Lapidarium of Beasts
The Lapidarium of Beasts is a personal project about anthropomorphic animals and magical stones.
It all started with me researching on legends and myths about frogs, during which I came across a strange medieval woodcut. This engraving depicted a man—with beautiful hair wearing medieval clothes—who seemed determined to pull out a small pebble-like object from a human-sized toad’s forehead. Next to this weird piece of art was an image of a simple but precious looking gold ring with a simple and not at all precious-like grey stone. It turned out, that in the Middle Ages, the mysterious “toad stone” was used as a medicine. It was believed, that wearing the stone can serve as protection and antidote against poisoning. However, the small round pebble has nothing to do with frogs or poison, actually, it is the fossilized teeth of Lepidotes, an extinct genus of fish.
These strange pictures and the story behind them would have been inspiring enough for me to make an illustration, but when I did a little more digging, I found a bunch of curious tales about stones with healing and magical properties. On the following illustrations, you will see the stones and their supposed animal “makers”. These animals are dressed like mages and shamans of their homeland, which visually support the theory of their power to create these magical and mighty stones. The frames were inspired by the paintings of Ivan Bilibin and they further explore the stones supposed magical properties.
It all started with me researching on legends and myths about frogs, during which I came across a strange medieval woodcut. This engraving depicted a man—with beautiful hair wearing medieval clothes—who seemed determined to pull out a small pebble-like object from a human-sized toad’s forehead. Next to this weird piece of art was an image of a simple but precious looking gold ring with a simple and not at all precious-like grey stone. It turned out, that in the Middle Ages, the mysterious “toad stone” was used as a medicine. It was believed, that wearing the stone can serve as protection and antidote against poisoning. However, the small round pebble has nothing to do with frogs or poison, actually, it is the fossilized teeth of Lepidotes, an extinct genus of fish.
These strange pictures and the story behind them would have been inspiring enough for me to make an illustration, but when I did a little more digging, I found a bunch of curious tales about stones with healing and magical properties. On the following illustrations, you will see the stones and their supposed animal “makers”. These animals are dressed like mages and shamans of their homeland, which visually support the theory of their power to create these magical and mighty stones. The frames were inspired by the paintings of Ivan Bilibin and they further explore the stones supposed magical properties.
Serpent Stone or Druids' glass
Eagle Stone or Aetite
Bezoar Stone
Toad Stone
Thank you for watching!
