Gorgeously executed in gold with patterning in black enamel, this object likely completed a series of pendants, hanging at the bottom, itself terminating in a lovely pendant pearl. The understated richness of this object must have brought gladness to the heart of its owner: not only were its patterns lovely, but its manufacture spoke of exotic sources of colonial wealth-gold, turquoises, lapis, seed pearls, and large pearls. Never mind that the "turquoise," "lapis," and "seed pearls" are simulated with enamel; the final effect could not be more elegant.

Also surely pleasing for the patron was the nature of this object as a sort of devotional “fidget-spinner.” The three-sided presentation does not favor any particular view, but encourages its user to rotate it and study it from different angles. This is not an object that rests easily in any single position. Neither is it easy to view its relics—one might be missing—or perhaps one should understand vision to be justifiably thwarted. The viewing of relics is achieved only, in the main, with great difficulty. Given that these are not identified by inscription or a visible vellum authentic, the knowledge of whose relics they are is something of a secret. 

This sort of devotion is focused at the same time it is distracted into movement. This is indeed a good example of the theology of relics: what one catches sight of inside these precisely framed rock crystal “windows” is only a tiny splinter that represents the breadth and depth of the sacred, a window into the turning of the heavens.