A rabbit carved by Gerd Dreher from natural untreated ametrine from Brazil, with eyes of bicoloured agate. Dreher draws with the chisel: a ridge raised here, a hollow cut there, placed not to reproduce a true edge but to catch a line of light and shadow in the stone. Painting is poetic; carving is logical and exacting, and it has to answer to gravity. The technique brings out not only the anatomical structure of the animal but something of its inner state as well.
Gerd Dreher is the fifth generation of a family of gemstone carvers, and his carvings recall the work of Carl Fabergé. His carvings are held in museums, among them the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the museum of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in California and the German Museum in Idar-Oberstein, and his work is collected worldwide and sold at auction in the United States and in Europe.
The family's connection with Fabergé is an old one. In 1884 the Romanovs were so impressed by Carl Fabergé's work that he was appointed goldsmith to the crown of the empire, and his name carried through the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 1800s Fabergé sent plaster models to Idar-Oberstein, where the best gemstone carvers were commissioned to carve them in stone; one of those carvers was Hermann Dreher. Fabergé owned a large collection of Japanese netsuke, the decorative pendants worn on men's kimonos, and it directly inspired his own collection of animal carvings: small gem beasts of 5 to 10 cm, carved in extraordinary detail, made to please the eye of their owners and to call up good feeling. In 1908 Queen Alexandra began to form a collection of Fabergé animal carvings as well, which came to more than 300 carvings, three times larger than the collection formed by her sister in Russia; the pieces largely entered it as gifts exchanged by the Russian, Danish and British royal families.
In 1964 Paul Dreher worked at the house of Fabergé, and the family's history also names Alfred Pocock Ltd of London. In 1981 the first exhibition devoted to the Drehers was held at the Dikker en Thijs Garden Hotel in Amsterdam, opened during an event for Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, to whom Gerd Dreher presented one of his carvings as a thank you. Patrick Dreher continues the Fabergé tradition and his family's, carving miniatures of wild nature from tourmaline, citrine, ametrine, grossular garnet and other minerals, sculptures that seem to interact with their surroundings.
Materials: natural untreated ametrine from Brazil; eyes of bicoloured agate
Dimensions: length 6.9 cm × width 4.2 cm × height 4.6 cm
Weight: 730 ct
Artist: Gerd Dreher
A rabbit carved by Gerd Dreher from natural untreated ametrine from Brazil, with eyes of bicoloured agate. Dreher draws with the chisel: a ridge raised here, a hollow cut there, placed not to reproduce a true edge but to catch a line of light and shadow in the stone. Painting is poetic; carving is logical and exacting, and it has to answer to gravity. The technique brings out not only the anatomical structure of the animal but something of its inner state as well.
Gerd Dreher is the fifth generation of a family of gemstone carvers, and his carvings recall the work of Carl Fabergé. His carvings are held in museums, among them the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the museum of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in California and the German Museum in Idar-Oberstein, and his work is collected worldwide and sold at auction in the United States and in Europe.
The family's connection with Fabergé is an old one. In 1884 the Romanovs were so impressed by Carl Fabergé's work that he was appointed goldsmith to the crown of the empire, and his name carried through the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 1800s Fabergé sent plaster models to Idar-Oberstein, where the best gemstone carvers were commissioned to carve them in stone; one of those carvers was Hermann Dreher. Fabergé owned a large collection of Japanese netsuke, the decorative pendants worn on men's kimonos, and it directly inspired his own collection of animal carvings: small gem beasts of 5 to 10 cm, carved in extraordinary detail, made to please the eye of their owners and to call up good feeling. In 1908 Queen Alexandra began to form a collection of Fabergé animal carvings as well, which came to more than 300 carvings, three times larger than the collection formed by her sister in Russia; the pieces largely entered it as gifts exchanged by the Russian, Danish and British royal families.
In 1964 Paul Dreher worked at the house of Fabergé, and the family's history also names Alfred Pocock Ltd of London. In 1981 the first exhibition devoted to the Drehers was held at the Dikker en Thijs Garden Hotel in Amsterdam, opened during an event for Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, to whom Gerd Dreher presented one of his carvings as a thank you. Patrick Dreher continues the Fabergé tradition and his family's, carving miniatures of wild nature from tourmaline, citrine, ametrine, grossular garnet and other minerals, sculptures that seem to interact with their surroundings.
Materials: natural untreated ametrine from Brazil; eyes of bicoloured agate
Dimensions: length 6.9 cm × width 4.2 cm × height 4.6 cm
Weight: 730 ct
Artist: Gerd Dreher
