Thursday, March 31, 2005





B72 Bergkristall



B75 Bergkristall





Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Beads with passion

As I mentioned in Five-Wounds Rosaries, there's an entire genre of rosaries that feature various combinations of tools or symbols of the Passion of Christ. The simplest are the "Five Wounds" rosaries, which usually feature two hands, two feet and either a heart or a head, in addition to the usual Ave beads and Paters or gauds.

I'm not sure how much is known about how such rosaries have historically been used, and what prayers they have been used for. Since most of them have the usual five (or fifteen) decades of beads, they can be prayed just like a more conventional rosary. But of course the sequence of prayers we now know as "the rosary" is not, and never has been, the only possible combination of prayers said using a string of beads.

Here's an example that showed up on the German eBay a year or so ago:

light passion rosary

And here's an older one of blue glass beads, with carved bone parts and caps, tentatively dated to the 17th century. Note this one is 6 decades.


Another version:


Passion rosaries in general, like these, often make a rather eclectic selection from the many possible tools or symbols. A "five wounds" rosary may have hands, feet, a heart, a skull (as well as a separate head), a hammer, a chalice, or a little three-pronged item that represents a cluster of three nails.

Other "tools of the Passion" in the strict sense may include a spear (sometimes trident-headed), a ladder, pincers, a crown of thorns, and a scourge. I've also seen a clenched fist, which may represent being beaten.

Less obvious symbols include a rooster (!), representing the one that crowed to remind St. Peter of his denial that he knew Christ. You will also sometimes see a heart, a sword, a T-shaped tunic to represent Christ's "seamless garment," and even the pair of dice that the Roman soldiers are supposed to have thrown to see who would get the tunic. There are also a couple more things I haven't identified yet because they are shown on edge in the photos. A sponge is a possible candidate, as it's often included in the collection of similar items shown on a shield and collectively called the "arma Christi" (i.e. the "coat-of-arms" of Christ).

There are two Passion rosaries in the Cologne (Köln) diocesan museum that have more than five decades and a lively assortment of parts including most of those I've mentioned above. There are clearly some duplications and missing beads. Both are dated to the 17th or 18th century.

This one has a chain construction, 12 incomplete decades of faceted black glass beads, paters with silver caps, and cast silver parts.

In this one, each of the cast gold parts is placed between 2 silver filigree beads to mark the end of a decade, the assemblage serving as the Pater marker. The Aves are faceted coral. 15 decades. This one has two roosters and (I think)two chalices, suggesting it was assembled from fragments of more than one original.



Sunday, March 20, 2005

A Bad Blue rosary

My quest to accumulate a few "bad" modern rosaries is having some nice results. My friend Joan (thanks, Joan!) stopped by the local St. Vincent de Paul charity shop and picked up a couple of the little plastic-and-nylon-cord rosaries for me, to add to my collection of rosaries NOT to use if you want to create a historically correct impression for the Middle Ages or Renaissance. They did not, after all, have plastic back then.

I've also been hoping to find a not too expensive modern rosary that demonstrates what I mean when I say that many modern rosaries have medals and crosses that shout "modern art!" Usually those come labeled "Art Nouveau" or "1950s" when someone has them for sale, and they're priced at collector's prices... in the $30 to $50 range.

However, I saw this one, bid on it and won -- and it's just what I was after:

Blue beads rosary

The beads are plastic, and each one has an embossed image of Mary on it -- not totally tacky, I've seen worse, but the center piece (especially!) and cross are so excruciatingly typical of the 1960s that I hope people will get the point I'm trying to make in my classes.

Blue beads closeup

Of course, probably what I should really be doing this month is getting more pages up on the main website, so I can point people to examples of what they should be looking for in a medieval or renaissance rosary, rather than examples of what they shouldn't. :) But that's not quite as much fun (wicked grin)!


Thursday, March 17, 2005

Five-Wounds rosaries




And an enlarged detail:



eBay dark wood



Five Wounds



Sunday, March 13, 2005

The 1830 trap












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Thursday, March 10, 2005

Ostentation in silver

I've gone on at some length about the portraits of wealthy German burghers' wives with big red coral rosaries -- presumably a sign of wealth and success as well as emblems of piety. Well, not all the ostentatious rosaries in such portraits are coral: some are silver, often filigree. I'm sure these were considered equally expensive and showy, and they're also interesting because there's a bit more variation in their form than in the coral beads (which are usually plain rounds).

Here's a portrait of Kunigundus von Heimbach (born 1552 in Questenberg) by our old friend Bartholomeus Bruyn the Elder, who did a lot of such portraits:

This lady, painted in 1528 by "The Master H.B. with the Griffin Head" (Meister H B mit dem Greifenkopf), also has a rosary hanging from her belt:

Here's another one by Bruyn, dated around 1542:

And another (anonymous artist this time):

This one might be silver, it's hard to tell: the beads are round and photograph rather dark. They could also be jet or black glass.

And completely different from all the above, another portrait dated 1543, this one by Willem Key:


Monday, March 07, 2005







Finding items in a known collection







Finding items by searching







(Aktuere = Catalog [I think])
Künstler = Artist
Beruf = Profession
Werkstatt = Workshop
Auftraggeber = Client
Sozietat = Society (I don't know what this one means)
(Objekte = Object)
Art des Objekts = Type of object
Material/Technik = Material/technique
Standort = Location
Bauwerk = Building
Sammlung = Collection
Entstehungsort = Point of origin.





or (which would make nice needlework patterns)
