DATE: Victorian, c.1870

A finely painted enamel miniature depicting Madonna with Child visited by his cousin Saint John the Baptist. It's been a popular subject for artists over the centuries, and, while I can't find an exact match, the closest seems to be Michele Tosini's 1565 work in the “mannerist” style, a 16th-century movement focused more on expression than naturalism, which portrays a similar embrace of the two children, with Jesus on his mother's lap and John weirdly creeping over to him. The detail is exceptional and the colours vibrant without becoming gaudy, and it's set in a period 9k gold brooch mount crafted with a halo (like the figures) and an unusual textured collet setting. 

Saint John was the patron saint of Florence, and older cousin of Jesus. The Gospels portray John as a forerunner to Jesus since he anticipated a messianic figure more important than himself, thus predicting the arrival of Christ. He was, of course, famously beheaded by Salome, on the orders of Herod Antipas whom he had... upset... with a rebuke for divorcing his wife, Phasaelis, and unlawfully wedding Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip I. Some followers of St John, the Mandaeans (an ethnoreligious group native to the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia, and the last surviving Gnostics from antiquity), believe him to be the messiah, and their greatest and final prophet and teacher. 

MEASUREMENTS

4.9 x 3.8cm

WEIGHT

16.0g

MARKS

Stamped 9ct gold

CONDITION

Very good, light wear commensurate with age