pendant

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pendant. A painting created by an artist to be displayed as one of a pair. Pendants are usually exactly the same size as each other and closely related in theme; portraits of husband and wife were often produced as pendants, for example. Several of Claude's landscapes were painted as pairs, sometimes related by composition or mood rather than by subject. Examples are Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca (‘The Mill’) and Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (both 1648, NG, London). They were commissioned by Cardinal Camillo Pamphili, Claude's leading patron of the mid-1640s. However, before the pictures were finished, Pamphili relinquished his cardinalship so he could marry, causing Pope Innocent X (his uncle) to exile him temporarily from Rome. This evidently led the commission to fall through and the paintings were bought instead by the Duc de Bouillon, a French general serving in the papal army. Pamphili then seems to have commissioned a second version of ‘The Mill’, together with a new companion, a View of Delphi, both now in the Doria Pamphili Gallery in Rome. Unlike these Claudes, many pendants have become separated over the course of time and now hang in different locations.

pendant.
1. A strop, or short length of rope or wire with a thimble spliced into the end, fixed on each side of the main- and foremasts of a square-rigged ship just below the shrouds, and to which the main and fore tackles were hooked. They received their name as they hung vertically downwards as low as the catharpings.

2. Any length of rope or wire used in those places where it is required to transmit the power of a purchase to a distant object. Generally they have a thimble or a block spliced into one end. They usually also have a qualifying name attached to indicate their use: e.g. a cat pendant, used to cat an anchor; and a mooring pendant, used to haul the end of a chain cable round the bows of a ship when two anchors are down and it is necessary to insert a mooring swivel.

See also pennant.

pend·ant / ˈpendənt/ • n. 1. a piece of jewelry that hangs from a chain worn around the neck. ∎  a necklace with such a piece of jewelry. ∎  a light designed to hang from the ceiling. ∎  the part of a pocket watch by which it is suspended. ∎  Naut. a short rope hanging from the head of a ship's mast, yardarm, or clew of a sail, used for attaching tackles. 2. an artistic, literary, or musical composition intended to match or complement another: the triptych's pendant will occupy the corresponding wall in the south transept. • adj. hanging downward; pendent: pendant flowers on frail stems.

pendant. Fixed hanging ornament, resembling an elongated boss suspended from Perpendicular fan-vaulting, Jacobean ceilings, posts of timber roof-trusses, staircase newels, or at the mitring of barge-boards at the apex of a gable. It often resembles an inverted finial.

pendant hanging part XIV; (archit., etc.) truss, spandrel; (naut.) hanging rope, PENNANT; tapering flag, pennon XV; that by which a thing is suspended XVI; parallel, match XVIII. — (O)F., sb. use of prp. of pendre hang; see next.

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• deodorant •different, vociferant •belligerent, refrigerant •accelerant • tolerant • cormorant •itinerant • ignorant • cooperant •expectorant • adulterant •irreverent, reverent •nascent, passant •absent •accent, relaxant •acquiescent, adolescent, albescent, Besant, coalescent, confessant, convalescent, crescent, depressant, effervescent, erubescent, evanescent, excrescent, flavescent, fluorescent, immunosuppressant, incandescent, incessant, iridescent, juvenescent, lactescent, liquescent, luminescent, nigrescent, obsolescent, opalescent, pearlescent, phosphorescent, pubescent, putrescent, quiescent, suppressant, tumescent, turgescent, virescent, viridescent •adjacent, complacent, obeisant •decent, recent •impuissant, reminiscent •Vincent • puissant •beneficent, maleficent •magnificent, munificent •Millicent • concupiscent • reticent •docent •lucent, translucent •discussant, mustn't •innocent •conversant, versant •consentient, sentient, trenchant •impatient, patient •ancient • 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