Featured Odd little enamelled brass plaque. Thoughts please?

Here's an odd thing. St George and the Dragon, of course, with writing in a language I can't decipher. Given he's patron saint to half the planet, it might be Georgian or something. Not Catalan or English, I'd recognise those.

Opinions on origin or purpose? It's very well done.

 

did you check the different glagolitic scripts ? watch out though, they look completely different to each other and if my rest-brain serves there were special church variations.

 

That's a thought. Might be a copy of something Byzantine or Coptic.

 

It is a Russian travel icon, and Cyrillic script. Those blue enamels are typical of those Russian travel icons, although they also used green and yellow.

 

I think it was mostly in use in the old Bulgarian Empire.

 

Looks like a crude sand casting,many signs of porosity and poorly finished on the front.

 

Not a great casting, agreed. I wonder if it wasn't originally on a key ring; those are often cruder than items meant to be jewelry.

 

Bit big for a keyring. I should have said: it's about three inches by two. There's a lot of wear down on the front.

 

If it's Russian, the letters are so poorly struck that I can't tell what some of them are. It's also possibly Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavonic. The letters are not clear enough for me to tell. Maybe a native Russian speaker would know.

 

I think it says St. Egory (another name for George) in Church Slavic.
It's 18th-19th-century Russian travel icon

 

Here is a similar one with less damage and where the text reads more easily

 

Oh, I can see it now. English is my native language, and I studied Russian in college long ago. But I also have worked as a librarian at a university for many years and so have sometimes been called upon to use some Russian knowledge.

And it was great that you found that other example!

 

Great find, April.

I am quite confident obb's is an antique one, it is very much like the ones in my mother's collection.
The one April found looks very much like the repro's that flooded Western Europe during the icon collecting craze of the 1960s and 70s. They have the same images and script as the antique ones, and are a very good way to identify the origin if you are new to Russian travel icons.

 

Splendid! Many thanks all, especially aj and April. This was in the box of bits which included a nice amber pendant, the Georgian gaming piece, a decent vesta, treacle glazed hound and some odd silver cufflinks. Eight dollars.

 

Wow!
A perfect investment!

 

I was a bit pleased. I bought it for the amber pendant.

 

An amber pendant is always good, but this beauty could be the real prize.

 

It may need to live with me for a while, I rather like it!