1959 SILVER DIME

Production of silver-stain roundels became a significant industry between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Lowlands (present-day Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands). These examples were created in Flemish glass workshops for art-literate, bourgeois clients or civic buildings. Wealthy businessmen often presented them as gifts to friends and partners. Despite the secular contexts for which they were intended, these paintings on small translucent sheets of glass are usually biblical or apocryphal in theme, meant to be moralizing and cautionary. Mythological or allegorical stories were also popular themes.

Made from single pieces of clear glass, the roundels were coated with a silver stain (silver-sulfide compound) with clay or yellow ochre as the binding medium. The stain, applied to the exterior side of the panel, diffused into the molten glass when fired. Finally, Images were drawn on the surface, with some of the modeling and shading achieved by scraping away parts of the coating with a stylus, leaving areas of the glass transparent. The completed composition was touched up with another silver solution, which, depending on factors such as the amounts of paint used and the length of firing, left a pale yellow, gold or amber stain.

Scenes from top to bottom:

Allegorical Figure: Goatherdess with Distaff and Spindle
South Lowlands, ca. 1510-1515

St. Dunstan of Canterbury
Lowlands, 1510-1520

St. Lambrecht of Maastricht
South Lowlands, 1510-1520



The Cloisters Collection
Metropolitan Museum of Art
NYC

ok, so it's not an exciting lomo pic but i have been trying to sort out a better way to hang my little rock cakes camera pendant for ages and it is worked out at last.

i guess that it was obvious to make tiny silver leather strap fittings rather than using the silver chain that it was on before, it is one of those doh! moments. i love it so much i think i need one for myself!...

(the camera measures 20mm across, so just under an inch)