Much gaudier gauds

Can I just say that this is a huge improvement on my past rosary attempts?  My first one made of rose petals was very sentimental with the roses and help from my children making the beads, but was not very authentic.The gauds were far too small and the beads made of rose petals not remotely documentable.  The second gold one was reasonably close to some of the extant types, but even with loads of gold beads it just didn't have any oomph. I'm super happy with the new one, and I think it has something to do with the extreme contrast between the jasper ave beads and the big goldtone gauds.  Because of the late date of the dress, it comes after a papal bull issued by Pope Pius V, Consueverunt Romani Pontificies.  Issued in September of 1569, the bull standardizes the use of the rosary to the 15 decade Dominican version.  The 5 decade rosary with the 3 antiphone beads in the dangle became the norm for rosaries that weren't used by the clergy.  I loosely based mine on an emerald rosary in Munich dated 1600 featured on Chris Laning's  Paternoster blog. Her supposition is that it is Spanish because of the materials. I wanted to try the cross made of beads, but couldn't get a bead to drill cleanly to make the center so I settled for a tassel instead. And yes, I do realize that this ensemble has bunches and bunches of tassels.  What can I say? I like them.

Gilding under glass

Italian verre eglomise devotional pendant 1600 Metropolitan Museum of Art

Reading Cennini is giving me far too many ideas. Chapter 172 is about making mosaics from egg shells and the quills of feathers. It also has an early description of how to do verre eglomise. Cennini refers to it as mosaic for the adornment of reliquaries, but it is the layered working of gilded glass that will eventually go by the French term.

It was a very popular technique used for religious pendants between 1300 and 1600 and the Italians were well known for it. The Victoria and Albert have a number of pieces. Some of my favorites in this time period  that turned up in a quick search:
 German reliquary pendant 1550-1600. 
Spanish or possibly Italian pendant, early 17th century.
1550-1600 Italian pendant.

What really has me intrigued, however, is this rosary from the V&A's exhibition "At Home in Renaissance Italy" borrowed from the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica e Palazzo Madama in Turin. The rosary beads are made in two parts with gilding and painting of the verre eglomise type in between, held together by metal settings.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1487_renaissance/devotion.html

Chris Laning did a fascinating series of posts on her Paternoster blog regarding this and a similar piece. Crystal gazing.

So, I've been pondering how exactly I would go about making something like that. I think I have some ideas involving Cennini's gilding instructions, glass cabachons, bronze tape, a soldering iron, a drill, and a bit of crazy. I'm certainly looking forward to trying. First I've got to finish the leather applique, however, so I don't keep adding to my pile of half finished projects. Just one and a half of the original six motifs left to do.

Gold Rosaries

After making my earlier rosary with its inaccurate but sweet smelling beads full of fun memories with my children I started seeing them in lots of Italian portraits. One I find most intriguing is Moretto de Brescia's Lady in White.

The dress is 1540's and such an interesting mix of things, but the two parts I am most enamored with are her giant gold rosary and the fact that her earrings aren't earrings. Instead, in a way very like Rus temple rings, they dangle from the hair ornament down in front of her ears. I'd really like to try doing a similar hair ornament, but right now lets look at the rosary. It hangs clear down the front of her dress, ending in a 3 bead tassel with a little white bow. Chris Laning over at Paternaster Row mentioned it on her blog but I haven't found much else. I had gold beads, but certainly not large enough ones to create something nearly that long. I went looking at other gold rosaries to see if anything further inspired me. I ran across the Langdale Rosary at the V&A (m.30-1934) It's one of the only surviving 16th century English rosaries.

I love the lozenge shaped beads that act as the gauds in this piece. The beads themselves are just amazing. Each is decorated with 2 saints. There are similar early 16th century gold Italian beads with "Ave" carved into them. They're currently held at the Cleavland Museum of Art. They also end in a little bow. I'm not sure if that is surviving or a product of later restringing, but the single decade rosary terminating in a pink ribbon is rather beautiful.

As I'm not a master goldsmith, beads like that are way out of the realms of possibility, but I did have some heavy gold beads with a bit of filigree on the surface. I'd used some of them for my IRCC hairpins, which was unfortunate since it meant that I no longer had the 50 required for a 5 decade rosary, which is what da Brescia's Lady was wearing. Additionally, even if I had 50, they just wouldn't give me the length required. I didn't necessarily want it to hang all the way down to the end of the bodice, but it needed to be longer than a standard necklace.

