Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Immediately, making me jump with surprise, the bird in the cage found its voice and echoed its mistress’s words. ‘Tanda hitam! Tanda hitam!’
I turned to Mirzah. ‘What does the lady say?’
‘She says ‘black spot’,’ he said. ‘She say the dimon’ he have a black spot.’
‘So it has,’ I admitted readily. ‘I was going to tell her so, but she was too quick for me.’
‘I tell her,’ said Mirzah.
‘Do so,’ I said. ‘and say also that the spot is so very, very small that even I, an expert trained to detect blemishes, can barely see it with my strong glass.’
Mirzah translated, and my compliment brought a smile to her lips, a sure indication that she was not too ancient to be impervious to flattery. When you have a young woman, flatter her about her beauty, when the lady’s age is doubtful flatter her about her charm, her intelligence, her wit, but when she is old compliment her on her eyesight. These are very useful rules.
None the less, I had not entirely succeeded in placating my shrewd client, for she raised her voice to a somewhat higher pitch and spoke volubly. Mirzah translated: ‘Why does the Englishman show a dimon’ good for beggarmen. Have you not told the merchant who I am, and that I can buy the best there is?’
‘So that’s it,’ I thought. ‘Then why was the fellow so emphatic about the price limit?’ But there was no time for speculation of that kind. The lady had to be answered.
‘Tell the lady,’ I commanded, ‘that I beg for her gracious pardon. My mistake arose from the facet that I am not familiar with the customs of this country. In my own land merchants show their meanest goods first and by degrees work up to their finest.’
He translated. She came back with: ‘Why is that?’
‘It is good showmanship,’ said I, ‘and frequently it saves the client’s face.’
‘How may that be?’
I replied that if we merchants were to begin by displaying our best, some customers on learning the price might not care to admit that it was good for their purse and then might not ask to see the inferior goods. But by using the other method the customer remained master of the situation, for he could say as long as he pleased: ‘Show me better—better—better.’
I saw that she was pleased with this explanation, and Mirzah said that she agreed there might be some little wisdom in my argument. But I also noticed that like the very old she was soon tired of talk and distraction, for she picked unceasingly at the folds of the tablecloth. It was clear to me that I must display at once the best that I had in stock, and make no more ado, and this I did. But she looked at each gem in perfunctory fashion, and at last burst forth: ‘It is true that I have been used to buying only the best. But this was for my own use and now I have given up bedecking myself in such finery. Let the merchant bear in mind that one may buy to give away. But black-spotted stones are omen of ill luck. One cannot give them, for the wearer might sicken or meet with misfortune. It is better to make no gifts at all than such stones.’
Finally I had brought out everything I had. But she remained petulant. If one stone was too thick another was too flat, a third had not sufficient fire to warm her into buying, and yet others must be rejected on the score of shape of tint. Nothing seemed to be right. Patience? Yes, I had plenty of that commodity and displayed stone after stone with the best of grace. But no! she knew what she wanted—that she would have or nothing at all.
Well, I dearly love clients who know what they want. It relieves me of great responsibility and much work. Obviously, I had nothing in my collection that was in the least desirable in her eyes. So I packed up in readiness to take my departure and would perhaps have been allowed to go forthwith but that I happened to look up and found her gaze riveted upon one particular wallet of the four—the very one into which I had thrust the paper containing the offending black-spotted stone which had earned her little lecture.
Was I right in suspecting that she might want that stone, after all, and that she was only restrained from asking to see it again by the remarks she had made? She could not lose face, and I, for my part, could not presume to exhibit the stone again. I would thus lose a sale and she would have to go without the very piece she wanted. What was to be done?
At that moment the unexpected happened. The old lady rose from her chair and turned her back upon us, in order to pick up from a table behind her the dish of sectioned fruit of which we were to partake by way of enjoying the traditional hospitality. I seized my chance, extracted from the wallet the slightly flawed stone, and slipped it into my trousers pocket. When she came back to the table, dish in hand, the four wallets had gone back into my attache-case.
Turning to Mirzah I said: ‘Tell the lady that I am sorry that so large a selection as I have shown should have contained nothing to please her; nevertheless I have yet one more diamond in my pocket which I should like to show with her kind permission before I go.’
‘It could do no harm,’ she said graciously.
So I brought the black-spotted stone out of my pocket, and she examined it most critically.
‘Why, this is just what I want!’ she exclaimed. ‘See how these European merchants will insist on showing their poor goods first, and will only bring out what is good when the customer refuses to be fooled.’ For I had this time put a fairly stiff price on the diamond.
She clapped her hands. A Chinese amah appeared. She handed her a bunch of keys and when the woman returned with the money she counted out to me the price I had asked. We had taken our refreshment and now paid our final respects. As I made my final bows to the old lady, she raised her forefinger admonishingly.
It was only then that I realized that the tell-tale mirror she had faced, when I took the opportunity of slipping the stone into my pocket, had betrayed me. As I turned and skated warily in my clumsy shoes over the crystal floor I heard behind me the beating of wings and accusing falsetto screech: ‘Tanda hitam! Tanda hitam!’ The cockatoo had had the last word.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
New Emerald Treatment
The gem industry reports that the gem chefs (gem treaters) are treating highly fractured rough Colombian emeralds with polymers that act as a glue to hold stones together. The level of treatment can vary considerably and impact the durability + price. If in doubt, always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor + he was regarded as one of the most influential + finest pianists of the 20th century. Rachmaninoff's style was distinctively Russian.
I love his music.
Useful links:
www.rachmaninoff.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff
I love his music.
Useful links:
www.rachmaninoff.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff
Monday, December 10, 2007
Generosity May Be In The Genes
(via BBC): A study by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem reveals that those who had certain variants of a gene called AVPR1a were on average nearly 50% more likely to give money away + the experts see an interesting relationship between DNA variability and real human altruism. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7133079.stm
Useful link:
www.ibngs.org
Useful link:
www.ibngs.org
Drunken Master II
Drunken Master II (1994)
Directed by: Chia-Liang Liu, Jackie Chan
Screenplay: Edward Tang, Man-Ming Tong, Kai-Chi Yun
Cast: Jackie Chan, Felix Wong
(via YouTube): Drunken Master II (1) 醉拳
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyExHRoIAjU
The Legend of Drunken Master (Jui kuen II)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffQGz3DMoyQ
Drunken Master II (3) 醉拳
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypPSnUcLJNA
I enjoy watching Jackie Chan's beautifully choreographed action films + those death-defying stunts are stunning
Directed by: Chia-Liang Liu, Jackie Chan
Screenplay: Edward Tang, Man-Ming Tong, Kai-Chi Yun
Cast: Jackie Chan, Felix Wong
(via YouTube): Drunken Master II (1) 醉拳
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyExHRoIAjU
The Legend of Drunken Master (Jui kuen II)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffQGz3DMoyQ
Drunken Master II (3) 醉拳
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypPSnUcLJNA
I enjoy watching Jackie Chan's beautifully choreographed action films + those death-defying stunts are stunning
Coffee Legends
National Geographic writes about the history of coffee + descriptions of different varieties + map of coffee-producing countries + other viewpoints @ http://www.nationalgeographic.com/coffee
Useful links:
www.coffee.com
www.allrecipes.com/directory/3162.asp
www.coffeescience.org
www.coffeetv.com
www.ncausa.org
scaa.org
teacofmag.com
Useful links:
www.coffee.com
www.allrecipes.com/directory/3162.asp
www.coffeescience.org
www.coffeetv.com
www.ncausa.org
scaa.org
teacofmag.com
A Good Eye
Economist writes about the superb art collections of Giorgio Marsan and Umberta Nasi + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10273868
Aftershocks
Kelly Devine Thomas writes about art loss from the attacks on the World Trade Center + local perspectives + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1005
The Splendor Of Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art of Titian, Tintoretto, Lotto, Moroni, And Paul Veronese
1
We never think of Titian as a young man; to all of us he is the Grand Old Man of Italian art, and there is something patriarchal in his figure. He was, indeed, very old when he died. Some would make out that he lived to be ninety-nine, but there is considerable doubt whether he was really as old as he pretended to be. The National Gallery catalogue queries 1477 as the year of Titian’s birth, but few modern historians consider this to be accurate. The date 1477 is only given by the artist in a begging letter to King Philip of Spain, when it was to Titian’s advantage to make himself out to be older than he was, because he was trying to squeeze money out of rather tight-fisted monarch on the score of his great age.
Vasari and other contemporary writers give 1489 as the date of birth, but probably the nearest approach to the truth is given in a letter (dated December 8, 1567) from the Spanish Consul in Venice (Thomas de Cornoca), which fixes the year of Titian’s birth as 1482. This would make Titian to have been ninety-four when he died.
Whether Titian lived to be ninety-four or, as Sir Herbert Cook thinks, only eighty-nine, is a small matter compared to the greater fact that he was born in the hill-town of Cadore on a spur of the Alps, and spent his boyhood amid solemn pinewoods and Alpine solitudes. Breathing the keen mountain air, he grew up a young Hercules, deep-chested, his features ‘sun-browned as if cast in bronze,’ his eyes clear, with an eagle glance bred of Alpine distances.
So the young Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) came to Venice, hardy mountaineer among the children of the plain, and all his art bears the impress of his origin. What we call the idealism of Titian is not the result of aesthetic reflection, but, as Muther has pointed out, ‘the natural point of view of a man who wandered upon the heights of life, never knew trivial care, nor even experienced sickness; and therefore saw the world healthy and beautiful, in gleaming and majestic splendor.’
By the early death of Giorgione in 1510, Titian was left without a rival in his own generation, and six years later (1516), when Bellini died, Titian was elected to succeed him as the official painter of Venice. Thenceforward his career was a royal progress. ‘All princes, learned men, and distinguished persons who came to Venice visited Titian,’ says Vasari, for ‘not only in his art was he great, but he was a nobleman in person.’ He lived in a splendid palace, where he received Royalty, and was able to give his beautiful daughter and his two sons every conceivable luxury, for Titian, says Vasari, ‘gained a fair amount of wealth, his labors having always been well paid.’
Of the dramatic quality in Titian’s art we have a splendid instance at the National Gallery in the ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’, which, painted about 1520, is also a famous example of Venetian color. Nobody before had ever given so dramatic and impassioned a rendering of Bacchus, the God of Wine, leaping from his chariot to console and cherish Ariadne, the beautiful maiden forsaken by her false lover Theseus. There is action not only in the drawing, in the spirited rendering of movements, but there is life also in the color; the amber, ruby, and sapphire of the following draperies, sparkle quiver, and radiate.
Whence came these qualities so new to Venetian painting? They came from the great painter’s memories of his birthplace, his boyhood’s home beside the River Piave roaring down from storm-capped heights, from memories of the wind that swept through the tree-tops and rattled the rafters of the house. Familiar from childhood with the awe-inspiring, dramatic elements of Nature, Titian expressed her majesty and drama in his art.
Amid the wealth of pictorial beauty left by Titian it is difficult indeed to say which is his supreme masterpiece. According to Vasari, Titian’s ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ was held by his fellow citizens to be the ‘the best modern painting,’ and though it is no longer modern but an ‘old master,’ we cannot conceive a more impressive rendering of the subject than this picture, in which we almost hear the wind caused by the soaring ascent of the Virgin, her garments grandly swelling in the breeze by which the encircling cherubs waft her upwards.
Yet to this great painting of his mature years (1541) at least one of his earlier pictures is equal in beauty. To the transitional period in Titian’s life, while the direct influence of Giorgeione yet lingered, belongs the picture in the Borghese Gallery, Rome, known as ‘Sacred and Profane Love’. But the title is only a makeshift. Nobody knows the true meaning of this picture of two lovely women, one lightly draped, the other in the full splendor of Venetian dress, seated on either side of a well in the midst of a smiling landscape. There is a tradition that the one represents ‘Heavenly Love,’ the other ‘Earthly Love,’ but on the other hand a passage in Vasari about another painting by Titian, now lost, gives countenance to the theory that these figures are personifications of Grace and Beauty, or more probably Grace and Truth. A third theory is that the picture illustrates a passage in some lost poem.
The Splendor Of Venice (continued)
The Art of Titian, Tintoretto, Lotto, Moroni, And Paul Veronese
1
We never think of Titian as a young man; to all of us he is the Grand Old Man of Italian art, and there is something patriarchal in his figure. He was, indeed, very old when he died. Some would make out that he lived to be ninety-nine, but there is considerable doubt whether he was really as old as he pretended to be. The National Gallery catalogue queries 1477 as the year of Titian’s birth, but few modern historians consider this to be accurate. The date 1477 is only given by the artist in a begging letter to King Philip of Spain, when it was to Titian’s advantage to make himself out to be older than he was, because he was trying to squeeze money out of rather tight-fisted monarch on the score of his great age.
