en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_skull
Rock crystal skull
Side view
Purchased through Mr G.F. Kunz at Tiffany & Co, N.Y.
AOA 1898-1
Room 24: Living and Dying Español | Italiano
Rock crystal skull
Probably European, 19th century AD
Large quartz crystal skulls have generated great interest and fascination since they began to surface in public and private collections, during the second half of the nineteenth century. Some of them have been attributed to the work of ancient Mexica*, Mixtec or even Maya stone workers in Mexico. Others are said to be examples of colonial Mexican art, for use in churches, perhaps as bases for crucifixes.
Scientists at the British Museum studied traces of tool marks preserved in the highly polished surfaces of this crystal skull. These show that it was extensively worked using rotary cutting wheels, unknown in Mexico before the arrival of the Spanish in 1519. Furthermore, analysis of inclusions in the quartz crystal indicates that the large block of material was obtained in the nineteenth century from a source far beyond ancient Mexican trade links, probably Brazil or Madagascar.
Although the crystal skull was said to have come from ancient Mexico, in fact it was acquired shortly before 1881 by the French antiquities dealer, Eugène Boban, when he was based in Paris. Five years later, having failed to sell the carving in Paris or Mexico City, Boban sold the skull to the New York jewellers Tiffany and Co, from whom more than a decade later, it was acquired by the British Museum.
In 2007, artist John LeKay said he was a friend of Damien Hirst between 1992 and 1994 and had given him a "marked-up duplicate copy" of a Carolina Biological Supply Company catalogue, adding "You have no idea how much he got from this catalogue. The Cow Divided is on page 647 – it is a model of a cow divided down the centre, like his piece." This refers to Hirst’s work Mother and Child, Divided—a cow and calf cut in half and placed in formaldehyde.[58] LeKay also claimed Hirst had copied the idea of For the Love of God from LeKay's crystal skulls made in 1993, and said, "I would like Damien to acknowledge that 'John really did inspire the skull and influenced my work a lot.'"[58] Copyright lawyer Paul Tackaberry reviewed images of LeKay's and Hirst's work and saw no basis for copyright infringement claims in a legal sense.
In June 2007, Beyond Belief, an exhibition of Hirst's new work, opened at the White Cube gallery in London. The centre-piece, a Memento Mori titled For the Love of God, was a human skull recreated in platinum and adorned with 8,601 diamonds weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats.[41] Approximately £15,000,000 worth of diamonds were used. It was modelled on an 18th century skull, but the only surviving human part of the original is the teeth. The asking price for For the Love of God was £50,000,000 ($100 million or 75 million euros). It didn't sell outright,[42] and on 30 August 2008 was sold to a consortium that included Hirst himself and his gallery White Cube.[42]
In November 2008, the skull was exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam next to an exhibition of paintings from the museum collection selected by Hirst. Wim Pijbes, the museum director, said of the exhibition, "It boosts our image. Of course, we do the Old Masters but we are not a 'yesterday institution'. It's for now. And Damien Hirst shows this in a very strong way."
Damien Hirst is Britain's richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215 millions (over 420 million US$) in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List.
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