De forti Dulcedo Mounted
pin-brooch,
2007
20ct gold, yellow-green citrine, yellow-green sapphire, 18ct white gold pin materials:
‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’ was, for me, like many children of my generation, not a line about a feat of strength performed by Samson (Judges 14:14) but the caption to the beautiful illustration of a dead lion (I was told it was sleeping, which has confused it into memory) surrounded by a swarm of industrious bees. This vignette graced the yellow-green and gold tin of Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup – tacitly suggesting that the contents were akin to honey. Many years later, I came across a beautiful wood-cut, I think by Joannes Posuel, in which a rampant and angry lion carries a banner declaring ‘de forti dulcedo’ amid an equally angry swarm of bees, each the size of a black-bird.
22
k e v i n c oat e s : a n ot e b o o k o f p i n s
59mm 20mm mount: mixed media Signed and dated artist’s no: 416.MP-B.07 hidden alchemy: 213-4 height (without pin): width:
My own little jewel, with its similar disregard for common scale, was suggested when I brought together two stones of different mineral origins (one sapphire, the other citrine), but identical golden-syrup colour: which is Tate and which is Lyle, however, I have yet to decide...
