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"Gems History."
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Edelstein/Kunst : Renaissance bis heute = Gemstone/art : Renaissance to the present day
Gemstones have always been, since time immemorial, heavily charged with meaning and have even been regarded as magical objects. For that reason they have also been an art medium since the early modern age and have shaped as art symbols - in the form of the crystal - both Romanticism and Modernism, for example in the works of Caspar David Friedrich, Lyonel Feininger and many more. In the latter half of the twentieth century, not only have such artists as Bernd Munsteiner, Ute Eitzenhofer and Bernhard Schobinger rediscovered the gemstone; through the Hochschule fur Edelstein und Schmuck Trier/Idar-Oberstein and other similar specialist institutions it is also undergoing a revival in today's art production - right up to Damien Hirst.
Book
Engraved Gems
Many are no larger than a fingertip. They are engraved with symbols, magic spells and images of gods, animals and emperors. These stones were used for various purposes. The earliest ones served as seals for making impressions in soft materials. Later engraved gems were worn or carried as personal ornaments - usually rings, but sometimes talismans or amulets. The exquisite engraved designs were thought to imbue the gems with special powers. For example, the gods and rituals depicted on cylinder seals from Mesopotamia were thought to protect property and to lend force to agreements marked with the seals. This edited volume discusses some of the finest and most exceptional precious and semi-precious stones from the collection of the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities - more than 5.800 engraved gems from the ancient Near East, Egypt, the classical world, renaissance and 17th-20th centuries - and other special collections throughout Europe. Meet the people behind engraved gems: gem engravers, the people that used the gems, the people that re-used them and above all the gem collectors. This is the first major publication on engraved gems in the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden since 1978.
eBook
Precious : the history and mystery of gems across time
When Helen Molesworth joined the gem and jewellery industry she began her own love affair with one of humanity's oldest and richest fascinations. For as long as people have known about gemstones they have treasured them. Born of violent geological events and the chance meetings of minerals, their stories are an extraordinary journey through time, and are significant to the human narrative in as many ways as they boast sparkling facets. Selecting ten of nature's most dazzling jewels, Helen Molesworth makes journeys across the world to trace stones from their discovery to the moment a glimmering cut and polished masterpiece is traded, and then fought over, adorns oligarchs and kings, falls out of favour, and then raises eye-watering sums in another age.
BOOK
Connecting to Antiquity Through Touch: Gem Impressions in the Long Eighteenth Century
This article seeks to understand what an approach grounded in materiality and tactile engagement can offer to our understanding of why collectors might have been drawn to gem impressions in the long eighteenth century. Instead of looking to a specific collector or producer of gem impressions, this study examines interactions with gem impressions from a more general perspective. I speculate how, through touch, antiquarians may have used gem impressions as an aide-mémoire to bridge connections between eighteenth-century gem impressions and Greco-Roman gem traditions through shared function, materiality, production techniques, and signatures.
Journal Article
Reuse Value
This book offers a range of views on spolia and appropriation in art and architecture from fourth-century Rome to the late twentieth century. Using case studies from different historical moments and cultures, contributors test the limits of spolia as a critical category and seek to define its specific character in relation to other forms of artistic appropriation. Several authors explore the ethical issues raised by spoliation and their implications for the evaluation and interpretation of new work made with spolia. The contemporary fascination with spolia is part of a larger cultural preoccupation with reuse, recycling, appropriation and re-presentation in the Western world. All of these practices speak to a desire to make use of pre-existing artifacts (objects, images, expressions) for contemporary purposes. Several essays in this volume focus on the distinction between spolia and other forms of reused objects. While some authors prefer to elide such distinctions, others insist that spolia entail some form of taking, often violent, and a diminution of the source from which they are removed. The book opens with an essay by the scholar most responsible for the popularity of spolia studies in the later twentieth century, Arnold Esch, whose seminal article 'Spolien' was published in 1969. Subsequent essays treat late Roman antiquity, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Middle Ages, medieval and modern attitudes to spolia in Southern Asia, the Italian Renaissance, the European Enlightenment, modern America, and contemporary architecture and visual culture.
