Pax - with the Adoration of the Magi

The pax, or osculatory, is a small tablet with a handle, which is decorated with an image or relief, and contains some relic. This type of object originated in the early Christian custom of the kiss of peace (pax), which since the time of the apostles had been a token of the community of those who had been baptized: it was incorporated in the Roman liturgy as a sign of reconciliation. From the 13th century onwards, the celebrant would kiss the pax or the crucifix and the faithful would kiss it and pass it on, as an expression of the people’s Christian humility.

The enamel painting, whose top is arched, depicts the scene of the Adoration of the Magi. Characterized by the traditional dark palette and concept of figure that marked the Gothic period, the picture was placed, in the 19th century, in a neo-Gothic tabernacle frame, following the example of traditional home altars. A polished quartz crystal was set in the openwork base; on the sides, the pillars support gargoyles that were based on the descriptions of medieval bestiaries; the richly decorated baldachin has pointed arches. The inner frame bears the well-known rosette motifs of the Limoges enamel works.

The pax was purchased for the Museum of Applied Arts in 1917, by a group of Hungarian patrons (among them Emil Delmár, Marcell Nemes and Manfréd Weiss), for 32,500 crowns, at a Berlin auction of the collection of Richard von Kaufmann (1850–1908).

In the auction catalogue, Otto von Falke, director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin, described the pax as ‘made in the manner of Nardon Pénicaud,’ and subsequent research confirmed this attribution on the basis of analogues from the Limoges master’s workshop. One of these analogues is an osculatory that also shows the Adoration of the Magi, and was once part of Marcell Nemes’s collection.