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拍品專文
The art of carving in rock crystal, the colourless variant of quartz, was a highly treasured art-form in antiquity but one that also gained a renewed interest in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The beauty of the material is its glass-like transparency, however, there was also a great fascination with its hardness and the amount of skill required to carve it. It was therefore essential for a renaissance collector to own the finest rock-crystal carvings or vessels as symbols of his high status. The wealthy Medici, Hapsburgs and Spanish royal families each amassed vast collections of delicately carved rock crystal ewers, jars and cups many decorated with scenes from antiquity or with highly elaborate scrollwork.
As a result the acquisition of functional objects that incorporated rock crystal, such as the lot on offer here, was merely an extension of an already established tradition of venous collecting, and to have even one's candlesticks carved out of rock crystal was a true expression of a collector's high status.
The beauty of the material is its glass-like transparency, however, there was also a great fascination with its hardness and the amount of skill required to carve it. It was therefore essential for a renaissance collector to own the finest rock-crystal carvings or vessels as symbols of his high status. The wealthy Medici, Hapsburgs and Spanish royal families each amassed vast collections of delicately carved rock crystal ewers, jars and cups many decorated with scenes from antiquity or with highly elaborate scrollwork.
As a result the acquisition of functional objects that incorporated rock crystal, such as the lot on offer here, was merely an extension of an already established tradition of venous collecting, and to have even one's candlesticks carved out of rock crystal was a true expression of a collector's high status.