Then I ran across a gold rosary that had belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots. It had non-counted spacer beads between each of the beads in each decade.

So, I decided to go ahead with a combination of the things I liked about each rosary while working with what I had on hand. I used the heavy gold filigreed beads with a few similar gold beads added to fill up the number to 50. The size is similar, and since I had decided to do flat vaguely diamond shaped gauds the difference between the aves and gauds is significant enough I felt it wasn't an issue. I strung everything on black silk with small rice shaped gold filigree beads for spacers, leaving a little space for the beads to move freely. I had a filigree pendant found in the bottom of a bag of junk jewelry, and I threaded a bit of ribbon through it and tied it in a bow for the concluding tassel

I'm rather pleased with the results of the mash-up of the various rosaries and think its a pretty necklace in its own right. Once I don't have budget constraints I think I'll pick up some silk ribbon for the terminal, but that's all that I might change.

Missed the Rapture, but I made a rosary

Not quite what I had in mind, but I'm content with the rosary. The rose beads are more lumpy bumpy than ones I've made in the past, which is rather odd since the mash was smoother than previous batches. All I can figure is its the handling. They are extra sentimental, however, since my kids put so much time into them. I didn't end up using the pearls since the holes in them were too tiny to accommodate the thick red silk I strung the beads on. The gauds are silver beads shaped like roses; rather apropos. The cross is one I was given at Collegium at a class I took on the medieval cycle of life. It is the Cross of San Damiano. It's a cross from Italy with ties to the East. Again, rather appropriate.

I chose to do the rosary in a style similar to the one on the portrait of Federico Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua by Titian. The 5 decade rosary wasn't standardized until Pope Pius V fixed it in 1569, and the 3 bead dangle below doesn't happen much until later either but Federico II was wearing it early, this portrait is dated 1529. He's also a relative of Camilla. Chris Laning of Paternoster Row has a really interesting blog post regarding his rosary, and her site is the place to go if you have any interest in historic rosaries. I didn't add the final pater bead just above the cross, since it didn't fit into my personal methods of devotion, but it was interesting to examine the form. His is also intriguing in that the difference in material between beads and gauds is enough to differentiate. The gauds aren't exceptionally different in size as is the usual case. I used that as justification for using the smallish silver rose beads. The thing that I most liked about making an historical type was the fact that early rosaries are strung on silk and the beads are loose so they can be moved back and forth, rather than fixed as modern ones that are often separated by chain links. Moving and counting the beads is a lovely tactile experience. I strung it on 4 strands of waxed Splendor brand embroidery silk, since its what I had handy. Red is the most common color for stringing rosaries in period.

The vendors at the Faire yesterday kept joking about deflecting the rapture by eating chocolate. I now desperately want chocolate ice cream. May reward myself for cleaning with some. I certainly intend to reward my cleaning of the house with some time sewing. I'm sort of itchy to start the dress. I feel like I've been working on this for quite awhile with little progress since all the projects I've done are small and can't stand alone. Maybe cutting the dress will make it look better. I should finish the hem of the underskirt but my husband is chicken and unwilling to help me mark it. Anyway, something will get done and I'll babble at you tomorrow.

A girl has to have a sense of humor

Remember the rosepetal beads? They are still in process. Normally I just put them in the oven to speed the drying, but this time the kids and I are trying something silly. I had an idea. Always a dangerous thing. Here's a tour through the thought process. (This is what happens when I'm both sleep deprived and have too much of my day spent holding babies and randomly surfing since I can't do anything else with my hands.)

I was making rosepetal beads. I've done that before. They come out sort of crumbly, but smell lovely and are kinda pretty in an ugly duckling sort of way. My 3 year old was helping me, despite having pointed out the fact that the mass of rose mash looked an awful lot like poop. Then I remembered that the Mythbusters once shined poo. How cool would shiny rosepetal beads be? I went looking for instructions on the art of Dorodango. I found this really interesting analysis of children's play and the creation of something from nothing. In reading up a little more it appeared that rose petals probably won't develop a shine quite as well as dirt since they aren't powdery. But wait! I could dry and crush them. The kids were certainly game to give it a shot. So, we started re-rubbing the beads as they dried.

