A DAMASCENED STEEL PLAQUETTE OF CHRIST RAISED FROM THE TOMB WITH A TYMPANUM OF GOD THE FATHER

Though few examples of damascened steel works from the Milanese armourers of sixteenth century Milan are securely attributed, Giovanni Battista Panzeri, called Zarabaglia or Serabaglio, is known to have produced small devotional plaquettes with his workshop using this rare method in the third quarter of the century. As a master maker of the famed armor and harness of King Ferdinand the II of Tyrol in 1539, Panzeri was later dubbed ‘the great iron chiseler’ by Paolo Morigi. Two small devotional plaquettes attributed to Panzeri in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello (inv. 739) and the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli (inv. 223) provide clear stylistic comparison to the main panel of the present example. Interestingly, as noted in Bonnaffé’s 1897 sale catalogue, this particular relief was in the collections at Château de Chambord.

The embossing and damascening steel technique was a labor intensive and selectively practiced technique by armorers in sixteenth century Milan. Steel would be heated, cooled, sometimes blackened, worked in repoussé, and then carved with hatched channels in to which gold and/or silvered would be hammered, without the use of adhesives. With the strenuous technical demands of production and the use of precious metals, these objects were rare, expensive, and destined for use by men in the nobility and with high social status.