Turquoise was obtained from the Sinai Peninsula before the 4th millennium BC in one of the world’s first crucial hard-rock mining operations. It was trans- ported to Europe through Turkey, which may account for its name, which is French for “Turkish.” Highly prized turquoise has come from Neyshabur, Iran. American Indians have worked numerous deposits in the southwestern United States for centuries. Coromandel, or calamander, is a valuable wood native to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. It is a hazel-brown color with black stripes (or the other way around), very heavy and stiff. It is also known as Macassar ebony or variegated ebony and is closely related to genuine ebony, but is obtained from a different species in the same genus. One of these is Diospyros quaesita Thwaites, from Sri Lanka. The name “calamander” comes from the local Sinhalese name kalu-medhiriya, meaning “dark chamber,” referring to the characteris- tic ebony-black wood. It is used in furniture, luthiery, high-grade canes, and walking sticks. Calamander has been logged to ex- tinction over the last two to three hundred years and is no longer available for new work in any quantity. Furniture made of calamander is so expensive and well-maintained that even recycling it is unlikely. Because of its strategic location along trade routes between Western Europe and Asia, as well as bet- ween Scandinavia and the Byzantine and Islamic Near East, Russia drew on many cultures and devel- oped dis-tinctive styles. It is not surprising that Russian jewels and enamels reflect the ornamental traditions of many cultures. By the end of the 19th century, the rich layering of sty- listic influences, accumulated over about three hundred years, had created overt tension between Moscow’s Russianness and St. Petersburg’s Europeanism. These different approaches to cultural heritage are evident in the production of various Moscow and St. Petersburg workshops. One made robust silver daily vessels using traditional Russian shapes, while the other created boxes, frames, and bell push with shim- mering en-plein enamel in the French manner.
Continental Cane Collection Auction - 7
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