Vasari and other contemporary writers give 1489 as the date of birth, but probably the nearest approach to the truth is given in a letter (dated December 8, 1567) from the Spanish Consul in Venice (Thomas de Cornoca), which fixes the year of Titian’s birth as 1482. This would make Titian to have been ninety-four when he died.
Whether Titian lived to be ninety-four or, as Sir Herbert Cook thinks, only eighty-nine, is a small matter compared to the greater fact that he was born in the hill-town of Cadore on a spur of the Alps, and spent his boyhood amid solemn pinewoods and Alpine solitudes. Breathing the keen mountain air, he grew up a young Hercules, deep-chested, his features ‘sun-browned as if cast in bronze,’ his eyes clear, with an eagle glance bred of Alpine distances.
So the young Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) came to Venice, hardy mountaineer among the children of the plain, and all his art bears the impress of his origin. What we call the idealism of Titian is not the result of aesthetic reflection, but, as Muther has pointed out, ‘the natural point of view of a man who wandered upon the heights of life, never knew trivial care, nor even experienced sickness; and therefore saw the world healthy and beautiful, in gleaming and majestic splendor.’
By the early death of Giorgione in 1510, Titian was left without a rival in his own generation, and six years later (1516), when Bellini died, Titian was elected to succeed him as the official painter of Venice. Thenceforward his career was a royal progress. ‘All princes, learned men, and distinguished persons who came to Venice visited Titian,’ says Vasari, for ‘not only in his art was he great, but he was a nobleman in person.’ He lived in a splendid palace, where he received Royalty, and was able to give his beautiful daughter and his two sons every conceivable luxury, for Titian, says Vasari, ‘gained a fair amount of wealth, his labors having always been well paid.’
Of the dramatic quality in Titian’s art we have a splendid instance at the National Gallery in the ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’, which, painted about 1520, is also a famous example of Venetian color. Nobody before had ever given so dramatic and impassioned a rendering of Bacchus, the God of Wine, leaping from his chariot to console and cherish Ariadne, the beautiful maiden forsaken by her false lover Theseus. There is action not only in the drawing, in the spirited rendering of movements, but there is life also in the color; the amber, ruby, and sapphire of the following draperies, sparkle quiver, and radiate.
Whence came these qualities so new to Venetian painting? They came from the great painter’s memories of his birthplace, his boyhood’s home beside the River Piave roaring down from storm-capped heights, from memories of the wind that swept through the tree-tops and rattled the rafters of the house. Familiar from childhood with the awe-inspiring, dramatic elements of Nature, Titian expressed her majesty and drama in his art.
Amid the wealth of pictorial beauty left by Titian it is difficult indeed to say which is his supreme masterpiece. According to Vasari, Titian’s ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ was held by his fellow citizens to be the ‘the best modern painting,’ and though it is no longer modern but an ‘old master,’ we cannot conceive a more impressive rendering of the subject than this picture, in which we almost hear the wind caused by the soaring ascent of the Virgin, her garments grandly swelling in the breeze by which the encircling cherubs waft her upwards.
Yet to this great painting of his mature years (1541) at least one of his earlier pictures is equal in beauty. To the transitional period in Titian’s life, while the direct influence of Giorgeione yet lingered, belongs the picture in the Borghese Gallery, Rome, known as ‘Sacred and Profane Love’. But the title is only a makeshift. Nobody knows the true meaning of this picture of two lovely women, one lightly draped, the other in the full splendor of Venetian dress, seated on either side of a well in the midst of a smiling landscape. There is a tradition that the one represents ‘Heavenly Love,’ the other ‘Earthly Love,’ but on the other hand a passage in Vasari about another painting by Titian, now lost, gives countenance to the theory that these figures are personifications of Grace and Beauty, or more probably Grace and Truth. A third theory is that the picture illustrates a passage in some lost poem.
The Splendor Of Venice (continued)
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Instead of the creased nondescript piece of material which had shrouded half his person and left the other half bare, a freshly laundered silk sarong of tartan design now covered his nether limbs, down to the ankles. A khaki-colored tunic with upstanding starched military collar remained unbuttoned to disclose a clean Aertex vest, through whose meshes the swarthy skin peeped as through many windows. Six Siamese silver tikals, the buttons of this outfit, represented probably the total wealth of Mirzah’s house, but he had bestowed the greatest care of all on a towering brilliant-colored turban which accentuated unduly the grievous hollows of his cheeks. He carried a massive ebony stick, whether for protection or support I did not discover.
As we stood ready to go, a pleasant feminine voice spoke from the inmost recesses of the house. Mirzah’s face lit up with a smile and he explained that one of his wives was wishing us luck. The prayers of a woman with child, he added, count twofold. In this delicate manner he conveyed to me that he was anticipating the joys of fatherhood.
When he had walked about a quarter of a mile we came to a good open road which led by an easy gradient up a hill, from which a fair view could be had over the near countryside. Upon the very crest of this hill stood a noble three-winged grey building of stone amidst exquisitely laid out grounds. Mirzah beckoned to a gardener who was working at hand and dispatched him to the house as a warning of the European’s coming. It was well, for when we sauntered up to the main door it was open, and a Chinese serving woman within bade us enter.
We were ushered at once into a large room, of a size to hold a small congregation, if the immense quantity of furniture that practically filled the place had been removed. It was uncarpeted throughout and the amber-colored crystal pavement, for such was the floor, promised a less secure foothold to me than to Mirzah, who was unshod. But he moved forward and I followed gingerly after, taking stock of my surroundings as I went. I noticed that the walls were covered with long mirrors and with pendant picture scrolls upon which in beautiful Chinese calligraphy were perpetuated the sayings of sages doubtless long dead. Mirzah salaamed respectfully to these, as he also salaamed in all directions to the carved fantastic Chinese furniture, to the tall plants in the gay porcelain tubs filling every odd space, to the long-stalked cut blooms in vases of every shape and size that ran riot over a multitude of low tables and high stands.
Finally, we reached the end of this maze and saw, sitting in a much-becushioned chair, a very small and very ancient Chinese lady, who smiled benignly upon me. It was only a feeble smile that flitted over that deeply wrinkled face, but nevertheless, one of real welcome. She extended her right arm slightly, and obediently Mirzah drew up two chairs for us, two cheap Viennese bentwood things such as are in common use throughout the Far East, where they often strike an incongruous note, as here. To me at that hour, however, they looked friendly, for they reminded me of my childhood home.
When I had seated myself I became aware of another presence, the old lady’s cockatoo which perched above us all on a bamboo rod and silently surveyed the scene. In face of the bird’s disconcerting stare I brought out from my attache-case the four morocco-leather wallets which held the diamond papers containing my stock-in-trade. Beside these I ranged methodically, as was my wont, carat scales, corn-tongs and magnifying glass. The old lady watched my deliberate movements with a humorous twinkle in her intelligent eyes, but her fidgetings showed that she was anxious for me to cut the cackle and come to the horses.
As Mirzah had told me that the lady wished to buy a five carat stone and I had gathered the price she was likely to pay. I brought out at once what I thought might suit her taste and pocket. In order to display the stone to the greatest advantage, I inserted it in the chromed spring grip I carried, which gives the effect of a ring setting, and held it out to her.
The first thing she did when she took it in her tiny clawlike hand was to shake it loose upon the table. No new-fangled methods for her. Then, like the critical buyer I saw her to be, she picked the brilliant up between the long horny-pink-enamelled nails of her thumb and first finger. After examining is closely with her naked eye for some while—she had scornfully refused my lens—she put it down again, saying disdainfully: ‘Tanda hitam’. These words she repeated twice more in a reproachful tone.
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Instead of the creased nondescript piece of material which had shrouded half his person and left the other half bare, a freshly laundered silk sarong of tartan design now covered his nether limbs, down to the ankles. A khaki-colored tunic with upstanding starched military collar remained unbuttoned to disclose a clean Aertex vest, through whose meshes the swarthy skin peeped as through many windows. Six Siamese silver tikals, the buttons of this outfit, represented probably the total wealth of Mirzah’s house, but he had bestowed the greatest care of all on a towering brilliant-colored turban which accentuated unduly the grievous hollows of his cheeks. He carried a massive ebony stick, whether for protection or support I did not discover.
As we stood ready to go, a pleasant feminine voice spoke from the inmost recesses of the house. Mirzah’s face lit up with a smile and he explained that one of his wives was wishing us luck. The prayers of a woman with child, he added, count twofold. In this delicate manner he conveyed to me that he was anticipating the joys of fatherhood.
When he had walked about a quarter of a mile we came to a good open road which led by an easy gradient up a hill, from which a fair view could be had over the near countryside. Upon the very crest of this hill stood a noble three-winged grey building of stone amidst exquisitely laid out grounds. Mirzah beckoned to a gardener who was working at hand and dispatched him to the house as a warning of the European’s coming. It was well, for when we sauntered up to the main door it was open, and a Chinese serving woman within bade us enter.
We were ushered at once into a large room, of a size to hold a small congregation, if the immense quantity of furniture that practically filled the place had been removed. It was uncarpeted throughout and the amber-colored crystal pavement, for such was the floor, promised a less secure foothold to me than to Mirzah, who was unshod. But he moved forward and I followed gingerly after, taking stock of my surroundings as I went. I noticed that the walls were covered with long mirrors and with pendant picture scrolls upon which in beautiful Chinese calligraphy were perpetuated the sayings of sages doubtless long dead. Mirzah salaamed respectfully to these, as he also salaamed in all directions to the carved fantastic Chinese furniture, to the tall plants in the gay porcelain tubs filling every odd space, to the long-stalked cut blooms in vases of every shape and size that ran riot over a multitude of low tables and high stands.
Finally, we reached the end of this maze and saw, sitting in a much-becushioned chair, a very small and very ancient Chinese lady, who smiled benignly upon me. It was only a feeble smile that flitted over that deeply wrinkled face, but nevertheless, one of real welcome. She extended her right arm slightly, and obediently Mirzah drew up two chairs for us, two cheap Viennese bentwood things such as are in common use throughout the Far East, where they often strike an incongruous note, as here. To me at that hour, however, they looked friendly, for they reminded me of my childhood home.
When I had seated myself I became aware of another presence, the old lady’s cockatoo which perched above us all on a bamboo rod and silently surveyed the scene. In face of the bird’s disconcerting stare I brought out from my attache-case the four morocco-leather wallets which held the diamond papers containing my stock-in-trade. Beside these I ranged methodically, as was my wont, carat scales, corn-tongs and magnifying glass. The old lady watched my deliberate movements with a humorous twinkle in her intelligent eyes, but her fidgetings showed that she was anxious for me to cut the cackle and come to the horses.
As Mirzah had told me that the lady wished to buy a five carat stone and I had gathered the price she was likely to pay. I brought out at once what I thought might suit her taste and pocket. In order to display the stone to the greatest advantage, I inserted it in the chromed spring grip I carried, which gives the effect of a ring setting, and held it out to her.
The first thing she did when she took it in her tiny clawlike hand was to shake it loose upon the table. No new-fangled methods for her. Then, like the critical buyer I saw her to be, she picked the brilliant up between the long horny-pink-enamelled nails of her thumb and first finger. After examining is closely with her naked eye for some while—she had scornfully refused my lens—she put it down again, saying disdainfully: ‘Tanda hitam’. These words she repeated twice more in a reproachful tone.
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods (continued)
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Elton John
Elton John is a five-time Grammy and one-time Academy Award-winning English pop/rock singer, composer and pianist + he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 + he frequently collaborates with other artists + he has a distinctive vocal style + founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992 as a charity to fund programmes for HIV/AIDS + he continues to inspire musicians today.
I love his music.
Useful links:
www.eltonjohn.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_John
I love his music.
Useful links:
www.eltonjohn.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_John
The Hidden Language Of Baseball
In my view, the intricate system (s) of coded language that govern action on the field and give baseball its unique appeal is comparable to the hidden, and inner aspects of colored stone/diamond/art market (s). One must reread Paul Dickson's The Hidden Language of Baseball to understand the scientific aspects of the game and relate the concept to the gem/jewelry/art markets.
