16th Century Miniature Boxwood Carvings That Fit in the Palm of Your Hand

[Claude]

Wow! Very impressive, Emil! Welcome to the forums! Please keep showing us your work.

Claude

[Arthur C.]

Good to have you with us, Emil. Are the pictures your work, or what you are copying?

[DiLeon]

Hi, just found this forum. If it interests you, im actually working on copy of one of these beads.
Its a long term project (surprisingly ), plan to document and record the process.
Ive done some first pieces and tools needed, here...(sorry i dont have better camera)

Extremely interested in your progress. Welcome to the forum. I can not carve this kind of work, hands are too damaged and my eyesight is not good enough....plus not patient enough in my old age...smile. I always been interested in this kind of work as made things like this in my younger years working in wax, gold jewelry, we made extreme stuff like this. Although carving it I can not even picture it, the massive work and holding your breath for the perfect touch. Would love to see your progress in this kind of work.... look forward to you being apart of the forum.

[Emil S]

Thank you for the warm welcomes. Yes, the pictures are my work. Its a copy of one of the Gothic boxwood prayer beads, similar to one in the original post. I came across these carvings on the internet several years ago and I was amazed by them. Later i found out there is one example of them in museum in Vienna, Austria close to where i live, so i had to go there and see it. I was stunned, it was so captivating, you just cant stop looking at it and keep finding new details in that tiny space. So small i could not see most of it without magnifying glass. I did some research and found out, nobody ever replicated it, museum conservators didnt even know how was it constructed like 11 years ago.
I really liked the mystery and thought ´´Well...maybe i could try it.´´
This is my progress, that Crucifixion scene with Jesus is a testing fragment, copy, true to size(around 1 inch/2,5cm) from original that has like 30 figures in it.
Then there is a picture of the tools, most of them i had to make. Because you cant buy chisels small enough and any micro-power tool is too big for the details. That is the interesting thing to me. For most part, you have to do it like they did in 16th. century.(I still use an engraving tool for some rough work.)
Micro hand made chisels, drills, even to draw the geometry pattern, i found no other tool to be precise enough, than simple small scratching compass.
I did the bead on a picture, in a way, so several stages of work can be seen from it and people can see how was the original (most likely)made.
I will find more photos or a video to share more. Thank you for your interest.

[Emil S]

This is the original bead from 16th.century, and original inside scene from which i chose the two figures.