LIMOGES, 13TH CENTURY

Limoges, France was the most important centre of champlevé enamel production during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The technique was used predominately as decoration for liturgical objects as is the case for the present lot which is likely to have originally been part of a larger object, perhaps a cross or brooch, and has since been repurposed. The rock crystal cabochon at the centre covering a small inscribed piece of paper, of which now only three letters are legible (‘ARI’ perhaps originally ‘MARIA’), suggests that it once concealed a holy relic.