Here is what the description of The Hidden Language Of Baseball says (via Amazon):
Baseball is set apart from other sports by many things, but few are more distinctive than the intricate systems of coded language that govern action on the field and give baseball its unique appeal. During a nine-inning game, more than 1,000 silent instructions are given-from catcher to pitcher, coach to batter, fielder to fielder, umpire to umpire-and without this speechless communication the game would simply not be the same. Baseball historian Paul Dickson examines for the first time the rich legacy of baseball's hidden language, offering fans everywhere a smorgasbord of history and anecdote.
Baseball's tradition of signing grew out of the signal flags used by ships and soldiers' hand signals during battle. They were first used in games during the Civil War, and then professionally by the Cincinnati Red Stockings, in 1869. Seven years later, the Hartford Dark Blues appear to be the first team to steal signs, introducing a larcenous obsession that, as Dickson delightfully chronicles, has given the game some of its most historic-and outlandish-moments.
Whether detailing the origins of the hit-and-run, the true story behind the home run that gave "Home Run" Baker his nickname, Bob Feller's sign-stealing telescope, Casey Stengel's improbable method of signaling his bullpen, the impact of sign stealing on the Giants' miraculous comeback in 1951, or the pitches Andy Pettitte tipped off that altered the momentum of the 2001 World Series, Dickson's research is as thorough as his stories are entertaining. A roster of baseball's greatest names and games, past and present, echoes throughout, making The Hidden Language of Baseball a unique window on the history of our national pastime.
Here is what the description of The Hidden Language Of Baseball says (via Amazon):
Baseball is set apart from other sports by many things, but few are more distinctive than the intricate systems of coded language that govern action on the field and give baseball its unique appeal. During a nine-inning game, more than 1,000 silent instructions are given-from catcher to pitcher, coach to batter, fielder to fielder, umpire to umpire-and without this speechless communication the game would simply not be the same. Baseball historian Paul Dickson examines for the first time the rich legacy of baseball's hidden language, offering fans everywhere a smorgasbord of history and anecdote.
Baseball's tradition of signing grew out of the signal flags used by ships and soldiers' hand signals during battle. They were first used in games during the Civil War, and then professionally by the Cincinnati Red Stockings, in 1869. Seven years later, the Hartford Dark Blues appear to be the first team to steal signs, introducing a larcenous obsession that, as Dickson delightfully chronicles, has given the game some of its most historic-and outlandish-moments.
Whether detailing the origins of the hit-and-run, the true story behind the home run that gave "Home Run" Baker his nickname, Bob Feller's sign-stealing telescope, Casey Stengel's improbable method of signaling his bullpen, the impact of sign stealing on the Giants' miraculous comeback in 1951, or the pitches Andy Pettitte tipped off that altered the momentum of the 2001 World Series, Dickson's research is as thorough as his stories are entertaining. A roster of baseball's greatest names and games, past and present, echoes throughout, making The Hidden Language of Baseball a unique window on the history of our national pastime.
Rose Cuts
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
A Rose cut diamond has a flat bottom which is usually a cleavage plane. Therefore, by definition, it has no pavilion. The crown is more or less dome-shaped, and covered with triangular facets in a specific design, terminating in a point. It is, in fact, a Point Cut. As a rule, Roses are round, triangular or drop-shaped, but more fancy outlines also exist. Almost all diamond of this cut are foiled in order to improve their light effects. Most modern writers refer to faceted diamonds of the fifteenth, sixteenth and most of the seventeenth centuries as Rose Cuts, regardless of the type of faceting. This over-simplification is probably partly due to Cellini’s Trattato dell’ Oreficeria of 1565, in which he calls the three main types of diamond cut in tavola, a facette and in punta. A facette was erroneously understood to refer to the Rose Cut. Another source of confusion has been the term ‘Rose’, originally used to describe the clusters of small stones now called Rosettes.
Early sources contrasted faceted diamond with Points and Tables but did not go into further detail. For diamonds which are neither square nor rectangular they invented descriptive names such as Kite, Lozenge, Triangle and Shield. Fancy shapes with a flat top instead of the usual point were named Coxcomb, Calf’s Head, etc. These were, in fact, variations of the popular Table Cut, as opposed to the fancy pointed shapes with faceted crown and no pavilion which I have name Gothic Roses. One should really call this cut ‘the Gothic Flat Bottomed Cut’—a term more technically correct but impossibly unromantic! At first, Gothic Rose Cuts were only basically faceted and had no standard design, the cutter following the crystallography of his rough and applying only a small number of facets. He was forced to add further facets only when the rough did not favor simplicity, or in order to obtain a good polish, or to dispose of disturbing flaws and irregularities.
During the transition from the Renaissance period to the Baroque, the Table Cut gradually lost its long-lasting popularity and finally ceded to the Brilliant Cut. Glittering diamonds became the fashion, but there was often a great shortage of rough suitable for this new, pavilion-based cut. So a design of a richly patterned type was introduced, a pattern with six-part symmetry and a stepped crown on a flat base. In other words, the crown had two concentric rows of facets, the lower row to the bottom of the stone and the upper row meeting in a point. This ‘stepping’ or ‘crowning’ was the innovation which produced light effects previously unknown in the Gothic Rose. It looked like a small, half-opened rosebud, and this was no doubt why it got its name. The old Rosettes were by now forgotten, so the name Rose Cut could happily be given to a new cut. This was clearly a commercial follower of the forsaken Double Rosette, inspired by it and the Pointed Star Cut, and hardly, as frequently claimed, by the Mughal Cut.
The legendary collection of religious objects known as La Chapelle de Richelieu became Crown property. Among other marvels, it contained a statue of the Virgin said to have been set with ‘1253 small Rose Cut diamonds’. Another French document also mentioned by Bapst in 1889 refers to ‘une roze ronde taille a facettes de grande etendu and ‘ung autre diamant en roze fort jaulni’ in 1649. Two Dutch documents also mention this cut—the first, in 1640, recording two pairs of pendants set with large and small Rose diamonds. The second, dated 1688, describes a jewel set with ‘een heel groote Roos facet diamant of een crustal’, meaning that it was fashioned from a single crystal.
In 1661 Cardinal Mazarin, successor to Richelieu, bequeathed part of his large collection of jewelry to the Crown and the inventory refers to a large diamond called the Rose d’Angleterre, long thought to be a Rose Cut but now proved to have been something totally different, with an unusually large table. Bernard Morel discovered that the gem was given this name because, during the reign of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, it was set in a jewel decorated with the roses of York and Lancaster. Morel believes that the diamond ‘was fashioned much like a brilliant but with fewer facets round the large table, and multifaceted below the girdle.’
A Rose cut diamond has a flat bottom which is usually a cleavage plane. Therefore, by definition, it has no pavilion. The crown is more or less dome-shaped, and covered with triangular facets in a specific design, terminating in a point. It is, in fact, a Point Cut. As a rule, Roses are round, triangular or drop-shaped, but more fancy outlines also exist. Almost all diamond of this cut are foiled in order to improve their light effects. Most modern writers refer to faceted diamonds of the fifteenth, sixteenth and most of the seventeenth centuries as Rose Cuts, regardless of the type of faceting. This over-simplification is probably partly due to Cellini’s Trattato dell’ Oreficeria of 1565, in which he calls the three main types of diamond cut in tavola, a facette and in punta. A facette was erroneously understood to refer to the Rose Cut. Another source of confusion has been the term ‘Rose’, originally used to describe the clusters of small stones now called Rosettes.
Early sources contrasted faceted diamond with Points and Tables but did not go into further detail. For diamonds which are neither square nor rectangular they invented descriptive names such as Kite, Lozenge, Triangle and Shield. Fancy shapes with a flat top instead of the usual point were named Coxcomb, Calf’s Head, etc. These were, in fact, variations of the popular Table Cut, as opposed to the fancy pointed shapes with faceted crown and no pavilion which I have name Gothic Roses. One should really call this cut ‘the Gothic Flat Bottomed Cut’—a term more technically correct but impossibly unromantic! At first, Gothic Rose Cuts were only basically faceted and had no standard design, the cutter following the crystallography of his rough and applying only a small number of facets. He was forced to add further facets only when the rough did not favor simplicity, or in order to obtain a good polish, or to dispose of disturbing flaws and irregularities.
During the transition from the Renaissance period to the Baroque, the Table Cut gradually lost its long-lasting popularity and finally ceded to the Brilliant Cut. Glittering diamonds became the fashion, but there was often a great shortage of rough suitable for this new, pavilion-based cut. So a design of a richly patterned type was introduced, a pattern with six-part symmetry and a stepped crown on a flat base. In other words, the crown had two concentric rows of facets, the lower row to the bottom of the stone and the upper row meeting in a point. This ‘stepping’ or ‘crowning’ was the innovation which produced light effects previously unknown in the Gothic Rose. It looked like a small, half-opened rosebud, and this was no doubt why it got its name. The old Rosettes were by now forgotten, so the name Rose Cut could happily be given to a new cut. This was clearly a commercial follower of the forsaken Double Rosette, inspired by it and the Pointed Star Cut, and hardly, as frequently claimed, by the Mughal Cut.
The legendary collection of religious objects known as La Chapelle de Richelieu became Crown property. Among other marvels, it contained a statue of the Virgin said to have been set with ‘1253 small Rose Cut diamonds’. Another French document also mentioned by Bapst in 1889 refers to ‘une roze ronde taille a facettes de grande etendu and ‘ung autre diamant en roze fort jaulni’ in 1649. Two Dutch documents also mention this cut—the first, in 1640, recording two pairs of pendants set with large and small Rose diamonds. The second, dated 1688, describes a jewel set with ‘een heel groote Roos facet diamant of een crustal’, meaning that it was fashioned from a single crystal.
In 1661 Cardinal Mazarin, successor to Richelieu, bequeathed part of his large collection of jewelry to the Crown and the inventory refers to a large diamond called the Rose d’Angleterre, long thought to be a Rose Cut but now proved to have been something totally different, with an unusually large table. Bernard Morel discovered that the gem was given this name because, during the reign of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, it was set in a jewel decorated with the roses of York and Lancaster. Morel believes that the diamond ‘was fashioned much like a brilliant but with fewer facets round the large table, and multifaceted below the girdle.’
How We Learn From Our Mistakes
Laura Blue writes about how a common gene variant affects some people's ability to respond to, and learn from, the negative repercussions of their actions + other viewpoints @ http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1691924,00.html
Charade
Charade (1963)
Directed by: Stanley Donen
Screenplay: Peter Stone , Marc Behm (story); Peter Stone (screenplay)
Cast: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn
(via YouTube): Charade Opening Titles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjGDjwxRwpI
Charade - Criterion Collection Movie Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdM81YPt6FM
A unique thriller-romance-comedy. I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Stanley Donen
Screenplay: Peter Stone , Marc Behm (story); Peter Stone (screenplay)
Cast: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn
(via YouTube): Charade Opening Titles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjGDjwxRwpI
Charade - Criterion Collection Movie Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdM81YPt6FM
A unique thriller-romance-comedy. I enjoyed it.
This Is My Mark ... This Is Man
(via The Guardian) Jonathan Jones writes about a painted cave on a par with Lascaux in France + an underground odyssey - beginning in Wales + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2222879,00.html
The New Climate
Robin Cembalest writes about the role that artists, arts institutions play in the revival and reconstruction of downtown New York + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1012
The Road To Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
5
Justly famous by right of his own paintings, Giovanni is also renowned as the master of some of the greatest painters Venice ever saw, chief among his pupils being Giorgione and Titian. The first was born at Castelfranco in 1470, and was christened Giorgio, but ‘from his stature and the greatness of his mind he was afterwards known as Giorgione,’ that is to say, ‘Great George.’ Though of peasant origin, contemporaries say he was ‘well bred and polished all his life.’ He was of a loving disposition and exceedingly fond of the lute, ‘playing and singing divinely,’ and this love of music became the new note which Giorgione definitely contributed to art, for not only did he frequently introduce music as a subject in his pictures (e.g ‘The Concert’ at Dresden, and the man playing a mandolin in ‘The Golden Age’ at the National Gallery, and the ‘Fete Champetre’ or Musical Party in the Louvre), but all his pictures, as Walter Pater wrote, ‘constantly aspire to the condition of music.’ By this it is meant that everything in a Giorgione is subordinated to beauty, and that his first concern is to create melody of line and harmony of color.
