JEWELLERY ARTS, DESIGN AND HISTORY

Two-thirds of the gold mined each year is used to make jewellery. The "lost wax" casting technique, developed more than 4,000 years ago, enables the modern jewellery maker to create faithful copies of a design from the same model. "Lost wax" was invented by the ancient Egyptians, was lost, then rediscovered in 1545 by Benvenuto Cellini, the great Italian goldsmith. After Cellini's death, the art was "lost" again and not rediscovered until the early 1900's by an American dentist, Dr. W.H. Taggert. Readily adopted by the dental industry, it was not widely used in commercial jewellery manufacturing until after World War II.