λ AN ENGRAVED MOTHER-OF-PEARL-INLAID ALTARPIECE WITH CHRISTIAN ICONOGRAPHY
Jerusalem, 18th - early 19th century

Possibly the head of an altar or designed to fit the altar gradines, the pyramidal structure clad in mother-of-pearl tesserae and charged with Christian iconography, the lower order decorated with three roundels with winged cherubs and zig-zag fretwork bands, above them inscriptions in Greek characters enhanced in red, the middle order with a central trifora showing baby Jesus with Mary and Joseph on the left, the deposition from the cross in the centre, and the empty cross on the right, flanked by two roundels with St. George and St. James, to the upper order five crosses with engravings of saints, of the Virgin Mary on her own and with her child, the crosses decorated with a star motif in the centre, 48cm x 56cm x 12cm.

Provenance: Hargesheimer Kunstauktionen Düsseldorf, Russian Art, 4 November 2016, part of lot 231.

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