ANST - Russian Jewelry

[Stefan li Rous]

Since this display is/will be in Houston, I thought some here might
be interested. I don't remember this being mentioned here before. My
appologies if it has.

Stefan

> From: Salli Weston <westo006 at tc.umn.edu>
> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
> Subject: Russian Jewelry
> Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 11:34:26 -0500
> Organization: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus
 
> I thought some on the list would find this interesting I apoligize for
> the length.  Taken from the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
> 
> Russian treasures of gold and jewels that survived centuries of upheaval
> and even the Bolshevik Revolution will make their home in the United
> States for the next 11 months.
> 
> "Imagine if, in 700 years, the Smithsonian Institution packed up 140 of
> America's finest treasures and sent them to Russia for the Russian
> people to enjoy, then you'd see you what they have done for us," says
> Jim Weaver, president of the board of directors of the Houston Museum of
> Natural Science where "Kremlin Gold: 1,000 Years of Russian Gems and
> Jewels" is on show.
> 
> The pieces will be shown only in Houston and, starting in October, at
> Chicago's Field Museum. They will return to Moscow at the end of March
> 2001 and will not travel again, according to Kremlin Museum director
> Irina Rodimtseva.
> 
> A Byzantine influence  
> 
> Seven years in the making, "Kremlin Gold" sprung from an idea by
> Houstonmuseum president Truett Latimer and gem and jewel curator Joel
> Bartsch to exhibit a single collection that spanned 1,000 years.
> 
> "The Kremlin is one of the only museums with extensive enough holdings
> to bring 1,000 years to us," Bartsch says.
> 
> Though most Americans recognize the Kremlin as Russia's political seat,
> the633-year-old Moscow complex is also the country's cultural and
> historical center.  Its State Historical-Culture Museum has about 65,000
> pieces in its collection and historical records.
> 
> The Houston exhibition is split into two galleries, one focusing on
> pre-18th century, the other the 18th century to the present.
> 
> Common to most of the pieces is the signature metalwork, inlaid
> gemstones and religious icons, the last a result of a strong Byzantine
> influence on Russian art.
> 
> In 1557, Ivan the Terrible commissioned a gold frame, or oklad, to cover
> a painted wooden icon of the Madonna and Child. Considered the best
> example of 16th-century Russian goldsmithing, the bejeweled and
> filigreed frame now has only black velvet where the icons once sat. It
> took three years to complete.
> 
> More impressive in size is the golden sarcophagus cover of Prince
> Dmitry, Ivan's youngest son, who died at age 8 in 1591. The boy was
> canonized in 1603, and Czar Mikhail Feodorovich ordered a life-size
> image of him crafted in gold in 1630.
> 
> Kremlin artisans embellished the 65-pound cover with filigree, various
> jewels and small portraits of the family's patron saints, a common
> feature of religious Russian art. Only three such covers are known to
> exist.
> 
> "During Napoleon's invasion in 1812, the actual sarcophagus was lost,
> but a group of jewelers carried the cover outside of the city and hid
> it," says Kremlin curator Marina Martinova.
> 
> The silver shrine holding the boy saint's body has never been found,
> Martinova said.
> 
> Russians took great care to hide the country's prized artwork in times
> of war or invasion and "would lay down their lives to protect them," she
> said.  Several of the pieces on display were recovered centuries after
> they were hidden or disappeared.
> 
> A braided gold bracelet and a gold necklace accented with cut glass,
> both dating from the 4th century and the oldest pieces on display, were
> discovered by boys playing near their Black Sea homes in 1927. The works
> were believed hidden when the Huns invaded. When the boys' father turned
> the treasures over to the government, he was rewarded with a horse -- a
> prized possession in the harsh years of starvation that followed the
> October Revolution.
> 
> Preserving the past  
> 
> Even though the gold and jewelry held at the Kremlin was symbolic of the
> excesses of the very aristocracy the Bolsheviks fought to overthrow,
> Russia's new rulers preserved them when they seized power in 1917.
> 
> But the Romanov family's collection of 54 Faberge eggs -- perhaps the
> most famous pieces of Russian art -- were considered extravagances and
> sold in the 1930s. Modern Russian art historians consider that a
> mistake. Only 10 are now in the country, the rest held by private
> collectors.
> 
> "When I first started as a tour guide 36 years ago, I was taught that
> the Faberge exhibit was nothing," says Irina Polianina, a Kremlin
> curator. "Step by step, we changed our understanding of it."
> Two of the eggs are in the exhibit, one made to commemorate the
> completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1900 and the other a 1909
> tribute to the Romanovs' royal yacht, the Standart. Both were
> commissioned by Czar Nicholas II as gifts for his wife.
> 
> The eggs' fine detail is almost too precise for the naked eye to see
> behind the glass cases.
> 
> The railroad egg contains a working miniature model of the very first
> train to ride the route, cut in gold and platinum and made to be folded
> to the size of a matchbook. The train's windows -- smaller than an
> infant's fingernail -- are made of quartz crystal, clear for most cars
> and dark for the smoking sections.
> 
> The Standart egg has 1,786 diamonds of varying size adorning a platform
> of gold, platinum and lapis lazuli. A precise finger-sized model of the
> 350-foot yacht rides on an ocean of quartz carved with waves breaking
> off the tiny vessel's bow.
-- 
Lord Stefan li Rous                Mark S. Harris
Barony of Bryn Gwlad               Austin, TX
Ansteorra                          stefan at texas.net
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