#lapidary art

[petermorwood]

A sundae for Sunday.

But this isn't ice-cream.

It's a carving (!) by Manfred Wild, using rock crystal and semi-precious stones, and I found it here when I was sourcing images for this post.

The website description is a single unbroken paragraph, so here's a more readable version.

The glass (is) formed from exceptionally high clarity rock crystal quartz with faceted citrine rondelles and 18 karat yellow gold banding. The various and colourful “flavours” of ice cream (are) carved from thulite for strawberry, beige jasper for mocha, aventurine quartz for mint, yellow calcite for orange, white quartz for vanilla and cappuccino jasper for chocolate. (All are) topped with a bright carnelian cherry, a wafer cookie of Kalahari jasper and white dolomite whipped cream. (This) generous portion (is) topped with a gold parasol accented in sections with translucent blue, green and purple enamel over guilloche.

Amaury Guichon should do one in sugar-glass and kinds of chocolate, if he hasn't already.

I'm also remembering the time, in Germany for a friend's wedding, we went into an Eiscafé in Speyer. We don't eat elaborate ice-cream very often, so when we do we like to catch up for lost time.

What we hadn't noticed was that the Kugel (scoop) measure in this café was rather larger than usual, so when our orders came out, they looked like - in fact were - these:

On the left, @dduane’s chocolate chip, mocha and double chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. On the right, my mint choc-chip, strawberry, salt-caramel, vanilla, mango and cream. We did splendid execution on both, but had dinner a couple of hours later than originally intended...

Neither was as long-lasting as the carved-crystal-and-minerals one, but the memory section of my Mind Palate confirms that they were infinitely more flavoursome.

Yum.

[srlgemstone]

Pink Beauty - Fortification & Quartz Agates

[arthatred]

Covered Vessel with Ring Handles

Jade (Nephrite)

17th - 18th Century

China

The Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art, Oak Brook IL

[petermorwood]

I bought a copy of this book years ago...

...and while it doesn't show any figurines by Perkhin, it does have several by Gerd Dreher (website) which are equally impressive.

The auction-house / antique-speak name for such things is "objects of vertu", (a term I've only ever seen before in the James Bond story "The Property of a Lady") and means small luxury objects made of precious materials which aren't jewellery-for-wear.

What I've called "Monobloc" are carved from a single piece of material with only a few tiny features (usually eyes) made of something else, while "components" are assembled from large and small separately-carved parts. I don't know if this is correct lapidary terminology, but it makes sense to me.

Here are a couple scanned from the book. No need to guess my favourite.

Seal, monobloc: lapis lazuli.

Falcon & Perch, components: various agates, quartz, copper, gold, unknown mineral base.

Cat, monobloc: citrine.

More pics at this auction site (for some reason the pics and their descriptions are pretty scrambled). Here are a few examples.

Mouse & Mushroom, monobloc: smoky quartz.

Chocolates & Dish, components: banded agate, obsidian, carnelian, gold, rock crystal base.

Chameleon, monoblock: gem chryscolla.

Another Falcon & Perch, components: various agates, quartz, gold, raw copper, rock crystal base.

YMMV, but IMO just reading the list of materials sounds rich, like a description of things found in a treasure-chest.

There's even a style of writing called "lapidary prose", restrained yet flamboyant, AFAIK it's the acceptable face of purple prose - though I bet overdoing it would get unacceptable pretty quick. :->

Kiwi bird figurine (1899-1903 CE), made by master M. Perkhin from the firm K. Faberge, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Legs and beak made of gold, body made of smoky agate, eyes - rubies.

[lex-artis-studios]

Dino does cabochons

Finally, after two years, I finished piecing my redneck cabbing station together in my garage. I tested it out today.

Did a strombolite triangle. Also practiced with some scraps of whatever that green stone is. I don't know. I can't take a decent photo to save my life.

I've been making cabochons since I was a child, when highly skilled lapidary people in the local gem and mineral club thought it'd be a good idea to let a young child near machinery*. 20-ish years later, I have fulfilled my dream of having my own Genie machine and work station so I can make cabs whenever I want, right at home. This is one of my favorite things to do ever and I am so stoked.

**At least they didn't let me use a trim saw or slab saw until I was a teen?

[letmeinimafairy]

Experimenting with river pebbles - the shape of this one reminded me of horse's head, so. Carving it with my tiny 9 watt graver was an exercise in humility but you can't fight the need to make things. Tried to give it this rustic vibe of an amulet of sorts.

[petirrojo57]

Whether admiring from the front or the back, the Heavenly Maid Tiannü 天女 is a beauty!

She’s carved from #Jade, a rich, green Jadeite variety, #Chloromelanite

[folkmarketgems]

300 grams Extremely rare Natural Grandidierite for cutting

Can facet and cabbed with transparency and slight brilliance

Sizes: under 1 to 3 gram per piece

No treatment

Origin: Madagascar

Price: $590 usd

Shipping: $15 USD by FedEx

[ecstasyandwine]

[hatchethive]

Lovely art!

new tree!!

[desimonewayland]

A Banded Agate Snuff Bottle 1750-1850 The pale, transparent stone is encircled at the center by parallel white bands and the neck has been carved to suggest the folds of a cinched purse. The base is incised with a two-character mark, zhen wan (precious plaything). Pink tourmaline stopper.

Christie's

[old-powwow-days]

Inherited Legacies by Darby Raymond-Overstreet

Currently showing as part of the Nizhónígo Hadadít’eh, They are Beautifully Dressed exhibition through September 29nth 2024

[srlgemstone]

Clearly visible zeolite rods in agate create a beautiful image.

If you turn the photo slightly to the right. You can see a silhouette blowing sticks. Stick Maker

Stick Agate Pair

[arthatred]

Vase With Mythic Creatures

Agate

19th Century

China

The Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art, Oak Brook IL

[jey-towers]

“¿Para qué extrañar a los muertos?

No es necesario. Ellos están en un mejor lugar.

¿Por qué mejor no te extrañas a ti?

No eres ni la sombra de lo que deseabas ser”.

- Charles Bukowski.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jey.towers

[stoners1685]

Orpheus agate