eBook
Engraved gems : from antiquity to the present
\"Many are no larger than a fingertip. They are engraved with symbols, magic spells and images of gods, animals and emperors. These stones were used for various purposes. The earliest ones served as seals for making impressions in soft materials. Later engraved gems were worn or carried as personal ornaments - usually rings, but sometimes talismans or amulets. The exquisite engraved designs were thought to imbue the gems with special powers. For example, the gods and rituals depicted on cylinder seals from Mesopotamia were thought to protect property and to lend force to agreements marked with the seals. This edited volume discusses some of the finest and most exceptional precious and semi-precious stones from the collection of the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities - more than 5.800 engraved gems from the ancient Near East, Egypt, the classical world, renaissance and 17th-20th centuries - and other special collections throughout Europe. Meet the people behind engraved gems: gem engravers, the people that used the gems, the people that re-used them and above all the gem collectors. This is the first major publication on engraved gems in the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden since 1978\"--Back cover.
Book
Tourmaline as a petrogenetic indicator highlighted in a multicoloured crystal from the gem deposit of Mavuco, Alto Ligona Pegmatite District, NE Mozambique
A rounded fragment of a multicoloured tourmaline crystal (2.5 cm diameter), collected from the secondary gem deposit of Mavuco, Alto Ligona pegmatite district, Mozambique, has been investigated using a multi-analytical approach, with the objective of reconstructing its growth history. The sample represents a core-to-rim section, perpendicular to the c axis, of a crystal characterised by a variety of colours. These change from a black core to an intermediate zone with a series of colours, yellow, blue-green and purple, to a final dark-green prismatic overgrowth. These changes are the result of a wide variation in Fe, Mn, Ti and Cu concentrations and their redox state. The black core is characterised by enrichment in Fe and Mn, with iron present in its divalent state. The yellow zone shows a progressive depletion in Fe and its colouration is caused by Mn2+ and Mn2+-Ti4+ IVCT interactions. The progressive decrease in Mn coupled with the absence of Ti, and the lack of Fe, implies that Cu2+ acts as the only chromophore in the pale blue-green zone. The dominant colour-causing agent of the purplish zone is Mn3+, denoting a change in redox environment; however, even though the amount of Cu remains significant, its chromophore effect is obscured by Mn3+. The dark-green prismatic overgrowth, characterised by a sharp increase in Fe, Mn and also Ca, is interpreted as a late-stage partial re-opening of the geochemical system. This occurrence could potentially be related to mechanical instability of the cavity in which the crystal grew.
Journal Article
nsaio6 : neuer schmuck aus Idar-Oberstein = new jewellery from Idar-Oberstein
Beginning with the renaissance of gemstones in jewellery design since the 1970s, Ute Eitzenhèofer, Theo Smeets, Lothar Brèugel (ret. 2014) and Eva-Maria Kollischan (since 2014) successfully established the Hochschule Trier in Idar-Oberstein as a creative European jewellery centre. To mark the exhibition in the Stadtmusem Simeonstift in Trier on thirty years of the Gemstone and Jewellery Department, the publication shows an exciting selection of works from the last ten years. Works in creative design and photography accompany diverse approaches that exemplify the contemporary use of a reputedly 'outmoded' raw material. In exploring the aesthetic characteristics of the material and the experimental confrontation with its physical qualities, the gemstone's potential for design comes entirely into its own. Within current discourse it comments ironically, on the one hand, on the unilateral societal ascription as a luxury item; on the other, it functions as a charming and noble object of nature. Exhibition: Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, Germany (27.01.16 - 26.02.2017).
Book
Love and greed in the world of antiques; NONFICTION; BOOKS
For already obsessed shoppers who frequent flea markets, antiques stores and auctions, \"Killer Stuff and Tons of Money\" will become quickly addictive.
Newspaper Article