TIDBITS 01/15/06

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We encourage you to forward this email to friends and colleagues. ====================================== The Mughals

Indian jewelry ... the ultimate in artistic design when it comes to bling bling. It was during the Mughal-Islamic rule which lasted around 332 years that the outstanding achievements of Indian jewelry reached its zenith and became the ultimate symbol of wealth, power, and aristocracy. Mughal ... for those of you interested in the derivative of things ... became Mogul ... a word depicting a person of exceptional riches and influence.

Jewelry of those times ... because of its beauty and exceptional workmanship ... became associated with royalty. The best creations of the Mughal era were made for the King and his Queens and Princesses. Yes folks ... you read me right. The King and his Queens. Ah ... them were the days. There is something to be said for the ancients and their ways of thinking. Of course ... some of you might say the more queens the more headaches. But that's another story.

An interesting aspect of the jewelry of those times is that a single piece was rarely the work of one craftsman. There are three major aspects of Mughal jewelry. There's form and structure. There's decoration. And most important in Indian jewelry ... there's enameling.

It is in this area that the jewelry of that era ranks supreme over jewelry of other times. The enameling ... though quite exquisite ... served a secondary and rather practical function in that it lent strength to items made of quite soft and rather pure gold ... endowing the creations with stability and durability.

And so we segue to the 20th century ... and the revival of Indian jewelry. It was recognized by the great designers of recent times for the very exquisiteness that made it the choice of royalty. Lest you worry you may not have heard of thems wot introduced Mughal jewelry through the portals of the modern epoch ... let me introduce some. Ladies and gennulmen ... may I introduce Coco Chanel representing the early 1930's. And in that corner ... Christian LaCroix representing the 1990's. And then ... representing the early 2000's ... there's Benjamin-the-presenter ... who tends to represent that which is presented ... or something like that. Methinks hiatuses tend to muddle the mind. It's the New Year and I'm having a little trouble getting back up on the horse.

In any case ....

For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits...may I direct you to my home page at

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where you will scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says Current Tidbits ... and then click on it in order to view some Indian Kadas of no minor importance.

And there ya have it. That's it for this week folks. Catch you all next week. Benjamin Mark

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