The gentle nature of the artist, who found grace and loveliness in all men and all things, can be traced in every work of his that has survived the storms of time. In his great altar-piece ‘Madonna Enthroned, with St. Liberale and St. Francis,’ for his native hill town of Castelfranco, painted before he was thirty, Giorgione charms us alike by the rhythm and balance of the whole composition and by the lovableness of his types. The sweet simplicity of young womanhood in the Virgin, the naturalness of the Child, the knightliness of the soldier-saint Liberale, the welcoming gesture of the nature-loving Saint who could preach to birds and fishes and call them his brethren—all these things are manifest in the illustration of this beautiful picture.
It is a great misfortune that so many of Giorgione’s paintings have been lost or destroyed in the course of centuries. Barely a score are known for certain to exist today, but among them are some of the most splendid portraits in the world. His ‘Young Man’ in the Berlin Gallery and his ‘Unknown Man’ in the Querini-Stampalia Collection at Venice are examples of his power in portraiture.
Vasari tells us that Giorgione ‘did a picture of Christ bearing the Cross and a Jew dragging him along, which after a time was placed in the Church of St. Rocco, and now works miracles, as we see, through the devotion of the multitudes who visit it.’ We can form some idea of what the exceeding beauty of this painting must have been from the unforgettable head of ‘Christ bearing the Cross,’ which still exists in the private collection of Mrs Gardner, of Boston, USA.
But, alas! not a fragment has survived of the famous picture which Giorgione painted to prove the superiority of painting to sculpture. While Verrocchio was in Venice engaged upon the bronze horse of his splendid Colleone Monument, his admirers argued that sculpture, which presented so many aspects of a figure, was superior to painting. Giorgione maintained that a painting could show at a single glance all the aspects that a man can present, while sculpture can only do so if one walks about it, and thus he proved his contention:
‘He painted a nude figure turning its shoulders; at its feet was a limpid fount of water, the reflection from which showed the front. On one side was a burnished corselet, which had been taken off and gave a side view, because the shining metal reflected everything. On the other side was a mirror showing the other side of the figure.’
The scarcity of Giorgione’s work is partly explained by the fact that he died young. In 1510 he was deeply in love with a Venetian lady, who caught the plague, but ‘Giorgione, being ignorant of this, associated with her as usual, took the infection, and died soon after at the age of thirty four, to the infinite grief of his friends, who loved him for his talents, and to the damage of the world which lost him.’
5
Justly famous by right of his own paintings, Giovanni is also renowned as the master of some of the greatest painters Venice ever saw, chief among his pupils being Giorgione and Titian. The first was born at Castelfranco in 1470, and was christened Giorgio, but ‘from his stature and the greatness of his mind he was afterwards known as Giorgione,’ that is to say, ‘Great George.’ Though of peasant origin, contemporaries say he was ‘well bred and polished all his life.’ He was of a loving disposition and exceedingly fond of the lute, ‘playing and singing divinely,’ and this love of music became the new note which Giorgione definitely contributed to art, for not only did he frequently introduce music as a subject in his pictures (e.g ‘The Concert’ at Dresden, and the man playing a mandolin in ‘The Golden Age’ at the National Gallery, and the ‘Fete Champetre’ or Musical Party in the Louvre), but all his pictures, as Walter Pater wrote, ‘constantly aspire to the condition of music.’ By this it is meant that everything in a Giorgione is subordinated to beauty, and that his first concern is to create melody of line and harmony of color.
The gentle nature of the artist, who found grace and loveliness in all men and all things, can be traced in every work of his that has survived the storms of time. In his great altar-piece ‘Madonna Enthroned, with St. Liberale and St. Francis,’ for his native hill town of Castelfranco, painted before he was thirty, Giorgione charms us alike by the rhythm and balance of the whole composition and by the lovableness of his types. The sweet simplicity of young womanhood in the Virgin, the naturalness of the Child, the knightliness of the soldier-saint Liberale, the welcoming gesture of the nature-loving Saint who could preach to birds and fishes and call them his brethren—all these things are manifest in the illustration of this beautiful picture.
It is a great misfortune that so many of Giorgione’s paintings have been lost or destroyed in the course of centuries. Barely a score are known for certain to exist today, but among them are some of the most splendid portraits in the world. His ‘Young Man’ in the Berlin Gallery and his ‘Unknown Man’ in the Querini-Stampalia Collection at Venice are examples of his power in portraiture.
Vasari tells us that Giorgione ‘did a picture of Christ bearing the Cross and a Jew dragging him along, which after a time was placed in the Church of St. Rocco, and now works miracles, as we see, through the devotion of the multitudes who visit it.’ We can form some idea of what the exceeding beauty of this painting must have been from the unforgettable head of ‘Christ bearing the Cross,’ which still exists in the private collection of Mrs Gardner, of Boston, USA.
But, alas! not a fragment has survived of the famous picture which Giorgione painted to prove the superiority of painting to sculpture. While Verrocchio was in Venice engaged upon the bronze horse of his splendid Colleone Monument, his admirers argued that sculpture, which presented so many aspects of a figure, was superior to painting. Giorgione maintained that a painting could show at a single glance all the aspects that a man can present, while sculpture can only do so if one walks about it, and thus he proved his contention:
‘He painted a nude figure turning its shoulders; at its feet was a limpid fount of water, the reflection from which showed the front. On one side was a burnished corselet, which had been taken off and gave a side view, because the shining metal reflected everything. On the other side was a mirror showing the other side of the figure.’
The scarcity of Giorgione’s work is partly explained by the fact that he died young. In 1510 he was deeply in love with a Venetian lady, who caught the plague, but ‘Giorgione, being ignorant of this, associated with her as usual, took the infection, and died soon after at the age of thirty four, to the infinite grief of his friends, who loved him for his talents, and to the damage of the world which lost him.’
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
My friend and associate in Antwerp called me ‘faint heart’, but this time I was right and he was wrong. We had not gone our several ways above eighteen months when his fortune, which at one time may have reached the seven-figure mark in sterling, was swept away. But I consider that Fate did not, after all, deal unkindly with him. No one was the worse by a penny for his misadventure, and he himself was taken off suddenly, before he really felt poverty. His faults, and he had some, were such as the advantages of education might have eliminated, and his good qualities many. An untruth was an abomination to him. He dealt fairly, fave generously, and of him it might be said with justice that ‘loyalty’ was his middle name.
Such was my large scale dealing in diamonds, playing credits against thousands of pounds’ worth of goods over two continents. There are other sides to the game, however, and I have known most of them. One memory I have of a certain Malayan adventure, which I would not have missed for worlds. It was a fine, delicate, leisurely flavor, full of the adventure of Eastern trading. I will see if I can impart it to you.
There are still some parts of an ever-narrowing world left where an itinerant diamond merchant may unload a larger parcel of brilliants on an unsophisticated housewife than on the local goldsmith, usually, of course, at a better profit! Whether the good woman decides to pay in cash or in monthly instalments, the dealer knows his money is safe, for the Chinese ladies of Malaya are scrupulously honest.
I heard of one likely spot—this was during my Singapore days—and I determined to enlarge my circle of private customers, even though it must involve an automobile journey of four hundred miles, by roads none too good, and across narrow, rickety wooden bridges which might at any moment conspire with the fatalistic speed-maniac at the wheel to precipitate me into a crocodile-infested swamp.
When mercifully I arrived at my destination in an unmutilated condition, I did not know a single soul in the district, and had I not taken the precaution of providing myself with a letter of introduction to one Mirzah, I might have come away at once a sadly disappointed man. This introduction had been scribbled in Arabic Malay upon a half-sheet torn from a motor-accessory dealer’s price list. I could not read it, and for all I knew its contents might have proved embarrassing to me. But I was already taking so many risks that one more didn’t matter. If I knew nothing at all of this Mirzah to whose good offices I was commended, at least his friend, my introducer, was a propertied man and had supplied me with two cans of petrol. But all he had been willing to say of Mirzah was that he acted sometimes as a go-between for merchants if he liked their looks. My prospects of enlisting his cooperation, therefore, were of the slenderest.
When I presented myself at Mirzah’s tin-roofed one-roomed shack he was still at his early morning devotions. After he had perused my introduction, he scrutinized me carefully and then declared with an air of deep gratitude, that I had been sent by Heaven itself. It required little intuition on my part to divine that Mirzah’s cupboard was not overstocked, for hollower cheeks than his I had as yet not encountered in all my journeying across the Malay Peninsular.
There is an Oriental saying which I remembered as I faced my broker-to-be. It says that the All-Merciful never sends one of his winged messengers to earth, but chooses quite an ordinary mortal in pursuit of his own selfish ends, for bringing succour to the needy and comfort to the distressed.
In my eagerness to make the most of the few hours I had allotted to the small township, I asked at once whether Mirzah knew of anyone who stood in urgent need of diamonds. Mirzah replied that it was an ill things to discuss such important business on an empty stomach (he was doubtless referring to his own). I at once agreed to postpone my business until he had broken his fast, for after all, it was only seven, a little more than an hour after sunrise. He offered me the loan of his best rattan rocking chair in which to compose my salesman’s ardor, and went on. I suspected that he had gone to get credit for provender on the strength of his prospects with me, for the news of my arrival in town had already reached the ears of even the most sluggard risers. Meanwhile I took a mental inventory of my host’s possessions.
Upon a large square of grass mat stood a solid hardwood table, surrounded by several high-backed chairs, which have evidence of being home-made. Two rocking chairs had apparently seen several generations come and go. A polished brass vase or two and a cheap color print on a wall, depicting their British Majesties, supplied the decorations. One outsize spittoon represented utility. The room itself was portioned off by a drab cotton curtain reaching halfway to the bare rafters, and hung loosely suspended from a thin, tautly stretched wire rope. Occasionally this curtain bulged and I thought I saw an eye applied to a convenient spy hole. Mirzah’s harem was slaking its curiosity.
Presently Mirzah returned with an armful of provisions. After some delay they were passed back to him through the curtain in the semblance of a substantial breakfast. He ate, I smoked. At length he was willing to talk business. He vouchsafed that there was a wealthy Chinese lady who had long waiting for such as me. She might be game for a good five carat stone, at a reasonable price, but he warned me that she knew what was what. There were also others, he told me, who might be tempted, but first call must be made on the old lady in the fine big house on the top of the hill. I would place myself entirely in his hands, I said, adding that I was ready to go. But he insisted that first he must send his serving-man to make sure that our visit was welcome. The man returned immediately to say we could come as soon as we liked, but Mirzah was not yet ready. He owed it to the English merchant, he said, and to the lady of the fine house on the hill, to make the most of himself. This time he disappeared for a long while behind the curtain, and when he came forth he was transformed.
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
My friend and associate in Antwerp called me ‘faint heart’, but this time I was right and he was wrong. We had not gone our several ways above eighteen months when his fortune, which at one time may have reached the seven-figure mark in sterling, was swept away. But I consider that Fate did not, after all, deal unkindly with him. No one was the worse by a penny for his misadventure, and he himself was taken off suddenly, before he really felt poverty. His faults, and he had some, were such as the advantages of education might have eliminated, and his good qualities many. An untruth was an abomination to him. He dealt fairly, fave generously, and of him it might be said with justice that ‘loyalty’ was his middle name.
Such was my large scale dealing in diamonds, playing credits against thousands of pounds’ worth of goods over two continents. There are other sides to the game, however, and I have known most of them. One memory I have of a certain Malayan adventure, which I would not have missed for worlds. It was a fine, delicate, leisurely flavor, full of the adventure of Eastern trading. I will see if I can impart it to you.
There are still some parts of an ever-narrowing world left where an itinerant diamond merchant may unload a larger parcel of brilliants on an unsophisticated housewife than on the local goldsmith, usually, of course, at a better profit! Whether the good woman decides to pay in cash or in monthly instalments, the dealer knows his money is safe, for the Chinese ladies of Malaya are scrupulously honest.
I heard of one likely spot—this was during my Singapore days—and I determined to enlarge my circle of private customers, even though it must involve an automobile journey of four hundred miles, by roads none too good, and across narrow, rickety wooden bridges which might at any moment conspire with the fatalistic speed-maniac at the wheel to precipitate me into a crocodile-infested swamp.
When mercifully I arrived at my destination in an unmutilated condition, I did not know a single soul in the district, and had I not taken the precaution of providing myself with a letter of introduction to one Mirzah, I might have come away at once a sadly disappointed man. This introduction had been scribbled in Arabic Malay upon a half-sheet torn from a motor-accessory dealer’s price list. I could not read it, and for all I knew its contents might have proved embarrassing to me. But I was already taking so many risks that one more didn’t matter. If I knew nothing at all of this Mirzah to whose good offices I was commended, at least his friend, my introducer, was a propertied man and had supplied me with two cans of petrol. But all he had been willing to say of Mirzah was that he acted sometimes as a go-between for merchants if he liked their looks. My prospects of enlisting his cooperation, therefore, were of the slenderest.
