Pendant Cross with Emeralds

Like the pendant cross depicted in Isotta Brembati, this cross represents a type of jewelry particularly popular in Spain and with those associated with the Spanish court, as was Isotta Brembati. It reflects a trend in jewelry design in Europe in the sixteenth century, when precious gems and pearls were being imported to Europe in ever-greater quantities from the Americas and Asia and jewelry design increasingly emphasized their display. The cross in Isotta Brembati appears to be composed of a single emerald amid rubies; in this example, the prominence of emeralds may signal its making after Spanish colonizers took over the rich mines at Muzo, Colombia, in the late 1550s.