Cephalopod Pendant Brooch

1962

Cephalopod Pendant Brooch, 1962. John Paul Miller (American, 1918–2013). Gold; 7 x 5.5 x 1 cm (2 3/4 x 2 3/16 x 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Aileen and Julian Kassen 2019.181 John Paul Miller took inspiration from many sources, but his most prolific work references forgotten creatures of the sea and land—snails, insects, and amoeboid fish. This work represents a cephalopod or a many-legged mollusck. In this strangely shaped form, Miller found a vehicle for expressing his artistic technique of layering gold upon gold to imitate the crusty nature of the shell and the tangle of its tentacles. John Paul Miller is credited with rediscovering the lost ancient technique of fusing pure gold onto gold surfaces, called granulation, in 1953.