Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Mastery of Design: A Bohemian Garnet Hair Ornament, c. 1830

Garnet Hair Ornament
The British Museum












































Imagine an elegant ballroom, flickering in the light of candles held in chandeliers and girandoles dripping in crystals.  A lady nods a greeting to you.  Nestled in the cascades of curls which form her upswept coiffure is this ornament, a fiery shower of crimson sparks from a foliate spray.


This gold hair ornament is set with briolette-cut garnet drops and pearls hung from eight gold volutes set behind a rose gold ribbon which is also mounted with garnets.  It was made in Bohemia (or possibly Austria) circa 1830 and was collected by Professor John and Anne Hull Grundy who donated their important collection of jewels to the British Museum in 1978.





So...do you like garnets?  Do you like mysteries?  Drama?  Reading?  Me?  Do you like me?

Have you read my first novel, The Garnet Red?  I wrote it many years ago.  It even ties into the Mr. Punch stories.

Christmas is coming up.  Do you know what makes a great gift?  Books.  Books make great gifts.  Or, if you're one of those e-reader types, you can do that.  You can download it at the iTunes store by going here.  If you've got a Nook, you can buy an e-Book here through Barnes and Noble.  Or you can buy an actual book book on Amazon.

As you know, I don't hawk a lot of things here.  I keep the self-promotion to the bare minimum.  But...go on...buy a book, so I can keep doing this, and keep feeding the dog and the puppets and the cats...  



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