Rubies are Red
Rubies are Red
The name “ruby” comes from the Latin word Rubes, directly indicating the color of this gemstone. The source of this precious stone in Early modern times was Asia. The 17th century Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–1689) was a gem merchant who undertook six voyages to India and beyond. His writings give a detailed account of his observations during his travels; about one of the ruby mines in Burma he writes that it “produced a ruby as large as a walnut.”
In the 16th century, interest in nature peaked and at the start of the development of a natural science were the men of learning such as the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) and the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Among their focus of interest were gemstones.
Aldrovandi attributes the following uses to the ruby: it subdues poison; helps prevent sadness and sleeplessness; When worn around the neck it cheers the heart, and when drunk it opposes melancholy. A costly anti-depressant so to speak. Kircher also mentions rubies are helpful against poison and calls it a noble antidote. And with that last note he points out a very interesting feature of the ruby (and for that matter, all other precious stones) : they were for the wealthy.
How Enamel went from Here to There and Back Again
Cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects with colored material held in place by metal strips (in our jewel this metal is gold). Craftmanship in painted enamel, developed from cloisonné and champlevé, came from 15th century France, Italy and the Netherlands. Sources suggest that this technique was introduced to China as early as the 11th century, but there are only cloisonné objects found in the collection of the early Qing court (1644) where women used these wares in their boudoirs. In China the technique was called ‘Guiguoyao’ 鬼國黛 and ‘Guiguoqian’ 鬼國嵌. Painted enamel was introduced to China from Europe in the 1680s. The Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722) promoted the acquiring and practice of this kind of enamel. Painted-enamel technique had much in common with the traditional Chinese ceramic technology, which was a main reason for its success in China. One of the results was the innovation of porcelain-bodied painted enamel. At first the enamel wares were only produced for the Court. But around 1725, metal bodied enamel wares were produced in Guangzhou for the European market. Because even though the technique was introduced to the East from the West, it was the production in China that kept the knowledge of painted enamel alive, because in the West, the technique almost died with the rise of Byzantium.