Hans Mielich

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

In 1937, Erna von Watzdorf, a research worker at the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden, published a detailed article on Hans Mielich. She furnished proof that after he had finished his studies at the Regensburg Academy of Art, he went to Italy and Spain and there concentrated on the study of crafts such as armor and jewelry. He soon realized that reproducing objects required the same concentration on personality, light and shade as the portrayal of the human face.

He began painting large pièces de résistance at the Bavarian Court and was soon commissioned by Albrecht V Duke of Bavaria, to produce a color inventory of his wife’s jewelry collection. Mielich took over four years to complete the Kleinodienbuch, a vivid work of absolute precision and detail, in which even the interior light reflections in the Pyramidal Point Cut diamonds were depicted. It is possible that he may also have created some original pieces of jewelry , but no drawings of these appear to have been documented. Most of Mielich’s jewelry ‘portraits’ have been acquired by either the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek or the Bayerishces Nationalmuseum, both in Munich.