Featured Odd little enamelled brass plaque. Thoughts please?

I'd keep it too, it is lovely

 

When looking an item which is worn on a face I ask always me a question, how is it happened, here the hole on the backside which is clearly made to fix or suspend it is perfectly round, but the metal part where is the hole is flattened, why, years ago I've seen a seller which comes from Romania with those plaques, selling them "as they are", no guarantee on when they were made.
With a rapid search on Eba, you can found exactly what he sold, some are "antiques", others "vintage"??

 

Frequent rubbing and kissing. Orthodox tradition involves much more kissing of images than any other religious tradition I know. It probably evolved from the ancient concept of passing on of secret knowledge, symbolised by a kiss.

Travel in those days was never safe. There were a lot of occasions when even more kissing was needed to ask for blessing and protection. You would wear this around you neck, under your clothes, and pull it out to kiss it every time you crossed a bridge, entered an unknown town or village, saw strangers coming towards you, etc.

Many of these were made. They were blessed by priests and sold by churches and monasteries. Faithful were expected to buy them as an expression of their faith just as much as for their protective qualities.
The fakes that flooded the Western European markets in the 60s and 70s had a slight artificial patina, much like the one April posted.

 

As I've repaired a lot of votive items, kissing give a specific patina, only at one place, a very high polishing aspect, orthodox as catholic doesn't kiss on every parts, and normally not every time too, for example the icon is hold by the priest and given to kiss at the beginning and the end of ceremonial.
Another point is very important concerning metal items, from a long time the brass as bronze are very expensive due to the wars and make russian masters to work with iron as germans at the beginning from the 19th century, then consider that all oklads for example, silver or metal are very thin as many other usual items, then a plaque made in this manner does to be made by repoussé technique and not cast, casting is a very ancient technique and if the item was around 1'000 AC or before make less suspicious with weight.
Not easy to translate but I hope you understand me.

 

Those are the big icons in churches and monasteries. This is a little one, carried around on a person's body.
It is very hard to kiss just one part of the icon when the entire icon is about the size of a person's mouth, or only a fraction bigger.
My mother's collection was sold years ago, but on the photo below is my Serbian travel icon, which is the same size as many Russian ones. This one would have been kept in a case which was kissed, so not too much wear in the centre.
The paperclip is a regular size:

 

I think they used to carry them under the clothes, so this could be a reason for the wear

 

Ok, but how can you wear that?
If you look where is the hole, if you put something in it to hang, the item stay not right but falls in front with the upper part, and why is the hole perfectly round when all the rest has signs of abrasion, I'm really not convinced especially because I see a lot of them in markets, but no documentation about this design in books(Bornheim for example) or churches, when I go to the monastery next time, I can take a print with me to ask if they have some like this, they have a very good documentation about russian and greek orthodox icons(here the two are together).

 

In some sources on internet, they are called 'on-body icons' (natel'naya ikona) but I also have a doubt if they were used in this way, because 6x5 cm is by far too large. I will check some Russian books on the topic later

 

Here is some museum info that may interest you, pertaining to the centuries old existence of travel icons:

On this page of the Museum of Russian Icons in Moscow is a 15-16th century cast metal travel icon:
http://new.russikona.ru/collection/section-9/155
They have more in their collection, of course.

From the first page of the site of the Ikonen Museum in Recklinghausen, Germany:

http://www.ikonen-museum.com/index.php?id=182
This is the museum we used to go to when I was a child in the 60s. I think it is the oldest icon museum in Central and Western Europe and it has an impressive collection.

The brochure of their current exhibition of travel icons 'Holy Metal':
http://www.ikonen-museum.com/fileadmin/ikonenmuseum/2018/Flyer_Holy_Metal_online.pdf

The Dutch 'Ikonenmuseum' in Kampen, founded later than Recklinghausen, claims the biggest collection of metal travel icons in the EU, ca 2000. A few are seen on this video, after ca 58 seconds:
https://www.museumtv.nl/video/promo-ikonenmuseum-kampen/

The Ikonen-Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, also mentions their collection of travel icons: "... einer Sammlung von Metall- und Reise-Ikonen" on this page:
http://www.ikonenmuseumfrankfurt.de/index.php/sammlungen.html

These are just a few museums, there are more of course.

 

Great discussion. I will say that my wee thing does look "right" in that the wear looks natural and it isn't as sharp - raw edged? - as I'd expect from some kind of repro item.

 

It certainly looks genuine to me.
I know the V&A have icons, maybe you could take it there, seeing as you're in London?

 

Look at the difference of quality, there is no comparison between the two pieces, and if you think to a rural worker, how can it have some brass and the model to make so poor quality?
This in the example is superb and same as those I've found in books, but there are so many examples on ebay with same aspect and colors than those in the post…
Look at this one too as a fine example.

 

3" by 2" much bigger than yours. do you think it could have been "worn" like one would a pocket watch? i can imagine clothing with little pockets for this purpose.

 

As I want not to make a discussion out of subject on this thread, i open another about icons just now.

 

It could have. They were also worn on a cord or leather thong around the neck, much like heavy bronze or silver amulets in Africa and other parts of the world.

As with everything, there are different qualities. Rural workers in Russia had access to brass as well, just like rural workers in other parts of Europe.
The one on the Russian site is rather rustic-looking, as are the smaller ones in the Dutch video. The Russian museum one is slightly smaller than obb's.
The one you posted is stunning, but it looks like a big one, probably about the size as the central one in the Dutch video. Obb's travel icon is much smaller, and more like the smaller ones on either side of the central one in the video.