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Thursday, March 18, 2010

Today's WORD-A-DAY: LITHOPHANE


From the Greek combination of "litho" (stone) and "fainein" (to suddenly appear), a lithophane is an etched or molded picture on a delicate, translucent porcelain plaque, which, when held in the hand, seems devoid of decoration, but when held up to the light, almost magically reveals a 3 dimensional scene in shades of gray. Lithophanes first appeared throughout Europe (almost simultaneously) in the late 1820s.

1 comment:

Kat Barton said...

Excellent. I was just talking to one of my buyers about a lithophane I had that got broken. I am still looking for another one~