[Tidbits] Aurangzeb

Aurangzeb

Gold. Enamel. Silver. 4,909 diamond roses. 164 emeralds. 160 rubies.
16 pearls. 2 cameos. 1 sapphire. But…alas…no partridge in a pear
tree. These listed above are the materials that went into the making
of cabinet piece entitled the “Household”…created in the early
1700’s for Aurangzeb…great Mogul of India.

Well…great may not be the right word. Fact of it all is that
Aurangzeb deposed his father–creator of the great city of Delhi–and
then subsequently and methodically allowed his empire to enter into a
phase of decline. Moral here folks is this: Be careful when allowing
your children into the family business–especially if you’re in the
Empire business–because it often happens that the kids will screw
things up and before you know it…all your hard work goes down the
drain and the Empire is gone.

The creators of this incredible work of art that you will all soon
see are Johann Melchior Dinglinger–royal jeweler out of Dresden and
brothers Georg Christoph and Georg Friedrich. This was the first major
masterpiece of baroque jewelry in German art. It measures 8,58 x 142
x 114 cm.

Our cabinet piece stands at the forefront of creative art on two
levels. First…though not necessarily foremost…is the very beauty
of the thing. It is complex…filled with vases and figurines and many
of the accouterments representative of the royal household of the
day. It is exact in detail…which brings us to level two.

While Aurangzeb was an ineffectual mogul…Dinglinger was an
extremely learned jeweler. Dinglinger did not create a simple
masterpiece for the sake of beauty alone. Nay nay dear reader.
Dinglinger brought education into this piece. It is filled with
encyclopedic knowledge…for Dinglinger --doesn’t his name remind you
all of a gun fighter–for Dinglinger studied long and hard all the
available literature on India available at the time. And he used that
knowledge to create this accurate representational piece.

Okay. I know this is all a little dry. And I know you would all like
me to finish this so you can go look at the piece. So what can I say.
Go. Look. Enjoy. And I’ll catch you all on the next issue with
another graphic and another Tidbit on jewelry…or at least something
close to it. The graphic is rather huge–94k–you will need to be
patient loading it.

So now…for those of you who are new to this thing called
Tidbits…may I direct you to my home page at www.tyler-adam.com
where you will scroll down the table menu till you get to the box
that says Tidbits…and inside the box where it says Tidbit
Graphics…click on the link that says: Household…where you will
see a rendering of the cabinet piece.

And there ya have it.
That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark