Lodewijk van Berken ( Dutch: Lodewijk van Berken ) is a Flemish jeweler of the mid and late 15th century, the alleged inventor of the method of polishing diamonds.
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It is believed that van Berken was born in Bruges and subsequently worked in Antwerp , where in 1456 he first applied his revolutionary invention to the jewelry industry. Later Karl the Bold became the patron of van Berken in the 1470s. entrusted him with a 137- carat stone cut (27.4 g), which later became known as the Florentine diamond . In Antwerp, now stands a monument to Lodewijk, which holds a diamond in his hands. In 1868, the opera Birken, the Diamond Cutter dedicated to him by composer Hendrick Walput was presented there .
However, there is a series of doubts about this story, first told by the jeweler Robert de Berken (1615–1672), who claimed that the merit of the invention of the grinding method belongs to his ancestor. Already in the XIX century, it was suggested that Lodewijk van Berken is a fully invented figure [1] .
Notes
- ↑ Jack Ogden. Diamonds: An Early History of the King of Gems. - Yale University Press, 2018 .-- P. 108-112.
Literature
- Lodewijk De Berken, uitvinder van het diamantsnijden, Nieuwe Gazette van Brugge, December 5, 1820 (overgenomen in A. Vanhoutryve, Zóleefde Brugge. Krantenlectuur 1800-1825, Handzame, 1968
- Louis de Berquen, Bijoutier, La Patrie, 2 augustus 1930
- Lodewijk van Berchem, Brugsche Courant, 1955, nr. 28
- Brugge Diamantstad, Ludo Vandamme en John A. Rosenhøj, De Windroos, Beernem, 1993