December 2010 Archives

Last year, about this time, Cartier put together an ad campaign based on a Panther kitten.; They have revived the campaign as The Winter Tale, with a bit more of a seasonal (read Christmas) slant, but no less cute overload

This seems to be the title-page for the campaign, since there are no actual products depicted

Some ladies wallets and a Baignoire watch, a design from the early 20th century
A mans Ballon Bleu watch, pen, cufflinks and some leatherwork

all pictured from Cartier's site

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Barry X Ball is an American sculptor who's been working on a series of pieces recently based on famous historical sculpture, his "Masterpieces".  Based, in this case, means he scans the original, generates a 3d model of it, tweaks the model and then uses that model to create his new version in a new type of stone. 

An example of this would be of the Borghese Hermaphrodite, a 2nd C CE Roman marble on a 17th C mattress which resides in the Louvre.  Ball has taken the original, reversed it (side to side), subtly tweeked the form of the body, and created it anew in black Belgian marble.


CNC machine at work carving the new Herm (source)

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The Italian Jewelry/Watch house of Bulgari celebrates its 125th birthday this year (previously mentioned ) and is currently showing 600 pieces at the Grand Palais, in Paris.

Among some of the highlights

Yellow Gold choker set with rubies and diamonds and blue enamel (1975)	Broach with cabuchon rubies and diamonds (1930)

Their serpent watches have been made for at least the last 50 years, and are an technical tour-de-force, both in the construction and in the enamel works. The watch face hides within the mouth of the snake, until the wearer opens the mouth to check the time

Bulgari also shows off their connections to the beautiful and famous

Emerald and diamond necklace once worn by Elizabeth Taylor (1962)	Ingrid Bergman wearing Bulgari jewels in the 1962 film The Visit

(source)

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I may be incorrect, but I believe that's a Kindle that the smaller red-robed figure is pointing to....



From an review of several books on Mary in the NY Times Magazine

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Jean-Pierre Houdin has put together a well researched and explained theory on the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.  He is planning to release some new material in the coming months, so here is a summary of where we are so far, thanks to Shemsu Sesen at Em-Hotep.

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