Close ups on The Crock of Gold Hoard

Very few words with this post – Megan asked for some pictures that showed the dimensionality of the various stitches, so here they are!

I’ve left the pictures larger than usual, so do click on them to have a closer look at the stitches and the purls!

I’ve enjoyed revisiting the Crock and looking at it from new angles. I would have loved a strong side light to pick up the glints, but is has been overcast – a good light for working on the Glittering Nightcap, which I’ve finally got back to, in spite of my breath condensing on the magnifier!

The Crock of Gold Hoard – Finished

Here is a close up of the finished chipwork on the Crock of Gold Hoard. I’m very pleased with how it has turned out. Especially with a strong side light, there is the right mixture of glint and dullness to suggest old, tarnished metal. I’ve used a mixture of rough purl (both tarnished and untarnished), and check purl, in several shades of silver and gold.

I decided not to use any of the pearl purl, which I used to create the effect of bangles and broken jewellery in the lid. I’ve taken care not to over crowd the chips, because if they started to pile up, it would reduce the illusion of recession that I’m trying to create.

You may recall that last time I posted I had only just spotted the Amulet, set in front of the Crock for the photograph, and I was wondering whether or not to include it in this particular piece. I’m intending to work an or nué version of the Amulet, so even if I fail to include it here, it will still figure in the completed panels.

I could simply tell you what I decided, without explanation, but I think that would be unfair.

This first photo shows the piece as I originally intended to finish it. There are the sticks in the foreground, the deep blue shadows of the Egyptian sun, the Crock, its Lid, and the chipwork and curls of the fragments of metal.

I think it looks pretty good, and in fact I’ve decided to leave it like this, without adding the Amulet.

The second photo shows my experiment with adding the Amulet. Since creating the Amulet in stitchery would risk causing damage to the fabric, damage which would be impossible to repair if I dislike the effect, I thought that using silver kid leather would be ideal.

I cut out the Amulet shape – approximately – and laid it on the piece, shifting it around and looking at it in different lights. In some lights, the silver kid drew the eye to such an extent that the rest of the piece might just as well not have been there. In others, it looked like a greyish smudge, killing all the other colours, losing the sunshine and shadow. What it didn’t do, in any light, was create the sense of dialogue between the Amulet and the Crock it had been guarding so faithfully for so many centuries that I was looking for.

I’ve kept the piece of leather I cut out, and may, later, add the padding and stitching to give it form, and keep it to sneak onto the finished work as a challenge for the viewer – Find The Hittite Amulet!

Crock of Gold Hoard – A Surprise in the Photo

I’ve been working on the Crock of Gold Hoard for months, now, with the photo or even an enlargement of it, close at hand at all times. My mother and I even spent several hours staring fixedly at the photo while we tried to sort out the shadows.

During all that time, something has been nagging me. Mary Chubb mentions that in one of the photos they took at the time of the discovery, the Hittite Amulet was placed in front of the Crock, rather as it had been on top of the Hoard for all those centuries before. And in all that time, with all that staring, I never found it.

And now I have – circled in orange here. In fact, now I’ve found it, I can’t not see it, but since it took me so long to spot it, I thought a bit of help might be in order for my readers!

And here’s the update on progress. I’m working slowly, a bit at a time, on the chipwork inside the Crock. The tarnished silver purl is creating just exactly the effect I thought it would, because the tarnishing hasn’t been even, allowing just the occasional glint to show through.

What I’m still not sure of is just how far I need to go to get the effect of the Hoard still within the Crock, which is a matter of some concern to me, because I don’t have an unlimited supply of tarnished purl.

Oh, and there is the other question – do I even attempt to represent the Hittite Amulet at this scale? I’m going to work it in or nue, as a separate piece, and as the embroidery is only about the size of a postcard, the Amulet would only be about a centimetre high, and if it goes wrong and needs unpicking it will probably leave a blemish.

Tricky.

Crock Of Gold Hoard – Beginning the Chipwork

I began by staring at the black and white photograph for a while, and then “Skitch’d” an approximation of the shape of the chipwork inside the Crock. The arrows on the lid are there to remind me that it is quite shallow, and that the back wall and the front wall of the lid should be about the same. The photograph doesn’t show the lid as absolutely full, so I won’t be hiding the base completely, but I do need to remember details like this and bear them in mind.

Since the Hoard has been described as forming in effect a jeweller’s cache of materials to recycle, I’ve assumed that it would be a mixture of metals. The Egyptians certainly knew enough about metal to create alloys, and different alloys would be different colours, which enables me to use a selection of materials. The Hoard was composed of ingots and bits and pieces, so none of it has to be perfectly shaped or even especially neatly assembled.

I found some tarnished silver purl – it wasn’t tarnished when I bought it, but I was hoping it would be by the time I used it, so I was very pleased. It helps to create a bit of a shadow around the inside of the front rim of the lid. Untarnished silver check purl and rough purl, and various shades of gold and copper in pearl purl and rough purl help to create the impression of a collection of bits and pieces, broken bangles, roughly formed ingots and general jeweller’s scrap.

Now I just need to work on the chipwork inside the Crock itself. I don’t think that I have the shape of the scraps, even in the lid, quite right, but I am pleased with this as a start, and it will be several days before I can do some more, so I have propped it up where I can gaze at it thoughtfully at odd intervals.