Two Pendant Designs with Sun-Dials on Top 1581 - 1636

Curator: Ah, the intricate dance of time and design, captured by Jan Collaert I. Here, we have “Two Pendant Designs with Sun-Dials on Top,” likely from somewhere between 1581 and 1636. Editor: Time... It does give the impression of being caught, held almost too firmly. I feel this kind of beautiful unease, you know, like admiring a perfectly frozen moment. So detailed, and the light in those teardrop pendants feels weighty. Is it an engraving? Curator: Indeed, an engraving. And a print, of course, meaning these designs were meant for wider circulation, inspiring other artisans, perhaps? One imagines a craftsman, head bent over, replicating these dizzyingly complex forms in gold or silver, the hours ticking by… Editor: Hours of labour etched in metal. Makes me think of the lives intertwined with luxury. Look at all these elaborate features—sphinxes and serpentine shapes all intertwined. Who would wear something like that? What did it *mean* to wear it? Was it about pure beauty or something else? Curator: Good question, good question... In a time of burgeoning global trade and the Reformation’s austere whispers, perhaps a visible claim to power, wealth, earthly dominion even, through knowledge—the sundial being a marker of scientific, astronomical understanding, literally a little portable cosmos around your neck! Editor: So, an instrument turned into a symbol and displayed as a commodity. Very elegant, the way these precious, small things become status objects; how much raw material goes into projecting status! A sun dial *necklace*, though... I mean. It also tells time! Imagine going around like, “Sorry, I’m late; had to set my necklace.” Curator: Ha! Quite. But that connection to time is so fitting. To carry your own, personal miniature Renaissance universe that both dictates *and* is at the mercy of time itself. Memento Mori, with baroque, gleaming flair! Editor: I like that—flair even in mortality! I’ll look at my own necklaces in a different way after this. Curator: Precisely. A tiny reflection of ourselves, both material and ephemeral.