventories at Compostela record large stocks of jet devotional objects for sale to the pilgrims. Jet was easy to carve and it brilliance was thought to intercept the evil eye. Jet is a dense black coal widely mined in northern Spain. It can be carved and polished to a bright sheen; however, it is brittle and it takes great skill to carve even very small objects.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
32393
label
Prayer Bead with Christ and Saint James
core
obj
dtoType
object
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
32393
sourceUrl
contentType
object
stage
normalized
title
Prayer Bead with Christ and Saint James
description
Prayer beads carved in distinctive black jet with the conjoined, back-to-back heads of Christ and Saint James, both bearded, were popular mementos of the famous pilgrimage shrine dedicated to Saint James (Santiago) at Compostela in Spain. St. James wears the pilgrim’s hat with cockleshell, the badge of his shrine at Compostela. Dealers’ inventories at Compostela record large stocks of jet devotional objects for sale to the pilgrims. Jet was easy to carve and it brilliance was thought to intercept the evil eye. Jet is a dense black coal widely mined in northern Spain. It can be carved and polished to a bright sheen; however, it is brittle and it takes great skill to carve even very small objects.
provenance
Marvin C. Ross [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1941, by gift.
date
1525-1575 (Renaissance)
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Stone
beads (pierced objects)
rosary
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
2.5
height
1.5
depth
2
dimensionsRaw
H: 1 × W: 9/16 × D: 13/16 in. (2.5 × 1.5 × 2 cm)
Source extras
med
jet
creator_ids
6242
collection_ids
REN
exhibition_ids
1994
2513
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
dbb914fd476867f8