When I presented myself at Mirzah’s tin-roofed one-roomed shack he was still at his early morning devotions. After he had perused my introduction, he scrutinized me carefully and then declared with an air of deep gratitude, that I had been sent by Heaven itself. It required little intuition on my part to divine that Mirzah’s cupboard was not overstocked, for hollower cheeks than his I had as yet not encountered in all my journeying across the Malay Peninsular.
There is an Oriental saying which I remembered as I faced my broker-to-be. It says that the All-Merciful never sends one of his winged messengers to earth, but chooses quite an ordinary mortal in pursuit of his own selfish ends, for bringing succour to the needy and comfort to the distressed.
In my eagerness to make the most of the few hours I had allotted to the small township, I asked at once whether Mirzah knew of anyone who stood in urgent need of diamonds. Mirzah replied that it was an ill things to discuss such important business on an empty stomach (he was doubtless referring to his own). I at once agreed to postpone my business until he had broken his fast, for after all, it was only seven, a little more than an hour after sunrise. He offered me the loan of his best rattan rocking chair in which to compose my salesman’s ardor, and went on. I suspected that he had gone to get credit for provender on the strength of his prospects with me, for the news of my arrival in town had already reached the ears of even the most sluggard risers. Meanwhile I took a mental inventory of my host’s possessions.
Upon a large square of grass mat stood a solid hardwood table, surrounded by several high-backed chairs, which have evidence of being home-made. Two rocking chairs had apparently seen several generations come and go. A polished brass vase or two and a cheap color print on a wall, depicting their British Majesties, supplied the decorations. One outsize spittoon represented utility. The room itself was portioned off by a drab cotton curtain reaching halfway to the bare rafters, and hung loosely suspended from a thin, tautly stretched wire rope. Occasionally this curtain bulged and I thought I saw an eye applied to a convenient spy hole. Mirzah’s harem was slaking its curiosity.
Presently Mirzah returned with an armful of provisions. After some delay they were passed back to him through the curtain in the semblance of a substantial breakfast. He ate, I smoked. At length he was willing to talk business. He vouchsafed that there was a wealthy Chinese lady who had long waiting for such as me. She might be game for a good five carat stone, at a reasonable price, but he warned me that she knew what was what. There were also others, he told me, who might be tempted, but first call must be made on the old lady in the fine big house on the top of the hill. I would place myself entirely in his hands, I said, adding that I was ready to go. But he insisted that first he must send his serving-man to make sure that our visit was welcome. The man returned immediately to say we could come as soon as we liked, but Mirzah was not yet ready. He owed it to the English merchant, he said, and to the lady of the fine house on the hill, to make the most of himself. This time he disappeared for a long while behind the curtain, and when he came forth he was transformed.
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods (continued)
Saturday, December 08, 2007
La Scala Opens New Season With Wagner's ‘Tristan’
(via Reuters): Milan's La Scala opened its new opera season with Richard Wagner's five-hour-plus spectacle 'Tristan and Isolde'. www.teatroallascala.org
Useful link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/stageNews/idUSL0661609220071206
Useful link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/stageNews/idUSL0661609220071206
To Cork Or Not To Cork: The Wine Industry's Battle Over The Bottleneck
(via Knowledge at Wharton): George Taber, a veteran business journalist and author, explains in his new book, To Cork or Not to Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle about cork, other forms of closure, including screw caps, plastic seals and glass stoppers + other viewpoints @ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1857.cfm
Camille
Camille (1936)
Directed by: George Cukor
Screenplay: Alexandre Dumas fils (novel); Zoe Akins, Frances Marion, James Hilton
Cast: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore
(via YouTube): Camille - Come What May
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zsCbIpyjsU
A great, grand soap opera. I enjoyed it.
Directed by: George Cukor
Screenplay: Alexandre Dumas fils (novel); Zoe Akins, Frances Marion, James Hilton
Cast: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore
(via YouTube): Camille - Come What May
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zsCbIpyjsU
A great, grand soap opera. I enjoyed it.
Who Pays The Fewest Bribes
(via Transparency International): A survey by global anti-corruption body Transparency International has found more than one in ten has paid bribes in various levels to obtain service (s) across the globe in the past twelve months.
Austria - 1%
Canada - 1%
France - 1%
Iceland - 1%
Japan - 1%
South Korea - 1%
Sweden - 1%
Switzerland - 1%
Denmark - 2%
Netherlands - 2%
Useful link:
www.transparency.org
Austria - 1%
Canada - 1%
France - 1%
Iceland - 1%
Japan - 1%
South Korea - 1%
Sweden - 1%
Switzerland - 1%
Denmark - 2%
Netherlands - 2%
Useful link:
www.transparency.org
Choosing DTC Sightholders: A Game Of Power, Principles And Profiles
Chaim Even-Zohar writes about the internal corporate power plays at De Beers surrounding the new Sightholder list + the allocation methodology + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
The Art Of The State
(via The Guardian) Sam Jones writes about a new catalogue of 2,500 scattered oil paintings held by the Government Art Collection + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2223670,00.html
55,000 Signatures And Counting
Milton Esterow writes about John Castagno + four of his compilations of 55,000 signatures and monograms—most of them readable, some of them strange, ambiguous, or illegible--starting with the old masters and continuing through the present + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2385¤t=True
The Road To Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
4
Soon after the death in 1470 of Jacopo Bellini, there arrived in Venice a young Sicilian painter who, without being himself a great master, nevertheless changed the whole course of Italian painting. This was Antonio da Messina (1430-79), who, having seen at Naples in his youth a Flemish picture painted in oils, was so fascinated by the advantages of the new medium, that he went to Flanders and stayed there for some six years till he had thoroughly mastered the new process of painting. Then he returned to Italy, where he generously communicated his secrets to other artists, and so popularized in Italy the Flemish method of oil painting. Antonello was a skillful painter, both of figures and landscape, as his ‘Crucifixion’ from the picture in the National Gallery, proves; but unfortunately he died at the age of forty nine, just when he had received commissions for a number of important paintings, and so we can only judge of his talent by the few small pictures and portraits which have survived.
Others reaped where Antonello had sown. Already Venetian painters had shown a certain independence in their art. In this maritime port, where sails were more plentiful than trees, pictures had long been painted on canvas, for wood that warps and plaster that scales and falls were ill suited to resist the damp that came from the canals. Van Eyck’s method of oil painting, introduced by Antonello, was soon found to be more damp-proof than the old method (tempera) of mixing pigments with yolk-of-egg, besides being lighter in weight and richer in color.
Among the first to take advantage of the new method were the two sons of Bellini, who had soon followed their father to Venice, after his separation from Squarcione. Gentile, the elder, named after Gentile da Fabriano (Jacopo’s first master), was born about 1429; his brother Giovanni was a year or two younger. Both these sons far surpassed their father, and the younger outstripped the elder, but throughout their lives there was no jealously between them.
‘Although the brothers live apart,’ says Vasari, ‘they bore such respect for each other and for their father, that each one declared himself to be inferior to the other, thus seeking modestly to surpass the other no less in goodness and courtesy than in the excellence of art.’
We are told that ‘the first works of Giovanni were some portraits which gave great satisfaction, especially that of the Doge Loredano.’ This last is the sumptuous painting, now hanging in the National Gallery; and from this noble portrait of the Head of the Venetian Republic may be obtained a just idea of Giovanni’s power of characterization and of the splendor of his color when he was still at the outset of his great career. Impressed by the beauty of his portraits and of numerous altar-pieces which he painted for churches in Venetian territory, the nobles of the city desired this great painter, together with his brother Gentile, ‘to decorate the hall of the great council with paintings descriptive of the magnificence and greatness of their marvelous city.’ So, beginning with the brothers Bellini, and afterwards continued by painters of equal eminence, there came into being that unrivalled series of mural paintings in public buildings which makes Venice today the most wonderful art city in the world.
Of all the altar-pieces painted by Giovanni Bellini, the most exquisite is the illustration ‘The Doge Barberigo Kneeling before the Infant Christ’, a painting formerly in the Church of San Pietro at Murano, but now in the Accademia, Venice. This Madonna is one of the loveliest in all Italian art, serene, majestic, pensive, but altogether human and lovable.
Softness and gentleness always distinguish the work of Giovanni Bellini from that of his brother Gentile, who inclined more to the severity of his brother-in-law Mantegna. Good examples of Gentile Bellini may be seen in the National Gallery, among them being an ‘Adoration of the Magi’ and his portraits of ‘The Sultan Mohammed II’. The last has an interesting history. Although paintings are prohibited by Mohammedan laws, this Sultan saw some portraits by Giovanni Bellini in the possession of the Venetian Ambassador, and, filled with amazement and admiration, he earnestly desired to see the man who could create such marvels. The Venetian Senate, however, was disinclined to let Giovanni leave the city, but allowed his brother Gentile to go in his stead. Gentile arrived at Constantinople, where he ‘was received graciously and highly favored,’ and after painting a number of portraits, including one of the Sultan and one (by request) of himself, the Grand Turk was ‘convinced that the artist had been assisted by some divine spirit.’ He wished to reward the artist richly, and ‘asked him to name any favor which he desired, and it would immediately be granted.’
Tactful and courteous, yet conscious that if he unduly prolonged his stay in Turkey he might excite envy and dangerous religious animosity, Gentile replied that he ‘asked for nothing but a letter of recommendation to the senate and government of his native Venice.’ Though loath to let him go, the Sultan was as good as his word. The letter was written ‘in the warmest possible terms, after which he was dismissed with noble gifts and the honor of knighthood.’
So Gentile Bellini returned in honor to Venice, where he lived till he was nearly eighty, when ‘he passed to the other life,’ says Vasari, ‘and was honorably buried by his brother in Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the year 1507.’ His brother Giovanni survived him by some ten years and continued, find old patriarch that he was, painting portraits till almost the end of his days. ‘At length,’ says our historian, he passed from the troubles of this life, leaving an everlasting name for the works which he produced in his native Venice and elsewhere. He was buried in the same church where he had previously laid his brother Gentile.’
The Road To Venice (continued)
4
Soon after the death in 1470 of Jacopo Bellini, there arrived in Venice a young Sicilian painter who, without being himself a great master, nevertheless changed the whole course of Italian painting. This was Antonio da Messina (1430-79), who, having seen at Naples in his youth a Flemish picture painted in oils, was so fascinated by the advantages of the new medium, that he went to Flanders and stayed there for some six years till he had thoroughly mastered the new process of painting. Then he returned to Italy, where he generously communicated his secrets to other artists, and so popularized in Italy the Flemish method of oil painting. Antonello was a skillful painter, both of figures and landscape, as his ‘Crucifixion’ from the picture in the National Gallery, proves; but unfortunately he died at the age of forty nine, just when he had received commissions for a number of important paintings, and so we can only judge of his talent by the few small pictures and portraits which have survived.
Others reaped where Antonello had sown. Already Venetian painters had shown a certain independence in their art. In this maritime port, where sails were more plentiful than trees, pictures had long been painted on canvas, for wood that warps and plaster that scales and falls were ill suited to resist the damp that came from the canals. Van Eyck’s method of oil painting, introduced by Antonello, was soon found to be more damp-proof than the old method (tempera) of mixing pigments with yolk-of-egg, besides being lighter in weight and richer in color.
Among the first to take advantage of the new method were the two sons of Bellini, who had soon followed their father to Venice, after his separation from Squarcione. Gentile, the elder, named after Gentile da Fabriano (Jacopo’s first master), was born about 1429; his brother Giovanni was a year or two younger. Both these sons far surpassed their father, and the younger outstripped the elder, but throughout their lives there was no jealously between them.
‘Although the brothers live apart,’ says Vasari, ‘they bore such respect for each other and for their father, that each one declared himself to be inferior to the other, thus seeking modestly to surpass the other no less in goodness and courtesy than in the excellence of art.’
We are told that ‘the first works of Giovanni were some portraits which gave great satisfaction, especially that of the Doge Loredano.’ This last is the sumptuous painting, now hanging in the National Gallery; and from this noble portrait of the Head of the Venetian Republic may be obtained a just idea of Giovanni’s power of characterization and of the splendor of his color when he was still at the outset of his great career. Impressed by the beauty of his portraits and of numerous altar-pieces which he painted for churches in Venetian territory, the nobles of the city desired this great painter, together with his brother Gentile, ‘to decorate the hall of the great council with paintings descriptive of the magnificence and greatness of their marvelous city.’ So, beginning with the brothers Bellini, and afterwards continued by painters of equal eminence, there came into being that unrivalled series of mural paintings in public buildings which makes Venice today the most wonderful art city in the world.