It is at this point that reality asserts itself. There are a few problems with my brilliant plan. A) The kids don't really roll things round. B) There are a LOT of these things. C) Umm, I need these to have holes in them. So, the rose dorodango project just isn't going to work. But we had fun. The kids liked playing with the rose clay. I really was intrigued with the information on dorodango and play and it gave me something interesting to think about for a day or two. The beads are still beads and will still be nice for the rosary, with added sentiment because my kids helped make them and we added my Mother's Day roses. Not to mention the fact that they sure do smell good no matter how much they look like poo. The kids are determined to keep rolling them while they dry, shiny or not. Since they have already put so much time into them I can't tell them no. I figure with the addition of beadcaps and pearls the whole project will turn out fine somehow or another. If nothing else it gave me back my sense of humor in a week where everything seems to be going poorly with the project and looking at the updates of other people doing the challenge has me intimidated and feeling like I have no skill whatsoever.

The lace is almost done for the stockings and I have sketched up a couple of designs for the gold couching, just need to decide which to do. I really will show those tomorrow, I just needed to take a mental health tangent today.

My house smells amazing!

First up, I have to point out that I have no documentation on rose petal beads being used in period for rosaries. The idea that rosaries were made of roses any time before the 19th or 20th century is one of those lovely myths that is, in all likelihood, totally untrue. If you want to read up on what little mention there is of the composition of beads in historical rosaries, I suggest you check out this site.

I, however, fell in love with a rosary made by Katherine Kerr of the Hermitage using rose petal beads and pearls as gauds (the big beads between decades of a rosary.) She also has a mention of an orange peel rosary made in prison in 1597 which I thought was really intriguing. There are some specific reasons why I wanted to do this type of rosary. First up is the reason I wanted to make a rosary in the first place. I recently received a really beautiful cross when I took a class on Cycles of Life in the Medieval World from Sister Scholastica (HE Leah de Spencer KSCA, OP) at Collegium. She is teaching it again at Arn Hold's Baronial collegium this month. If you live in Artemisia and have the opportunity, I can't recommend it enough. The way in which she explains how the view of time in the church defined the secular cycles of time in the community is both fascinating and illuminating. Anyway, I had this cross and no idea what to do with it. Praksedys is Russian Orthodox, and while she would wear a body cross, it would be an 8 ended cross which is the Greek style in contrast to the Roman style.

I also happened to be standing nearby when Dame Theodora Trebizond was restringing pearls recently. She had a bunch that were too large for her preferred uses in needlework and was making them into short lengths to give away for largesse and as tokens. As my persona is Russian she handed me some, because Russian always need more pearls. Its sort of like breathing. Having these two beautiful tokens from two amazing women, I wanted to make something lovely with them.

I had picked and frozen rose petals last summer as part of experiments in rose petal jelly and they were getting freezer burned so it was time to use or toss them. So, rose petal beads. One more accessory for my gown. The accessories are totally taking on a life of their own.

As far as updates on the other in progress bits go, its a mixed bag. The zibellino needs chain and I was unable to find what I wanted locally, so its on order. The leather for the needlecase is drying. The underskirt is back to being padded with felt in the pleats and I keep promising myself I'll just finish it any day now. The chopines are vexing me since I'm not certain my wood is wide enough. I'm hoping for sudden inspiration and a solution to strike me across the back of the head. Lacemaking has pretty much stopped and I'm trying to decide if I want to just purchase lace since, while I'm pretty much done with the lace on the sleeves, it will require a lot of hand embroidery to attach it and do the scalloped sort of shapes similar to the extant piece. I also still have to make the lace for between the gores, for the hem, and for the neckline. If I do that I don't think I'll have the time I need to do the hand work on the partlet, which is visible, as opposed to the camicia. Maybe putting the lace aside for a different project is a better idea. Still trying to decide on that. I'm hoping I'll feel better about it all once I finish the underskirt and at least have one wearable garment to go with my pile of accessories. I may cut the dress out next, just so I don't feel quite so panicked about having no clothes when this is over.