The founder of the jewelry brand Atelier Munsteiner is Bernd Munsteiner. The jewelry company was founded in 1966 after Bernd graduated from the Design Academy in Pforzheim. Even during his studies, young Bernd amazed teachers with his ingenuity in the decoration of precious stones. However, many were skeptical about his work outside the school walls.
Despite negative criticism in Germany, Munsteiner sold his first stones in Denmark in 1966, where modern jewelry was received with enthusiasm. In 1967, Bernd was honored with an invitation to the court jeweler from London, who was very enthusiastic about the Munsteiner stones. Bernd, in addition to cutting small stones for insertion into jewelry, also became interested in creating independent sculptures carved from stone.
The Munsteiner business was continued by son Tom and daughter-in-law Jutta.
The popularity of the Bernd Munsteiner house is largely due to the demand for modernism. In the creations of the designer – a clear geometry, precisely adjusted, intricately intersecting lines.
Munsteiner has a special love for transparent crystals – tourmaline, amethyst, citrine, fire opal, quartz and, of course, rock crystal. This is explained simply: on a transparent stone, all the accuracy and sophistication of cutting and polishing are visible.
Another feature of the brand’s style is the processing of not the entire stone, but only its parts. Carving is most often found in Atelier Munsteiner products in a limited plane. It can be several straight lines or one large zigzag. It is extremely rare to find circles or curls in the cut. Brand designers combine the incongruous – straight intersecting lines on rounded stones, lattice cut on multi-colored minerals. Today, this is no longer surprising, as it was in the 60s of the last century, but it certainly does not leave anyone indifferent.
The most famous work of the cutter, known not only to ardent collectors of stones and jewelry, but also to the mass audience, is the world’s largest cut aquamarine “Don Pedro”.
The largest (10,363 carats) aquamarine was cut by Bernd Munsteiner in 1980. Beryl crystal, which served as the source, weighed about 45 kilograms. It took four months only to study the structure of the mineral, assess its quality and choose the method of cutting and polishing.
Munsteiner, as always, chose the correct geometric shape for the future creation – an obelisk. Don Pedro was created for six months, during which the master engraved the surface of the stone and polished it to a crystal shine. The result was a unique piece of jewelry — a high obelisk, pointed upwards, with a needle engraving on the back wall, created in the image and likeness of the original imperfections of aquamarine. This method of processing makes the stone even more unique: it seems to sparkle from the inside with its intersecting faces.