Of all the altar-pieces painted by Giovanni Bellini, the most exquisite is the illustration ‘The Doge Barberigo Kneeling before the Infant Christ’, a painting formerly in the Church of San Pietro at Murano, but now in the Accademia, Venice. This Madonna is one of the loveliest in all Italian art, serene, majestic, pensive, but altogether human and lovable.
Softness and gentleness always distinguish the work of Giovanni Bellini from that of his brother Gentile, who inclined more to the severity of his brother-in-law Mantegna. Good examples of Gentile Bellini may be seen in the National Gallery, among them being an ‘Adoration of the Magi’ and his portraits of ‘The Sultan Mohammed II’. The last has an interesting history. Although paintings are prohibited by Mohammedan laws, this Sultan saw some portraits by Giovanni Bellini in the possession of the Venetian Ambassador, and, filled with amazement and admiration, he earnestly desired to see the man who could create such marvels. The Venetian Senate, however, was disinclined to let Giovanni leave the city, but allowed his brother Gentile to go in his stead. Gentile arrived at Constantinople, where he ‘was received graciously and highly favored,’ and after painting a number of portraits, including one of the Sultan and one (by request) of himself, the Grand Turk was ‘convinced that the artist had been assisted by some divine spirit.’ He wished to reward the artist richly, and ‘asked him to name any favor which he desired, and it would immediately be granted.’
Tactful and courteous, yet conscious that if he unduly prolonged his stay in Turkey he might excite envy and dangerous religious animosity, Gentile replied that he ‘asked for nothing but a letter of recommendation to the senate and government of his native Venice.’ Though loath to let him go, the Sultan was as good as his word. The letter was written ‘in the warmest possible terms, after which he was dismissed with noble gifts and the honor of knighthood.’
So Gentile Bellini returned in honor to Venice, where he lived till he was nearly eighty, when ‘he passed to the other life,’ says Vasari, ‘and was honorably buried by his brother in Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the year 1507.’ His brother Giovanni survived him by some ten years and continued, find old patriarch that he was, painting portraits till almost the end of his days. ‘At length,’ says our historian, he passed from the troubles of this life, leaving an everlasting name for the works which he produced in his native Venice and elsewhere. He was buried in the same church where he had previously laid his brother Gentile.’
The Road To Venice (continued)
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
I told you that I ‘broke’ three times into diamond trading. The third occasion was when I was introduced to a prominent Antwerp diamond cutter in New York. For some reason he took to me, perhaps because I visited him in a nursing home when he was bored and ill. At any rate, he pressed me to come and see him when I reached Europe, and four weeks later I sat in the great man’s office in the Rue Coquilhat in Antwerp. He was a prince among men, although he could scarcely write his own name, and the outcome of our chance acquaintance was that I was associated with him over a period of six years, during which time my firm distributed throughout China, Indo-China, Japan, the Philippines and Malaya the stones which were cut in my principal’s Antwerp establishment. The strangest thing about it all was that he knew nothing about me; almost equally strange was the fact that although he had the largest diamond factory in Belgium I had never previously heard his name.
‘So you are specializing in pearls,’ he said, ‘and are operating in China at present. Why don’t you go in for diamonds on a large scale?’
‘For the best reason in the world,’ I said, laughing. ‘It takes me all my time to finance my pearl business.’
‘Oh, money be damned,’ he returned. ‘You can buy from me all you want without cash. Your paper is good enough for me.’
‘But paper has to be met,’ said I. ‘And I can’t see myself getting a single night’s sound sleep if I were to buy beyond my strength.’
‘That puts a different complexion on the matter,’ he smiled. ‘But although if you want to sleep, then sleep you must; I had thought you of the calibre of a big merchant who is out for big things and to whom sleep is a secondary matter. How much sleep do you think did Napoleon get in all his life?’ That was no talk for serious merchants. It was foolishness got up as the essence of wisdom. However, while he was still speaking he told his head clerk to bring out the classified series of brilliants which had been finished that morning.
‘These are the class of goods that sell in China,’ he said. ‘You may not know it, but I am well informed on the point. The series comes to approximately £40000. You can make your fifteen percent on it as easily as you can kiss your hand. Will you buy it if I guarantee you a profit?’
A friend who had introduced us in New York sat by my side and I looked at him.
‘Henry,’ I said, ‘I haven’t touched a brilliant for years, I am not au fait with values, I am a steady goer, I take no wild plunges, and my paper if I give it has to be met. Tell our friend here to look for other customers.’
Henry, who was a great expert on brilliants and had for twenty five years never lost touch with the diamond market, and who loved me as a brother, said: ‘Buy!’
I bought the lot; it came to over forty thousand pounds, and I paid with my signature. I did not know then what I had let myself in for. But of that more anon. I shipped the goods out to my brother, who was then in charge of our Manila office.
Suddenly I remembered, even as the goods were on their way, that you might buy diamonds for £40000 on tick if the seller had faith in your integrity, but that the American Collector of Customs in Manila would want to see the color our money before issuing a clearance certificate for the goods. Fifteen percent ad valorem meant £6000 in Customs duty, and this was an outlay which I had not figured on before I had left the Islands. In great perturbation I mentioned this little fact to the seller. He laughed.
‘I gave you credit for forty thousand pounds, so I may as well make forty six thousand,’ he said, grabbed the phone and instructed his bank to make cable transfer to Manila of £6000 in our favor.
That shows you what sort of a Napoleon my credit was. Two weeks later, having been in the interim in London, I went again to Antwerp. I called on my friend. He shook me warmly by the hand and said, without further parley: ‘Your luck’s out. The bottom has fallen out of the diamond market since you bought that parcel from me. You can buy the identical goods today at twenty five percent below the prices you paid me. Can you stand a loss like that without making a fuss about it?’
‘It’s bad news,’ I said calmly, for a man who has been knocked out by a hundred pound weight is quite calm in a manner of speaking, ‘but I have four months in front of me and the East is a big place. In any case, I now have a good reason for not sleeping at night.’
‘Do you know what I would do in your place?’ he asked.
‘Are you going to give me some good advice,’ I said with a wry smile, ‘or do you propose buying the goods back from me at a discount?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m merely asking what you think I would do.’
I pondered. ‘If one were sure, could be sure, that there would be no further drop in price, the obvious thing to do would be to buy another one hundred thousand pounds’ worth of brilliants at today’s prices and strike an average, always provided that one had the cash or the credit and a market to absorb the goods.’
‘Precisely,’ he said, ‘and that was what I was going to suggest to you. I have another series of goods similar to those you bought of me. It does not come to a hundred thousand pounds, but close enough to sixty thousand. I advise you to buy; there will be no further drop; if anything, there will be an upward tendency almost before you can ship the stuff out.’
I inspected the goods. My heart was in my mouth. What was I about? Had I any right to commit myself to such heavy payments? If I bought the parcel I was staking all upon one throw of the dice; if I did not buy it my loss on the first purchase would limit my resources severely for some time to come. As I fumbled with the corn-tongs, idly picking up first one then another flashing stone, not knowing what decision to take for the best, a voice said in my ear: ‘Leap!’
I turned to my creditor. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘you can invoice the lot to me, but easy with the whip when you fix the dates of payment.’
The same day I received a cable from my brother in Manila: ‘Market here gone to pieces; buy nothing, ship nothing.’
‘A fine kettle of fish,’ I commented to myself, but ate a hearty dinner—like the condemned man—and went to a show. What was done was done. Within a week I sailed from Marseilles, China-bound, carrying with me in the purser’s safe the second folly which was to wash out the first.
I was lucky, very lucky. Within ten weeks from the date of my arrival in China I had liquidated for spot cash all my purchases, and had entered into an arrangement with my Antwerp supplier whereby we operated jointly in the Far Eastern markets on a fifty-fifty basis—he to buy the rough and cut it, I to have sole distribution. For six years the association held between us, until civil war in China, an anti-luxury campaign in Japan with its incident legislation, and a tin and rubber slump in Malaya were decisive factors in determining me to beat a retreat before the crisis, which had already taken toll in many good names in the diamond trade at home should claim mine, too.
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
I told you that I ‘broke’ three times into diamond trading. The third occasion was when I was introduced to a prominent Antwerp diamond cutter in New York. For some reason he took to me, perhaps because I visited him in a nursing home when he was bored and ill. At any rate, he pressed me to come and see him when I reached Europe, and four weeks later I sat in the great man’s office in the Rue Coquilhat in Antwerp. He was a prince among men, although he could scarcely write his own name, and the outcome of our chance acquaintance was that I was associated with him over a period of six years, during which time my firm distributed throughout China, Indo-China, Japan, the Philippines and Malaya the stones which were cut in my principal’s Antwerp establishment. The strangest thing about it all was that he knew nothing about me; almost equally strange was the fact that although he had the largest diamond factory in Belgium I had never previously heard his name.
‘So you are specializing in pearls,’ he said, ‘and are operating in China at present. Why don’t you go in for diamonds on a large scale?’
‘For the best reason in the world,’ I said, laughing. ‘It takes me all my time to finance my pearl business.’
‘Oh, money be damned,’ he returned. ‘You can buy from me all you want without cash. Your paper is good enough for me.’
‘But paper has to be met,’ said I. ‘And I can’t see myself getting a single night’s sound sleep if I were to buy beyond my strength.’
‘That puts a different complexion on the matter,’ he smiled. ‘But although if you want to sleep, then sleep you must; I had thought you of the calibre of a big merchant who is out for big things and to whom sleep is a secondary matter. How much sleep do you think did Napoleon get in all his life?’ That was no talk for serious merchants. It was foolishness got up as the essence of wisdom. However, while he was still speaking he told his head clerk to bring out the classified series of brilliants which had been finished that morning.
‘These are the class of goods that sell in China,’ he said. ‘You may not know it, but I am well informed on the point. The series comes to approximately £40000. You can make your fifteen percent on it as easily as you can kiss your hand. Will you buy it if I guarantee you a profit?’
A friend who had introduced us in New York sat by my side and I looked at him.
‘Henry,’ I said, ‘I haven’t touched a brilliant for years, I am not au fait with values, I am a steady goer, I take no wild plunges, and my paper if I give it has to be met. Tell our friend here to look for other customers.’
Henry, who was a great expert on brilliants and had for twenty five years never lost touch with the diamond market, and who loved me as a brother, said: ‘Buy!’
I bought the lot; it came to over forty thousand pounds, and I paid with my signature. I did not know then what I had let myself in for. But of that more anon. I shipped the goods out to my brother, who was then in charge of our Manila office.
Suddenly I remembered, even as the goods were on their way, that you might buy diamonds for £40000 on tick if the seller had faith in your integrity, but that the American Collector of Customs in Manila would want to see the color our money before issuing a clearance certificate for the goods. Fifteen percent ad valorem meant £6000 in Customs duty, and this was an outlay which I had not figured on before I had left the Islands. In great perturbation I mentioned this little fact to the seller. He laughed.
‘I gave you credit for forty thousand pounds, so I may as well make forty six thousand,’ he said, grabbed the phone and instructed his bank to make cable transfer to Manila of £6000 in our favor.
That shows you what sort of a Napoleon my credit was. Two weeks later, having been in the interim in London, I went again to Antwerp. I called on my friend. He shook me warmly by the hand and said, without further parley: ‘Your luck’s out. The bottom has fallen out of the diamond market since you bought that parcel from me. You can buy the identical goods today at twenty five percent below the prices you paid me. Can you stand a loss like that without making a fuss about it?’
‘It’s bad news,’ I said calmly, for a man who has been knocked out by a hundred pound weight is quite calm in a manner of speaking, ‘but I have four months in front of me and the East is a big place. In any case, I now have a good reason for not sleeping at night.’
‘Do you know what I would do in your place?’ he asked.
‘Are you going to give me some good advice,’ I said with a wry smile, ‘or do you propose buying the goods back from me at a discount?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m merely asking what you think I would do.’
I pondered. ‘If one were sure, could be sure, that there would be no further drop in price, the obvious thing to do would be to buy another one hundred thousand pounds’ worth of brilliants at today’s prices and strike an average, always provided that one had the cash or the credit and a market to absorb the goods.’
