Citrine and Smoky Quartz Carving of Asclepius by Manfred Wild


Idar-Oberstein, GermanyAs described in Homer's Iliad, Asclepius was most probably a skilled physician who practiced in Greece around 1200BC. Eventually, through myth and legend, he came to be worshipped as Asclepius, the (Greek) god of Healing. To the present day, the staff of Asclepius, with its single serpent encircling it—a symbol of the renewal of youth as the serpent casts off its skin—is considered to be the true symbol of Medicine and a great number of professional organizations use it to represent themselves. Medical schools developed as temples dedicated to Asclepius and it was believed that patients could be cured by sleeping in them and being treated by priest physicians who controlled the sacred secrets of healing, which were passed from father to son. In the present fine gemstone sculpture, Asclepius is depicted through the use of carved light yellow Brazilian citrine; his hair and robes have matte, "frosted" surfaces. He stands upon a carved tapered base of light brown smoky quartz of very high transparency, while his staff is fabricated of 18K yellow gold with an entwined serpent of gold and silver with inset diamond eyes. Height 10 3/4in (27.9cm)
|Provenance: Purchased from Bonhams & Butterfields, Los Angeles, Natural History, June 3, 2007, Sale 14798, Lot 3367. Manfred WildBorn in 1944, Manfred Wild, an eighth-generation gem cutter, is one of the most renowned lapidary artists to emerge from Idar-Oberstein. At the age of twenty, during an apprenticeship with a gemstone merchant, he began his well-rounded educational journey in the areas of fine art, gemstone cutting, engraving and goldsmithing. Working in a family tradition of stone cutters established in 1630, Manfred Wild is one of the world's most famous creators of objets d'art. He is best known for his virtuoso work in rare, precious and semi-precious materials carved as perfume bottles, animals, whimsical figures, flower studies, enameled eggs with concealed "surprises", cameos, chalices and objets de fantaisie made of precious stones, gold and silver. It is helpful, of course, to understand Wild's work within the greater context of 19th and 20th Century Decorative and Jewelry Arts. In addition to the influence of his own family and town, Mr. Wild follows the traditions established by René Lalique and Peter Carl Fabergé (Russian jeweler, 1846-1920) and a great number of parallels can be seen in their work. Fabergé had begun a new era in the Jewelry Arts. Prior to him, many jewelers felt the value of jewelry was intrinsic, based upon the stones (particularly diamonds) and precious metals. The artistic creativity and superior craftsmanship introduced by Fabergé made such objects transcend their "break value". Fabergé also used a number of decorative techniques attributable to French 18th Century goldsmiths, e.g. the art of guilloché, a surface treatment of metal that could make waved lines or striations in the design, either performed by machine or by hand. Atop the guilloché decoration was a translucent enameling that required the application of several coats and the "firing" of the object in an oven after each layer, a very labor-intensive technique. The limited palette of enamels used in the nineteenth century was expanded upon by Fabergé who, after much experimentation, arrived at over 140 shades. He also used natural stones often found in his local area or native to Russia, e.g. jasper, agate, bowenite, nephrite. Often his use of precious stones, including sapphires, rubies and emeralds was in an understated way, only for accents, and even then were used en cabochon. Diamonds, if used, were typically rose-cut. So many of the aforementioned decorative elements are seen the work of Wild even as they appear in the examples on these pages. When India Early Minshall, a wealthy collector of Fabergé purchased an egg in 1944, she stated, "Fabergé was called the Benvenuto Cellini of the North, but I do not think any jeweler can ever be compared to him"—She could not know that someday the work of Manfred Wild would rival the work of the great Russian jeweler......Mr. Wild's works are displayed in museums throughout the world including: The German Gemstone Museum in Idar-Oberstein, The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., The Harvard Museum in Boston, The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and The Iksan Jewellery Museum in Korea, as well as extensive private collections in Japan, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States of America.