Myanma Gem Mosaic

The precious stones from gem mines of our country are turned not only into valuable pieces of jewellery for personal adornment but into fine works of mosaic art to decorate the living room as well.

These works of art are now gradually finding their way into the foreign market and are steadily establishing themselves as a source of income in foreign exchange for the country. The first thing the mosaics have to do is to paint the picture. Next selects pieces of low-grade uncut precious stones such as ruby, spinal, sapphire, jade, obsidian, apatite, lapis lazuli, calcite, peridot, etc, whose colours will match those of his original painting.

They then crush those selected pieces separately with such care as to get granules or speck of the size. These are then separated by size by the use of graded sieves.
Now the mosaics come to the most exacting part of the creative work. Takes a sheet of glass or mica and places it on the original painting. Then, smears a fine layer of glue on it and sprinkles over it the granules or specks of gems, taking great care to match the colour, tone, light and shade of the granules to those of the original painting.

This part of the creative work demand to the concentration in order to select the right grand of precious gems to match colour for colour, tone for tone, light for light and shade for shade of the original painting. Finally, the mosaic is sunned for the glue to dry and then put in a frame. As every step of the production process is done without the aid of a machine the art of creating such gem mosaics deserves to be considered an innovative trade in the annals of Myanmar handicrafts.