Object

This exhibit is focused around a small bronze enamel pyx in the Malcove Collection, M82.368. When it’s first approached, your first impression is of the evident care put into the object, small though it is. Its actual dimensions stand at 11x6.8cm. It is a little heavier than it looks, and has a certain heft to it. This is likely the effect of the bronze that makes up the main body of the pyx. The pyx has a cylindrical body with a hinged conical lid, and is just slightly textured around the edges of the enamel. At the top of the pyx is a small bronze cross, which slopes slightly to the side. The decorations are bronze on an enamel background. The body is decorated with bronze four-petal cross-shaped flowers with white enamel centres on a light blue enamel background, enclosed in yellow enamel circles. Between the circles the body is decorated by bronze floral scrolls with a light blue enamel semi-circular base, on a dark blue enamel background. The lid is decorated in a similar fashion, with the flowers in circles a little offset from those of the base. The floral scrolls on the lid don’t have the light blue base of the body scrolls. The decorative enamel detailing covers most of the pyx in broad bands, leaving only a very little at the bottom, around the edges of the lid, and a slightly larger undecorated bronze tip leading up to a nub or ball, on top of which the bronze cross perches.