University researchers discover "lost" Elizabethan craftsmanship to match 21st century technology

Birmingham City University (via Phys.org) ^ | 7-23-2013

[Renfield]

Elizabethan craftsmen developed advanced manufacturing technology that could match that of the 21st century, claim researchers from Birmingham City University who are analysing a 400-year-old hoard of jewellery.

The team from Birmingham City University have analysed the craftwork behind the famous Cheapside Hoard - the world's largest collection of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery discovered in a London cellar in 1912.

Among the historic find – which is being showcased by the Museum of London – is a Ferlite watch that dates back to the 1600s and is so technologically advanced it has been described as the "iPod of its day"....

[buffaloguy]

Bauhausman!

Bauhaus is no more than artistic humbuggery!

[ApplegateRanch]

an iPod is much more beautiful
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You have no soul.

Ars gratia artis

[MacMattico]

I gotta say, it's a beautiful watch, advanced for it's time, but if I were stuck in the 1600’s I'd like to have a preloaded iPod with a solar charger over that watch any day! And I'm female so I'm no “kind of man”.

[Flying Circus]

I see modernist minimalism as a atrophy of the modern soul’s appreciation of beauty. Genuine craftsmanship is a wonderful thing to behold.

An Ipod is an impressive piece of technology that through its screen serves as a magnificent window to whatever the user looks for in it. The exterior though is bland, easily mass manufactured and without the function of it’s screen has nothing remotely interesting or remarkable to recommended to people who look at it 500 years from now.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

That headline is kinda misleading. The craftsmanship was beautiful but the technology of today is far superior.

[flaglady47]

“I have no taste? You sir are the sort that would buy furniture with carved scallop shells adorning the hardwood and call it art.”

LOL. First, I suspect one would not call someone named flag”lady”, a “sir”, so you get one demerit point for not being observant. Second, carved scallop shells are indeed curvilinear, and therefore would be to my liking. Give me that old rococo or the wonderful art nouveau. And no, you don’t seem to have my taste in art. Your taste, I suspect is much more concrete, with lots of straight lines, and more in line with perhaps modern art. But that’s all right. Each to their own.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

If you are in a cave or basement—the day-night feature would be handy. But, admittedly, its a limited feature. I wish more of our technolical elements were made with more decoration. This watch was for a rich man and was state of the art for the time. I guess I am more a Captain Nemo type and would like our world to look a bit more like the 19th Century.

[dsc]

“Each to their own.”

I also love art deco.

BTW, the saying is, “To each his own.”

[flaglady47]

“BTW, the saying is, “To each his own.”

Not when I’m talking about the two of us. How egocentric of you.

[cynwoody]

Except, unlike the ipod, it is beautiful as well as functional.

It's hard to imagine Steve wasting time creating trivial, hand-made decorations on an artifact of little utility and extreme production cost.

The iPod is incomparably more beautiful.

Work smart, not hard.

[flaglady47]

BTW, I love Art Deco too. I like Art Nouveau better, but Art Deco is mighty fine too. I have assorted objects d’art in both styles. Along with colonial, traditional, Prairie style, Arts & Crafts, French Provincial, Chinese, a tad of English country, and a partridge in a pair tree. To say my tastes are eclectic is an understatement, lol. Oh, and a smidgen of Victorian, just a smidgen.

[cynwoody]

That works fine until you travel longitudinally and want to know what time it is ‘back home.’

I recommend Beijing.

Wanna know what time it is back home? Look at your watch and swap AM and PM. (Works on the East Coast).

[Lancey Howard]

Wanna know what time it is back home? Look at your watch and swap AM and PM. (Works on the East Coast).

Then all you need to do is figure out what day it is.

[dsc]

“Not when I’m talking about the two of us. How egocentric of you.”

Sorry, but I really don’t think that makes any sense at all. Correct is correct, and incorrect is incorrect. It has nothing at all to do with my (considerably battered) ego.

[dsc]

“I like Art Nouveau better”

I think I do too. Mucha, Dulac, Lindsay, Parrish...

[flaglady47]

“Sorry, but I really don’t think that makes any sense at all. Correct is correct, and incorrect is incorrect. It has nothing at all to do with my (considerably battered) ego.”

Actually, the reason it didn’t make any sense was I thought I was responding to the other guy I had been engaged in conversation with, not a new person, namely you. It wasn’t your ego I thought I was referring to. Apologies.

As to Art Nouveau, if you saw Francis Ford Coppola’s movie of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, there are a couple of scenes of Lucy on her deathbed where Coppola uses a halo effect around Lucy’s neck that is a direct take from Alphonse Mucha’s style. To quote: “Mucha’s works frequently featured beautiful young women in flowing, vaguely Neoclassical-looking robes, often surrounded by lush flowers which sometimes formed halos behind their heads.”

Also, Dracula himself (played by Gary Oldman) appears later in the film in a flowing robe which is pure Art Nouveau in design this time copped off from Gustav Klimt in pattern. I might add that Klimt’s lifelong companion, Emilie Floge, designed those kind of robes like Dracula wore, and Klimt would then provide the decorative design. Klimt also wore her smocks himself. I have a poster of him wearing one of her smocks while boating with her. One of the reasons I love that version of Dracula by Coppola, is it’s wonderful artistic Art Nouveau touches.

[flaglady47]

“I think I do too. Mucha, Dulac, Lindsay, Parrish...”

Actually, I wouldn’t categorize Dulac, Lindsay, and Parrish in the Art Nouveau style as much as those of graphic artists, etchers, and illustrators working at the turn of the century and beyond. Overlap with the time period of Art Nouveau, but stylistically not so much. Mucha, although an illustrator, I would definitely put in the Art Nouveau style.

[kabumpo]

Your response is typical of the philistinism so prevelant on FR. It is tragic, and repugnant that the high level of artisanship and love of beauty that characterize that piece are dismissed as “trivial”.
What next, burning the Mona Lisa as fuel?
It also mystifies me that on a news group described as conservative.I encounter so many with no knowledge, respect or appreciation of the tradtions of the past.

[SunkenCiv]

Figure 7. The miniature portrait on the left of Queen Anne of Denmark (1574–1619) is not from the Cheapside Hoard, but it shows a jewel in her hair that is remarkably similar to the blue sapphire and spinel pendant on the right. These gems from the hoard indicate trade with far-off Asia, including modern day Sri Lanka, India, and Myanmar. Only one of the pearls from the original design survived. The portrait photo on the left is © Victoria & Albert Museum. The pendant on the right is courtesy of the Museum of London; photo by Robert Weldon/GIA.

The Museum of London’s Extraordinary Cheapside Hoard | Robert Weldon and Cathleen Jonathan | Gemological Institute of America | Fall 2013, Vol. 49, No. 3

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 7/28/2013, thanks again Renfield.

Just a 2021 bump.

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There are almost 500 pieces, but it is thought some pieces may have been taken by the workmen...

There are also Egyptian, Byzantine and classical gems that had been in circulation for as much as 1,600 years, including an amethyst with the head of a Roman emperor.

It is generally accepted that the Hoard was buried during the English Civil Wars, 1642 to 1646.

Just some of the pieces that make up the hoard – which contained finished and unfinished articles, loose gems and a variety of finished jewels. © Museum of London