pendant

pendant

 or pendent

In architecture, a sculpted ornament suspended from a vault or ceiling, especially an elongated boss (carved keystone) at the junction of the intersecting ribs of the fan vaulting associated with the English Perpendicular style. In stone ceilings, the use of pendant vaulting was a solution to the difficulty of adapting fan vaulting to very wide church naves. Strong transverse arches were made to span the area, and these in turn supported the elongated keystones. Intermediate rib and panel vaults sprang from these pendants.

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pendant

Art Nouveau pendant by L. Gautrait, c. 1900; in the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Ger.

(credit: Courtesy of the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Ger.)

Ornament suspended from a bracelet, earring, or necklace and derived from the primitive practice of wearing amulets or talismans around the neck. The practice dates from the Stone Age, when pendants consisted of objects such as teeth, stones, and shells. Commemorative and decorative pendants were common in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In the Middle Ages reliquaries, or devotional pendants, and crosses were created with jewels. By the beginning of the 16th century, Renaissance artists were creating pendants for decorative rather than religious use. The late 19th-century Art Nouveau movement often featured women's figures, butterflies, or flowers on pendants.