groundwork is chiselled away. The design can now be finished with chasing tools.4
The
making of finger rings as well as of everything else has been strongly
influenced by machine production. Cloth is machine-made, pictures are
lithographed, lace, macaroni, and even small houses are now produced
with an exactness that was never before possible. But, unfortunately,
with the dominance of the " machine-made " product, the artistic
quality is entirely obliterated. Rings are now made in such vast
quantities that exactness of reproduction is the great aim. Thus while
the initial design may possess a certain measure of originality, the
single ring of the type, one out of thousands or tens of thousands
stamped out of the same model, necessarily lacks that personal touch
which alone can produce a truly artistic object.
