Details
A pewter pilgrim badge
depicting the Virgin shown standing crowned and robed and holding a sceptre with fleur-de-lis, flanked by rose bushes, within a circular beaded frame pierced and cast with foliate scrolls, early 16th century -- 1¾in. (4.6cm) high

Lot Essay

The present pilgrim's badge is very similar in design to that of of a badge retrieved from the Seine at Paris and presumed to be a souvenir from Mont-Saint-Michel. In this badge St Michael is depicted within a very similar frame, and flanked by scallop-shells, a motif adopted on several types of pilgrim signs from Mont-Saint-Michel. The shells and the dragon may correspond to the two rose bushes on either side of the Virgin on the present badge, which probably allude to the late medieval cult of the Rosary. The similarities between the two badges would suggest that the present badge probably commemorates Notre-Dame de Tombelaine, a shrine so close and dependant on Mont-Saint-Michel that St Michael and Our Lady of Tombelaine are sometimes combined on the same souvenir.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
A. Forgeais, Plombs Histories Trouveés dans le Seine, Vol. II, Paris 1863. P.89.
J. Laporte, Millénaire Monastique der Mont-Saint-Michel III, Paris 1971. Ch.XIII.

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