Lyre and music in marble and Lapis Lazuli
From Roman Mosaics to the finest craftsmen still working in Florence today Italians have had a fascination with making pictures from coloured pieces of stone.
The art of Pietre Dure spread from Rome to Florence, where the Medici clan invested a lot of their wealth into perfecting the art of turning these polished slivers of semi precious stones into three-dimensional works of art.
My uncle, Scott Read has a particular interest in Pietre Dure so we have spent some time during his holiday this week in Pietre Dure showrooms, museums and workshops across the city.
It has been a pleasure learning about the history of this form of art and understanding the painstaking process by which the stones that form these visual masterpieces are selected, cut, polished and inserted into place in an overall design.
Some of the pieces we saw took up to 20 years from their original painted design to delivery to the people who commissioned them – and if you study the detail in the image above – which is just the centre piece of a table design one can easily see why!
Workshop desks at which stones are cut and polished - sample stones in the cases beyond
The tools used are still relatively simple – it is the skill of the craftsman, who finds exactly the right colour in stone to portray a turning petal or the bright feather of a bird, and shapes it to inlay flush within the overall design. We were invited into a workshop to watch three experts file and polish tiny slivers of polished stone to magically create folds of pink dresses and brightly coloured fish.
The final design is not varnished but polished with diamond dust to achieve a lustre and shine that Johnson Wax Polish can only dream of!
The designs which excited me the most were those where the image appears three dimensional to the extent that you almost believe you could pick it up – like this flute shown below.
Grazie “Zio” for introducing me into this complex and wonderful world of Florentine inlay.
Bravo – Hai fatto un buon lavora!
The Magic Flute - incredible 3D effect
