Gilded and enamelled copper inlaid with coral, Sicily (Trapani), ca. 1650.

Rectangular plaque of gilded copper, inlaid on one side with coral and with white enamelled flowers. The centre of the plaque has the image of a saint in a mandorla, the mandorla encircled by rays. At the top, a suspension loop, also of gilded copper, attached to the plaque with an openwork plate of 'c'-scrolls and foliage, enamelled in blue and white with applied coral flowers. The back of gilded copper, engraved with the image of four saints.

Dr W.L. Hildburgh Bequest

There is no record of the early owners of this shrine, although the use of coral, inlay technique and subject-matter show the piece was made in seventeenth-century Sicily. The engraved images on the back of the plaque include what appear to be two female saints associated with Sicily (Saints Rosalia and Ninfa: see Polizzi: 2011), which suggests the piece may have been commissioned for a local patron. The coral figure of a saint applied to the front of the piece represents St Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary. He is distinguished as such by his beard and by the fact he holds the Christ Child in his arms. Interestingly, he is surrounded by a rayed mandorla, and the mandorla is itself within a rectangle decorated with a winged head of a cherub in each corner. This type of frame is more usually reserved for images of the Virgin Mary (see Di Natale: 1986, cat. nos 82, 83, 88, 90), and Joseph's pose turned to face his right suggests he may not originally have been intended as the central figure in the shrine, but been placed to the side of a larger group. However, there is no chipping or scratching to suggest this statuette was ever removed, and so perhaps it was commissioned in response to a patron's particular devotional preference. Coral-work such as this was famously expensive and collected or exchanged as diplomatic gifts between the European nobility (Polizzi: 2008; Di Natale: 2008, pp. 20-21). The American scientist and collector Walter Leo Hildburgh presented the shrine to the Museum in 1956, although it had been on loan from his collection to the V&A since January 1926, described as 'Spanish, XVIIth century' (V&A Archives, MA/1/H1954, registered papers RP/72/1926, 4th January 1926).

Historical significance: Trapani, in Sicily (Southern Italy) was famous in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for its workshops of artisans skilled in carving coral. In 1605 there were twenty-five workshops in the town; by the end of the seventeenth century there were more than forty (di Natale: 2008, p.20). This shrine is characteristic of the type of pieces these workshops produced. Gilded copper was set with pieces of carved coral that were set into the metal using a technique termed 'retroincastro' by an Italian scholar writing in 1986. This consists inserting small pieces of polished coral into holes pre-punched into the metal plaque. The pieces of coral are then fixed using a mixture of pitch and wax, sealed with strips of cloth. A gilded and engraved backing plaque is then placed over these fixings (see Di Natale: 2008, p.21). The central figure is carved from a single section of coral stem and attached to the front of the plate by wires. The continued popularity of this type of work gradually caused the coral stocks of the Sicilian coast to decline, with the result that such carved figures have gradually reduced in size, or been made as composite pieces.

The Italian term for these plaques set with coral figures of saints framed by wide, ornamental, borders of coral inlay, is 'capezzale'. Literally, the word means 'headboard (for a bed)', but also it refers to the holy image suspended on the headboard and which protected the sleeper from evil forces. This holy image would be accompanied by one or two holy water stoups, depending on the type of bed. A 1724 inventory of the silver owned by Maria Giovanna Battista di Savoia-Nemours, Regent of Savoy, recorded a holy water stoup with a silver plaque set with a figure of Santa Rosalia that hung next to her bed (Di Natale: 2008, p. 47). The figure of Rosalia may have been of coral, as the inventory documents numerous examples of Maria Giovanna's fondness for the material (Di Natale: 2008, p.47). In any case, documentary evidence suggests that plaques or shrines such as the V&A's one of St Joseph were popular as devotional aids in the private chapels and chambers of the wealthy (Di Natale: 2002, cat. no. 9).

Gilded plaques, set with small pieces of coral and carved figures of saints, were a speciality of Sicilian workshops. They were expensive objects (the coral was gathered from the waters off the Sicilian coast) and were commissioned and purchased as much for the rarity of their materials and skill of the makers as for their devotional iconography. The elaborately-engraved plaque that covers the back of the shrine is characteristic of these pieces. It covers the unsightly wax and pitch glue that secures the small pieces of coral visible on the front side.

M.218-1956