Pendant

Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain

This small pendant of the Virgin and Child was made in Zaragoza for pilgrims who visited the shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar, now the site of a Basilica dedicated to her. Legend has it that the Virgin appeared to Saint James the Apostle in 40 AD. In return, she asked for a miraculous statue of herself and a small pillar made by angels to be placed at the centre of a new church dedicated to her name. Pilgrims who prayed to the Virgin of the Pillar, and received divine aid, would often leave small pieces of jewellery such as this, or other tokens known as 'ex-voto', at the shrine. In 1870, the Cathedral authorities sold some jewels from its treasury to raise funds for building repairs, and it was probably then that Anselm de Rothschild acquired this pendant, which he then left to his daughter Alice, who displayed it in the Smoking Room at Waddesdon.

Earliest Rothschild collector: Baron Anselm de Rothschild; b.1803, d.1874

Credit: Gift of Dorothy de Rothschild, 1971