Lapis lazuli seahorse cufflinks

 

Sea Horse CufflinksHandcrafted in Italy
Villa
couturelab.com
£2,890

I am ready to dive in!!..into the sea, I mean..Thinking of spending 3 days in Tuscany.
Where would you like to go for a short holiday?
Do you prefer sea or mountain?

A tribute to Constantinople

A little design I made as a tribute to the city without which, amongst other things, the world of mosaic would not have been as we know it today.

Have a great weekend!

More cufflinks, more blue - handcrafted in Italy

Remember my recent post on lapis lazuli ? There I featured some cufflinks from Villa available on couturelab.com. In the new email I got from them, what stood out was these hexagonal lapis cufflinks. Apparently the "lapis lazuli concept" is working.!
And by the way ..on Mosaicology we have "switched into blue mode" if you consider that my last post was dominated by blue!!!

Hexagonal Lapis Cufflinks
Handcrafted in Italy
Villa
£835
Size: U

Villa cufflinks
Handcrafted
18k yellow gold
Lapis lazuli
Deep blue
L2cm

Eggs...out of the blue!

Yesterday I had a very creative afternoon. I don't know where all this came from. I was meaning to work on some patters for cards, then I saw the faberge egg that fascinates me so much and decided to try design something.

All these stuff are basically completely out of the blue.

Then I decided that the first image needed a better quote and then placed an out of the blue, very common I know, but so right!

Have a great week and take as many hours of rest as possible! It will boost your creativity.

Can you live without colour?

Can you?  A little quick design by me. Have a great, colourful weekend !

Larnaca, city of planes and mosaic angels

Larnaca, a city by sea in Cyprus where the airport is situated offers some wonderful and thrilling moments for especially those with children when you know that if you raise your head while sunbathing you will see the plane that close you think you can touch it! This is what happened to me last year (or was it 2 years ago, need to check when the pictures where taken) and I took the camera to take some shots of the event. I kept them in a file and accidentally retrieved them a couple days ago! I decide to post them along with some glorious mosaics that you can find in Larnaca. Cool right? I am talking about the byzantine mosaics of Kiti (Larnaca district) dated 11th century in a lovely church called Panagia Angeloktisti (our lady, Mother of God, built by the angels)

The main part of Panagia Aggeloktistos which means “Our Lady built by the angels”

scenic church exterior

church exterior from another angle

the promenade in Larnaca, see the palm trees, the place is dubbed "foinikoudes" (palm trees)...(I love this place!!!)

Larnaca airport (city is small, you come out the airport the sightseeing begins!)

Larnaca marina

Now, the pictures I promised from my archives. The post's top picture with the plane was also taken that day.

This beach is called Mackenzie, there are lovely restaurants flanking the beach and it is ideal for families. You can spend the entire day there, having drinks, then lunch, coffee, dinner.

A map is always useful.

Larnaca map

More info on visitcyprus and larnaca.com.

PS: 37% of the island of Cyprus is under Turkish occupation since 1974.

Mosaic Fountains

Pompeii, mosaic fountain
via

Hercules and Iolaus mosaic fountain from Anzio Nymphaeum
Museo Nazionale Romano
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome via

modern version, via

mosaic fountain by Marco Bravura

I love fountains, I love water

The last fountain is a work of a Ravenna artist whose work I admire greatly, Marco Bravura, and it is in fact a mosaic-carpet fountain! Can you image the work and project/technical management involved here?

Would love to make a mosaic fountain?I found some instructions here on e-how. Worth reading

http://www.ehow.com/how_4856334_make-mosaic-water-fountain.html

lapis lazuli (some blue loving)

Yellow sapphires and lapis lazuli set in 18K gold

Lapis lazuli and emerald cabochons with 18K gold settings

Lapis lazuli and painted-snail shells with 18K gold settings

First, a warm welcome to my new followers! (Καλωσορίσατε ! )

I love cufflinks! If I was a guy it would be something I would love to wear and possibly be fussy about or start a collection. The above three pairs from Villa Collection lapis lazuli cufflinks are available on www.couturelab.com where all things are possible.

Lapis lazuli was often used in prestigious and priceless Byzantine mosaic icons but the earliest examples are from Mesopotamia and Egypt.

 let's go through some images of this spectacular masterpiece of nature.

Boucheron watch s/s 2011

lapis lazuli vase at the hermitage museum, Russia

lapis lazuli box

wonderful mosaic tie tack!..I lost the link here..

medallion from Greece, via

Some ancient masterpieces...

Standard of Ur, Mesopotamia

King Tut's Solid Gold Mask, Ancient Egypt

 

Gold Vessel in the Form of an Ostrich Egg (Mesopotamian, ca. 2550-2400 B.C.

St Theodore, Stratilates
(featured previously on this blog here)

Some interesting main facts from Wikipedia, whole article here

Description
Lapis lazuli is a rock, largely formed from the mineral lazurite.....Lapis lazuli usually occurs in crystalline marble as a result of contact metamorphism.
Etymology
Lapis is the Latin for "stone" and lazuli the genitive form of the Medieval Latin lazulum, which is from the Arabic لازورد lāzaward, which is ultimately from the Persian لاژورد lāzhward, the name of a place where lapis lazuli was mined.^[5][6] Taken as a whole, lapis lazuli means "stone of Lāzhward". The name of the place came to be associated with the stone mined there and, eventually, with its color. The English word azure, the French azur, the Italian azzurro, the Polish lazur and the Spanish and Portuguese azul are cognates.
Uses
Lapis takes an excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics, ornaments, and vases. It was also ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for tempera paint and, more rarely, oil paint. Its usage as a pigment in oil paint ended in the early 19th century when a chemically identical synthetic variety, often called French ultramarine, became available.

velvet cushion from couturelab

via

Chevron pattern again ! 

I have just received an email from couturelab featuring Yastik by Rifat Ozbek. From the collection, I picked out this large velvet cushion with the chevron pattern to associate it with a spectacular ancient mosaic, taking you back to an older post: chevron-pattern-then-and-now

Byzantine micromosaic icon on auction

via

Breathtaking! And as always...I "stumbled" on this rare mosaic icon while looking for facts and images for another long post....which I hope to be able to post quite soon.

Description (timeline auctions text):

Circa 6-10th century AD. A ceramic mosaic icon mounted on a 17th-18th century AD Russian icon; the mosaic created with black and purple rectangular border depicting a female face in a green headdress on a cream background; the block with red pigmentation and gilded surround; sliding bar to rear.

To take a closer look and find out more about this exquisite work of art you should go to timelineauctions.com.

If you intend to purchase it, please let me know. Really.