‘Precisely,’ he said, ‘and that was what I was going to suggest to you. I have another series of goods similar to those you bought of me. It does not come to a hundred thousand pounds, but close enough to sixty thousand. I advise you to buy; there will be no further drop; if anything, there will be an upward tendency almost before you can ship the stuff out.’
I inspected the goods. My heart was in my mouth. What was I about? Had I any right to commit myself to such heavy payments? If I bought the parcel I was staking all upon one throw of the dice; if I did not buy it my loss on the first purchase would limit my resources severely for some time to come. As I fumbled with the corn-tongs, idly picking up first one then another flashing stone, not knowing what decision to take for the best, a voice said in my ear: ‘Leap!’
I turned to my creditor. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘you can invoice the lot to me, but easy with the whip when you fix the dates of payment.’
The same day I received a cable from my brother in Manila: ‘Market here gone to pieces; buy nothing, ship nothing.’
‘A fine kettle of fish,’ I commented to myself, but ate a hearty dinner—like the condemned man—and went to a show. What was done was done. Within a week I sailed from Marseilles, China-bound, carrying with me in the purser’s safe the second folly which was to wash out the first.
I was lucky, very lucky. Within ten weeks from the date of my arrival in China I had liquidated for spot cash all my purchases, and had entered into an arrangement with my Antwerp supplier whereby we operated jointly in the Far Eastern markets on a fifty-fifty basis—he to buy the rough and cut it, I to have sole distribution. For six years the association held between us, until civil war in China, an anti-luxury campaign in Japan with its incident legislation, and a tin and rubber slump in Malaya were decisive factors in determining me to beat a retreat before the crisis, which had already taken toll in many good names in the diamond trade at home should claim mine, too.
I Sell Diamonds: Contrast In Methods (continued)
Friday, December 07, 2007
Movies With A Trading Theme
My favorite movies with a trading theme:
- Pi: www.pithemovie.com
- Trading Places: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086465
- Wall Street: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291
- Sting: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735
- Pi: www.pithemovie.com
- Trading Places: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086465
- Wall Street: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291
- Sting: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735
Who Pays The Most Bribes
(via Transparency International): According to a survey by Transparency International, more than one in ten has paid bribes in various levels to obtain service (s) across the globe in the past twelve months.
- Cameroon - 79%
- Cambodia - 72%
- Albania - 71%
- Kosovo - 67%
- FYR Macedonia - 44%
- Pakistan - 44%
- Nigeria - 40%
- Senegal - 38%
- Romania - 33%
- Philippines - 32%
Useful link:
www.transparency.org
- Cameroon - 79%
- Cambodia - 72%
- Albania - 71%
- Kosovo - 67%
- FYR Macedonia - 44%
- Pakistan - 44%
- Nigeria - 40%
- Senegal - 38%
- Romania - 33%
- Philippines - 32%
Useful link:
www.transparency.org
Salad Oil Scandal
I think the story of Salad Oil Scandal should be told and retold until the end of time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad_oil_scandal
Rule No.1
Never Lose Money
Rule No.2
Never Forget Rule No.1
A lesson for all.
Rule No.1
Never Lose Money
Rule No.2
Never Forget Rule No.1
A lesson for all.
Gems And Jewelry: India's 'Golden' Growth Story
(via Commodity Online): Some interesting facts on the gems and jewelry sector in India @ http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=38520
Useful link:
www.commodityonline.com
Useful link:
www.commodityonline.com
Chinatown
Chinatown (1974)
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Screenplay: Robert Towne
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
(via YouTube): Roman Polanski
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34OSPw17o4
Chinatown DVD Extra: Retrospective Interviews (part 1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDt7lXdE58A
Chinatown DVD Extra: Retrospective Interviews (part 2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbD8NsBBLo8
A great film + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Screenplay: Robert Towne
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
(via YouTube): Roman Polanski
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34OSPw17o4
Chinatown DVD Extra: Retrospective Interviews (part 1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDt7lXdE58A
Chinatown DVD Extra: Retrospective Interviews (part 2 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbD8NsBBLo8
A great film + I enjoyed it.
Lost For Art
Economist writes about Iraqi artists’ works at Qibab Art Gallery + the tiny art scene in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/diary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10235761
Trypillian Threat
Olena Rusina writes about the state of the archeological treasures in Ukraine + the illegal excavations + black archeologists and their methodology + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2389¤t=True
The Road To Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
To appreciate all that Squarcione’s school at Padua did for Italian art, we must trace its influence into the second and third generation. In addition to the sons of Bellini—to whom we shall return—who were the real founders of Venetian painting, the old contractor had among his pupils Cosimo Tura (1420-95) who founded the School of Ferrara. Tura had a pupil named Bianci, who founded a school in Modena, and there had a pupil greater than any of his predecessors, Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio, from the place of his birth. Of the life of this great man singularly little is known, and apart from his art it does not seem to have been in any way eventful. Vasari tells us that Correggio ‘was of a very timid disposition and, at a great personal inconvenience, worked continually for the family which depended on him. In art he was very melancholy, enduring its labors, but he never allowed difficulties to deter him, as we see in the great tribune of the Duomo of Parma.’
It is with Parma that the name of Correggio is always associated, for his greatest works were executed there between 1518 and 1530, and the Cathedral of Parma is the monument of his genius. In its marvelous complexity and rich invention, his ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ there has no rival in the world. If his fluent and sure drawing was derived from Mantegna, his mastery of light and shade from Leonardo da Vinci, and his tremendous forms and designs borrowed from the storehouse of Michael Angelo, yet his marvelous coloring is entirely his own, and it is as a colorist, above all, that Correggio is supreme.
‘It is considered certain,’ wrote Vasari, ‘that there never was a better colorist, nor any artist who imparted more loveliness or relief to his things, so great was the soft beauty of his flesh tints and the grace of his finish.’ Nearly 400 years have passed since these lines were written, but no connoisseur of today would change a word in this appreciation. The work of Correggio appeals to every human being who is susceptible to the indefinable quality of charm. Whether his subject be frankly pagan, as in ‘The Education of Cupid’ at the National Gallery, or avowedly religious, as in his ‘St Catherine’ at Hampton Court, it is on the satisfaction of the eye, and through the eye of all the senses, that Correggio relies.
So modest was this great colorist, that portrait of himself by himself is known to exist. ‘He was content with little,’ says Vasari, ‘and lived as a good Christian should.’ A modern critic, Mr Berenson, has pronounced Correggio’s paintings to be ‘hymns to the charm of feminity the like of which have never been known before or since in Christian Europe,’ yet from all accounts this artist’s private life was singularly free from amours. Correggio was a model husband and father, and the only thing said against him by his Italian biographer is that ‘he was anxious to save, like everyone who is burdened with a family, and he thus became excessively miserly.’ This closeness is said to have brought about his premature death. ‘Payment of 60 crowns being made to him at Parma in farthings, which he wished to take to Correggio for his affairs, he set out with this burden on foot. Becoming overheated by the warmth of the sun, he took some water to refresh himself, and caught a severe fever, which terminated his life in the fortieth year of his age.’
The Road To Venice (continued)
3
To appreciate all that Squarcione’s school at Padua did for Italian art, we must trace its influence into the second and third generation. In addition to the sons of Bellini—to whom we shall return—who were the real founders of Venetian painting, the old contractor had among his pupils Cosimo Tura (1420-95) who founded the School of Ferrara. Tura had a pupil named Bianci, who founded a school in Modena, and there had a pupil greater than any of his predecessors, Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio, from the place of his birth. Of the life of this great man singularly little is known, and apart from his art it does not seem to have been in any way eventful. Vasari tells us that Correggio ‘was of a very timid disposition and, at a great personal inconvenience, worked continually for the family which depended on him. In art he was very melancholy, enduring its labors, but he never allowed difficulties to deter him, as we see in the great tribune of the Duomo of Parma.’
It is with Parma that the name of Correggio is always associated, for his greatest works were executed there between 1518 and 1530, and the Cathedral of Parma is the monument of his genius. In its marvelous complexity and rich invention, his ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ there has no rival in the world. If his fluent and sure drawing was derived from Mantegna, his mastery of light and shade from Leonardo da Vinci, and his tremendous forms and designs borrowed from the storehouse of Michael Angelo, yet his marvelous coloring is entirely his own, and it is as a colorist, above all, that Correggio is supreme.
‘It is considered certain,’ wrote Vasari, ‘that there never was a better colorist, nor any artist who imparted more loveliness or relief to his things, so great was the soft beauty of his flesh tints and the grace of his finish.’ Nearly 400 years have passed since these lines were written, but no connoisseur of today would change a word in this appreciation. The work of Correggio appeals to every human being who is susceptible to the indefinable quality of charm. Whether his subject be frankly pagan, as in ‘The Education of Cupid’ at the National Gallery, or avowedly religious, as in his ‘St Catherine’ at Hampton Court, it is on the satisfaction of the eye, and through the eye of all the senses, that Correggio relies.
So modest was this great colorist, that portrait of himself by himself is known to exist. ‘He was content with little,’ says Vasari, ‘and lived as a good Christian should.’ A modern critic, Mr Berenson, has pronounced Correggio’s paintings to be ‘hymns to the charm of feminity the like of which have never been known before or since in Christian Europe,’ yet from all accounts this artist’s private life was singularly free from amours. Correggio was a model husband and father, and the only thing said against him by his Italian biographer is that ‘he was anxious to save, like everyone who is burdened with a family, and he thus became excessively miserly.’ This closeness is said to have brought about his premature death. ‘Payment of 60 crowns being made to him at Parma in farthings, which he wished to take to Correggio for his affairs, he set out with this burden on foot. Becoming overheated by the warmth of the sun, he took some water to refresh himself, and caught a severe fever, which terminated his life in the fortieth year of his age.’
The Road To Venice (continued)
Diamonds Of Fate
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Much has been written about the Hope diamond, mainly with the intent to stress the fact that it has brought bad luck to all successive owners. But I do not wish to enlarge upon the aspect. I remember seeing a telegram forty two years ago addressed to my principal in Paris advising him that his father (my uncle) had purchased the Hope diamond at Christie’s sale rooms and that he had already received an offer for it from a New York firm of diamond merchants. It is true that my uncle died at a comparatively early age in the prime of his life and the New York merchant met with financial disaster, and also that another merchant into whose hands the stone had passed, an Armenian named Habib, was drowned in the ill-fated La Seine whilst on his way to Java. His wallet contained amongst other precious stones the Hope diamond. I myself narrowly missed traveling by the same steamer, having missed my connection at Singapore on my way from Australia, so the tragic event is still sharp on my memory. Subsequently an ex-naval deep sea diver whom I met on that occasion in Singapore was instrumental in recovering Habib’s wallet, and with it the Hope diamond.
The later history of the stone is well known can be found in many accounts. I may quote in passing a news item from the London Evening News of May 4th, 1938, which says: ‘Boston, Wednesday—May Yohe, international stage star of the ‘nineties, one-time wearer of the ill-fated Hope diamond, and friend of royalty, now rises at six every morning to do a job of relief work at £3 6s per week. She is working as a research clerk for the Works Progress Administration, and she is living in a four-room flat alongside the railway lines in Boston.’
But although within my own ken the several persons who have had anything to do with that noble gem ended their days in a manner different from that which they might have chosen for themselves, I should be lacking in sincerity if for the sake of playing up to the reader’s desire for a spot of goose-flesh I were to refrain from saying bluntly: ‘Bosh!’ A piece of crystallized pure carbon cannot in itself have baneful influence upon man.’
Before I mention the other stone, the green diamond noted above, you may like to know something about Tavernier, whose name has been given several times already in these pages. This intrepid traveler, gem expert, trader and adventurer in the best sense of the word, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, was born in 1605 at Antwerp. His father, Gabriel Tavernier, was by profession a geographer—a maker of maps and an engraver. Perhaps it was this paternal factor which in some way created in the young Jean Baptiste a desire to travel. Having journeyed much in Europe, Tavernier seized an opportunity which presented itself to travel in the company of two French priests, possibly missionaries, to Constantinople and thence to Persia. That was in 1631. In 1638 he made a second journey, this time visiting Persia and India, trading in jewels and precious stones wherever he went. He must have been what nowadays is called a good mixer, for he seems to have experienced no great difficulty in bringing himself and his wares to the notice of the most eminent persons. Then he made a third journey, which took him to Java, whence he returned to Europe via the Cape. During so much traveling and trading he must have acquired an immense fund of practical knowledge on matters connected with precious stones, and aided by a natural flair, he became a foremost authority on all that concerned gems. At any rate, the splendor-loving Louis XIV became one of his patrons, and it was said that by the sale of jewels to the King alone Tavernier made a profit of £100000. To wealth was added, in 1669, a title of nobility, and he purchased in 1670 the Barony of Aubanne near Geneva. But like many another man, he had a son who could get rid of money faster than the old man had made it, and the young man brought about his father’s financial ruin. After selling his estates to discharge his debts, Tavernier again, at the great age of 84, went in search of fortune. But he did not reach India, the object of his journey. In 1689, while on the way to Persia, he met his end at Moscow. Amongst other writings he left a work in two volumes, Les Six Voyages de J.B.Tavernier, which was published in Paris in 1676.
