Occasionally back-to-back mounted crystals resulted in an orb-like crystal with the image apparently “floating” in its center. Reverse crystal intaglios were set as stickpins, buttons, and studs, mounted on tie pins, cuff links, lockets and charms. The motifs most commonly found for men were sporting themes – horses, dogs, foxes and birds and for women – monograms, birds, insects (especially popular at this time because of the association with the Bonapartes and their bee emblem,) butterflies and flowers. A watercolor rendering of the image was painted on the underside of the cabochon and an oil and diamond dust mixture was used along with up to 250 scribing tools to carve the design into the interior of the crystal “…the deeper the carving the more pronounced trompe l’oeil effect.” 1 Once the carving was established the painting process began with extremely fine brushes and paint working in reverse to create incredibly detailed images.
A well-formed cabochon is the key to a beautifully made reverse intaglio and the tedious process of hand polishing it to perfection had to be completed before the design work could begin.
Production of a reverse crystal intaglio begins with the mining and cutting of fine rock crystal from Brazil or Madagascar.
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