"I have had the great privilege of practicing the beautiful profession of antiquarian for the past ten years. An antiquarian may be described as a lover of works of art, somewhere between a treasure seeker and an ambassador of the past. My professional journey has allowed me to encounter a wide range of objects and forms of craftsmanship: some had remained entirely unknown to me, having become almost invisible in the modern world; others, more celebrated, have been the subject of numerous exhibitions and a substantial body of writing. Through sustained looking, study, and handling, I have gradually developed my own scale of appreciation for these historical techniques. In time, I came to realize that the most powerful and enduring art forms are often the most “regressive,” in the noblest sense of the term: those that lead us back toward childhood, wonder, illusion, and dream.

Hardstone marquetry, or pietra dura, belongs fully to this category. Emerging at the end of the sixteenth century and reaching its height in Florence under Medici patronage, this technique was born at the intersection of sculpture, painting, and natural history. Within the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, founded in 1588 by Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Florentine artisans developed an art of assemblage of extraordinary precision, using agates, jaspers, lapis lazuli, porphyry, and rare marbles to compose images that emulate painting while asserting the mineral truth of their material. Pietra dura thus proceeds from an almost childlike relationship to stone. Just as one might discern forms in clouds, here one recognizes a leaf in the green vein of a jasper, a shaded sky in a speckled lapis, a dune in alabaster. It plays with illusion without ever surrendering to pure trompe-l’oeil, inviting a slow, almost tactile contemplation in which the eye becomes an explorer, continually discovering new surprises.

This technique embodies perfectly the alliance of erudition and wonder that, to my mind, lies at the very heart of aurèce vettier’s practice. With off-duty seraphim, the artist anchors this research even more deeply in the mastery and reinterpretation of historical techniques, placed in the service of an ever denser narrative. The choice of hardstone marquetry to depict an ethereal world inhabited by angelic figures and enigmatic encounters therefore feels entirely self-evident. Pietra dura offers not only an inimitable palette and texture; it also opens before the viewer a true passage into reverie, akin to a childhood memory, at once precise and elusive."

– Laura Kugel, Director of Galerie Kugel