Vase of Flowers in the Museum of Fine Arts

I have walked by this “painting” in the St Pete Museum of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg, Florida many times. This time I stopped and really looked at it. A vase and flowers, but it was not a painting but made entirely of stone and semi-precioys minerals! It was an intricate panel of solid cut stones in the form of flowers. It was made in 1625 in Italy and was one of several panels in a chapel of the Medici family. Today such things are cut using a CNC computer, but this was made using strictly hand cutting and polishing.