Peridot Tiara

Peridot Tiara

Peridot is the birthstone of fiery August so I thought it would be fitting to feature a crown made from the yellow-green stones. Unfortunately chartreuse does not seem to be the go-to color for royal headwear, but with some searching I found the splendid tiara pictured above. The piece was apparently made for Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg by Kochert, the court jeweler to the Habsburg family, sometime in the 1820s. It is most associated with Princess Isabella of Croÿ (1856-1931), who married Archduke Friedrich, grandson of Henrietta.

Peridot Parure Set

The tiara is a transformer—it has a matching peridot necklace which can be disassembled and attached to little crown as standing pendants. There is also a large peridot brooch for anyone bold enough to wear it. This sort of matching morphing jewelry set is known as a parure and was especially popular in the nineteenth century. Of course times change and tastes shift. In 1937, the peridot parure was sold to another noble, Count Johannes Coudenhove-Kalergi (1893-1965). The counts daughter chose to live in the United States and dispense with the trappings of nobility—so the tiara set in a safety deposit box until her death in 2000, when a Hollywood jeweler purchased it from her estate. They loaned it to celebrities until they could find a private buyer. Here is a picture of Joan Rivers wearing the peridot necklace at the 2004 Golden Globes ceremony… Good grief!

 

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Maria Tomasula

Please Don’t Go (Maria Tomasula, 2010, oil on panel)

Maria Tomasula is a contemporary artist who paints strange collections of beautiful items coalescing into miniature glowing geometric systems (usually against an empty black outer space backdrop).  Dew, flowers, and fruit are the most frequent items in these compositions, but sculptures, amphibians, skulls, mollusks, weapons, and disembodied organs (among other things) also find their way into these little microcosms.

Ground of Being (Maria Tomasula, 2010, oil on panel)

Tomasula paints the shining or dewy objects which make up her still life works with finicky photorealism, yet the abstract structure of the works takes these images towards mathematical abstraction. Her delightful little paintings give us the aesthetics of the natural world as viewed through a dark melting kaleidoscope.

Intercession (Maria Tomasula, 2007, oil on panel)

Tomasula has a particular flair for teasing humankind’s magpie-like fascination with shininess and bright colors.  From across the gallery, her works beguile the viewer closer and closer.  Only when one is next to them does one notice the carnivorous pitcher plants and bird skulls among the velvet, petals, and jewels.   However the dark imagery does not outshine the sensuous appeal of these fastidious spirals, loops, and curtains.  Tomasula invites us to reach into the dark fractal pattern of beauty to grab the waxy flowers, the moist fruits, the polished gems…if we dare.

Second Nature (Maria Tomasula, 2011, oil on panel)
oil on panel