In the 17th century, China exported to Europe stoneware made in Yixing, in Jiangsu province; red to dark brown in colour, it was unglazed but cut, faceted, and polished.
For all his superb technical facility -- the fine motor control that allowed him to cut facets of light and engrave reflections -- the response he inspires is essentially visceral: His radiant housewives move us because they're secularized madonnas, the Virgin Mary in a string of pearls, ensconced in a parlor with a checkerboard floor.
Energized by the fuss, he punched out variations on the theme: paintings of sharp-elbowed, wood-brown nude women, their bodies all ax-cut facets, set in pockets of shallow space.
The lead's grayish color, sought after in chandeliers, produces prismatic effects in cut and faceted glass.
But equally arresting, if less known, are a series of closely observed photographs of cut and faceted glass and china arranged rhythmically on shelves.
The silhouette of the hand crafted crystal jar is inspired by the iconic Baccarat Harcourt 1841 stem with its hexagonal stem and six cut crystal facets.
The Lana Marks Cleopatra Clutch in alligator ($100,000) comes accessorized with 1,500 fully cut and faceted black-and-white round diamonds that line the top of the handbag.
Black diamonds have a simple cut (16 facets).
Because of its great hardness and strong molecular bonding, a cut diamond's facets and facet edges appear the flattest and sharpest.
Yet no one else moves as easily or abruptly into the uncanniest registers of our literature: "The iceberg cuts its facets from within"; "Everything only connected by 'and' and 'and' "; "More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors".
