Facet » Resourses

The Jewel Book of Archduchess Anna of Baveria

admin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:03:21 +0000

Or Kleinodienbuch der Herzogin Anna von Bayern the entire book can be seen at die Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek web site. After a bit of fumbling around I was able to navigate the site pretty well. The jewel book is a visual record of the personal collection Duchess Anna and Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria. The hand painted manuscript by the German master Hans Mielich displays more than one hundred gouache drawings of jewellery, belonging to Duchess Anna and the Duke.

In 1541 Mielich travelled to Rome on a commission from Duke William IV of Bavaria (Albert’s father). He stayed there until 1543, From 1545 onwards Duke Albert V of Bavaria helped him obtain commissions one of which was this extraordinary manuscript. His signature can be found on the first plate which is a portrait of the Duke and Duchess It took Mielich two years to execute the drawings and the book was completed in 1555. You can see the silver guilt used to highlight pearls has tanished and that the style for rendering diamonds was to paint them in shades of black which looked most similar to the old style table cut diamonds.

Drawing

admin — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:00:55 +0000

I draw a lot! I have many moleskin sketchbooks full of designs rendered to scale along with notes and updates. I am starting a new group that has to be finished soon, I rely on my sketchbooks to be a visual record, starting point, or warning beacon of where not to go.

Racecar Jewelry

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:23:00 +0000

Racecar Jewelry Co. Inc. started by Daniel Grandi in 1998 is a full service investment casting and finishing shop utilizing modern lost wax casting techniques. They produce high quality metal products for jewelry designers, They cast in many types and colors of Gold, Silver, Platinum, Brass, Bronze, Pewter and also provide a full line of production services including mold making, model building, design consultation, and finishing and plating.

I was trying to find a way to produce less esxpensive samples in bronze and found Dan’s shop online. I could not be happier with the work they did on the “grill” cuff.

Jewelry Photography

admin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:04:00 +0000

I have struggled with photographing my work for a really long time I’m not against using photographers in fact it would be great, but I always seem to be really late and I just don’t have time to turn over the collection to a photographer. So I take pictures myself with varying degrees of success. I just found a site that give instruction on how to photograph your work but also how to retouch the photos so they look really close to Tiffany’s style of photos. I have to say I was skeptical but I downloaded the tutorial and it was very helpful in fact I would say my retouching skills definitely improved. So go get the free PDF and see how it goes. http://www.imagingprep.com/ they charge for there real tutorials I think I am going to get a subscription I’ll let you know how it goes.

Emeralds

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:54:00 +0000

Mr. Ravi K Lashkery from Gemorex was very helpful at a recent meeting. I was attending the JA winter show and his booth had massive smooth emerald necklaces and a lot of unique cut stones and brioletts. He really was very knowledgeable and innovative. you can visit his web site to get an idea of the quality of his merchandise.

They also specialize is custom cut semi precious stones he showed me a few pieces they where working on for another client and I bought a few rose cut citrine, topaz and ruby as well as flat cut stones that are similar in style to the flat cut diamonds.

Stone Rings

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:55:00 +0000

I recently got these custom made stone ring blanks in. Last June I had samples cut here in New York from rough I bought at a stone importer, most of the material I got was not very good. I thought rough was rough and the lapiderist could use whatever I gave them. I learned a lot from that experience. Buying rough is an art in and of it self and requires x-ray vision.
This is the specification drawing I did and the final stone ring blank I really like making the drawing. It required me to adjust every measurement based on the ring size. I did three sizes the lapiderist was right on the mark.

Facetating

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:39:00 +0000

Robert Bently Has some very cool “faceted” stones. actually they are cut flat on two sides like a table cut and then on the third side the surface is fractured like it was hit with a hammer.I just met with Robert and his staff again this week at the JA winter show and the interesting thing is the cut of the stones is called mirror cut and the are cleaved along a natural cleave in the stone.

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:32:00 +0000

these great new cabs I had made they are 20 x 80 x 6 mm and I am fitting them into silver, gold and rose gold bezels with diamond or ruby accents.