The green brilliant has a history like a mere postscript to the story of the great blue stone. But it, too, was of unique color, though not in the first rank for size, being only 160 grains (forty carats). It was worn by the King of Saxony when in Court dress. Brilliant cut, it was set ájour, in a plume to be worn as a hat ornament.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Much has been written about the Hope diamond, mainly with the intent to stress the fact that it has brought bad luck to all successive owners. But I do not wish to enlarge upon the aspect. I remember seeing a telegram forty two years ago addressed to my principal in Paris advising him that his father (my uncle) had purchased the Hope diamond at Christie’s sale rooms and that he had already received an offer for it from a New York firm of diamond merchants. It is true that my uncle died at a comparatively early age in the prime of his life and the New York merchant met with financial disaster, and also that another merchant into whose hands the stone had passed, an Armenian named Habib, was drowned in the ill-fated La Seine whilst on his way to Java. His wallet contained amongst other precious stones the Hope diamond. I myself narrowly missed traveling by the same steamer, having missed my connection at Singapore on my way from Australia, so the tragic event is still sharp on my memory. Subsequently an ex-naval deep sea diver whom I met on that occasion in Singapore was instrumental in recovering Habib’s wallet, and with it the Hope diamond.
The later history of the stone is well known can be found in many accounts. I may quote in passing a news item from the London Evening News of May 4th, 1938, which says: ‘Boston, Wednesday—May Yohe, international stage star of the ‘nineties, one-time wearer of the ill-fated Hope diamond, and friend of royalty, now rises at six every morning to do a job of relief work at £3 6s per week. She is working as a research clerk for the Works Progress Administration, and she is living in a four-room flat alongside the railway lines in Boston.’
But although within my own ken the several persons who have had anything to do with that noble gem ended their days in a manner different from that which they might have chosen for themselves, I should be lacking in sincerity if for the sake of playing up to the reader’s desire for a spot of goose-flesh I were to refrain from saying bluntly: ‘Bosh!’ A piece of crystallized pure carbon cannot in itself have baneful influence upon man.’
Before I mention the other stone, the green diamond noted above, you may like to know something about Tavernier, whose name has been given several times already in these pages. This intrepid traveler, gem expert, trader and adventurer in the best sense of the word, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, was born in 1605 at Antwerp. His father, Gabriel Tavernier, was by profession a geographer—a maker of maps and an engraver. Perhaps it was this paternal factor which in some way created in the young Jean Baptiste a desire to travel. Having journeyed much in Europe, Tavernier seized an opportunity which presented itself to travel in the company of two French priests, possibly missionaries, to Constantinople and thence to Persia. That was in 1631. In 1638 he made a second journey, this time visiting Persia and India, trading in jewels and precious stones wherever he went. He must have been what nowadays is called a good mixer, for he seems to have experienced no great difficulty in bringing himself and his wares to the notice of the most eminent persons. Then he made a third journey, which took him to Java, whence he returned to Europe via the Cape. During so much traveling and trading he must have acquired an immense fund of practical knowledge on matters connected with precious stones, and aided by a natural flair, he became a foremost authority on all that concerned gems. At any rate, the splendor-loving Louis XIV became one of his patrons, and it was said that by the sale of jewels to the King alone Tavernier made a profit of £100000. To wealth was added, in 1669, a title of nobility, and he purchased in 1670 the Barony of Aubanne near Geneva. But like many another man, he had a son who could get rid of money faster than the old man had made it, and the young man brought about his father’s financial ruin. After selling his estates to discharge his debts, Tavernier again, at the great age of 84, went in search of fortune. But he did not reach India, the object of his journey. In 1689, while on the way to Persia, he met his end at Moscow. Amongst other writings he left a work in two volumes, Les Six Voyages de J.B.Tavernier, which was published in Paris in 1676.
The green brilliant has a history like a mere postscript to the story of the great blue stone. But it, too, was of unique color, though not in the first rank for size, being only 160 grains (forty carats). It was worn by the King of Saxony when in Court dress. Brilliant cut, it was set ájour, in a plume to be worn as a hat ornament.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
45 Social Entrepreneurs
(via Fastcompany): Make a profit + Make a difference = Social Capitalist. I liked the concept. http://www.fastcompany.com/social/2008
Connecting The Dots
(via Fastcompany): Mark Dziersk writes about design + its impact on indusry/commerce if properly delivered + other viewpoints @ http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/design/dziersk/connecting-the-dots-112807.html
Useful links:
www.sirkenrobinson.com
www.fitch.com
Useful links:
www.sirkenrobinson.com
www.fitch.com
Children of Paradise
Children of Paradise (1945)
Directed by: Marcel Carné
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert
Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault
(via YouTube): Children Of Paradise - Trailer (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpmADgSQaxM
Children of Paradise (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUIFRtvUU2A
One-of-a-kind story from a different period + its artistic angle + the love story--I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Marcel Carné
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert
Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault
(via YouTube): Children Of Paradise - Trailer (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpmADgSQaxM
Children of Paradise (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUIFRtvUU2A
One-of-a-kind story from a different period + its artistic angle + the love story--I enjoyed it.
The Evolution Of The Taille en Seize
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The Taille en Seize can be seen in early seventeenth-century drawings of jewels by Arnold Lulls, Thomas Cletscher and occasionally others. Designers were still using it a hundred years later, but only in a restricted form—that is, as far as one can ascertain, with never more than sixteen facets, whereas Legare, with his special liking for this design, often used thirty-two.
It seems that the Taille en Seize and the Rose Cut had an influence on each other. Drop-shaped, flat-bottomed diamonds are clearly hybrids. Two such cuts can still be seen in the Imperial Austrian Sceptre, and three in the shoulder knot commissioned by Augustus the Strong. Jeffries depicts this as a standard for Rose Cut Pendeloques. Only a few of them are known actually to have carried—most of the illustrations represent ‘patterns’ of the kind widely distributed among jewelers all over Europe. All they indicate now is the period during which this particular cut was available. The drawings are so numerous that it seems incredible that no actual diamonds of this kind should have survived. All we know is that it was extremely simple to refashion a large Taille en Seize into a Brilliant Cut, and that it involved even less labor to transform a small one into a sixteen-facet cut with a square table facet. Was the Taille en Seize perhaps a premature cut which fascinated the professional but not the consumer?
Ecce Homo
This medallion contains thirty four variously faceted diamonds: ten of them are Tailles en Seize, and the remaining twenty-four are normal Rose Cuts.
The Taille en Seize can be seen in early seventeenth-century drawings of jewels by Arnold Lulls, Thomas Cletscher and occasionally others. Designers were still using it a hundred years later, but only in a restricted form—that is, as far as one can ascertain, with never more than sixteen facets, whereas Legare, with his special liking for this design, often used thirty-two.
It seems that the Taille en Seize and the Rose Cut had an influence on each other. Drop-shaped, flat-bottomed diamonds are clearly hybrids. Two such cuts can still be seen in the Imperial Austrian Sceptre, and three in the shoulder knot commissioned by Augustus the Strong. Jeffries depicts this as a standard for Rose Cut Pendeloques. Only a few of them are known actually to have carried—most of the illustrations represent ‘patterns’ of the kind widely distributed among jewelers all over Europe. All they indicate now is the period during which this particular cut was available. The drawings are so numerous that it seems incredible that no actual diamonds of this kind should have survived. All we know is that it was extremely simple to refashion a large Taille en Seize into a Brilliant Cut, and that it involved even less labor to transform a small one into a sixteen-facet cut with a square table facet. Was the Taille en Seize perhaps a premature cut which fascinated the professional but not the consumer?
Ecce Homo
This medallion contains thirty four variously faceted diamonds: ten of them are Tailles en Seize, and the remaining twenty-four are normal Rose Cuts.
Who Buys Old Masters?
Economist writes about a new class of buyers: Russian oligarchs and their acolytes(“market freshness”: a phrase referring to a good painting that has not been on the market for a long time) + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10235514
The Incredible Growing Art Museum
Blake Eskin writes about museums around the globe erecting new structures or expanding their current homes + the global phenomenon + the concept of bringing art and people together + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=988
The Road To Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
To enumerate all the artists who were influenced by Mantegna and the School of Squarcione would be to give a list of a hundred names, and to attempt a task beyond the scope of the Outline; but brief mention must be made of one whose life, and particularly whose death, is of unusual and romantic interest. Franceso Francia (1450-1517) was a goldsmith of Bologna who achieved great fame as an engraver of medallion portraits long before the example of Mantegna inspired him to become a painter also. Francia was one of the first artists to make prints from an engraved plate, and served literature by designing the famous italic type for the press of Aldus Manutius. As a painter, Francia began with portraits and proceeded to altar-pieces, in which he displayed a remarkable psychological insight. Both in ancient times and in modern his lunette of the Dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin has been regarded as a most beautiful work, poignant in the intensity of its expression. The half-moon shaped picture is the upper part of a famous alter piece originally painted for the Church of St. Frediano at Lucca, and now in the National Gallery, London. The main picture below shows the Madonna and Child, with the following saints: St. Sebastian, St. Paul, St. Anne, St. Lawrence, and St. Benedict, while in front of the throne is the figure of the young St. John the Baptist; and the wan, expressive face of the young Virgin seems to suggest that she is already forewarned of the tragedy commemorated by the picture.
Francis was at the height of his reputation in Bologna when the young Raphael was working in Rome. The two artists never met, for Raphael was too busy to leave the Vatican and Francia was too old to travel. But they heard much of one another, and Francia as the elder, offered to help his junior in any way he could. He had never seen a picture of Raphael, and longed to view some work by the young man of whom everybody was talking. At last the opportunity came. Raphael was commissioned to paint a panel of ‘St. Cecilia’ for a Bolognese chapel, St. Giovanni in Monte; and when he had finished the painting he sent it to Francia at Bologna with a courteous letter begging the older artist to ‘correct any errors found in it,’ and then set it up on the altar for which it was intended.
When Francia drew the masterpiece from its case and viewed it in a good light, he was filled with amazement and with chagrin, so Vasari says, at his presumption in offering to help so great a genius:
‘Francia, half dead at the overwhelming power and beauty of the picture, which he had to compare with his own works lying around, though thoroughly discouraged, took it to St. Giovanni in Monte, to the chapel where it was to be. Returning home he took to his bed in an agony, feeling that art could offer him no more, and died, some suppose of grief and melancholy, due to his contemplation of the living picture of Raphael.’
That is the story told by Vasari, and though it may seem incredible to us that any artist should be so fatally affected by seeing the work of another, the fact that so strange a cause of death was related in good faith reveals to us how seriously art was taken in Italy in 1518.
The Road To Venice (continued)
2
To enumerate all the artists who were influenced by Mantegna and the School of Squarcione would be to give a list of a hundred names, and to attempt a task beyond the scope of the Outline; but brief mention must be made of one whose life, and particularly whose death, is of unusual and romantic interest. Franceso Francia (1450-1517) was a goldsmith of Bologna who achieved great fame as an engraver of medallion portraits long before the example of Mantegna inspired him to become a painter also. Francia was one of the first artists to make prints from an engraved plate, and served literature by designing the famous italic type for the press of Aldus Manutius. As a painter, Francia began with portraits and proceeded to altar-pieces, in which he displayed a remarkable psychological insight. Both in ancient times and in modern his lunette of the Dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin has been regarded as a most beautiful work, poignant in the intensity of its expression. The half-moon shaped picture is the upper part of a famous alter piece originally painted for the Church of St. Frediano at Lucca, and now in the National Gallery, London. The main picture below shows the Madonna and Child, with the following saints: St. Sebastian, St. Paul, St. Anne, St. Lawrence, and St. Benedict, while in front of the throne is the figure of the young St. John the Baptist; and the wan, expressive face of the young Virgin seems to suggest that she is already forewarned of the tragedy commemorated by the picture.
Francis was at the height of his reputation in Bologna when the young Raphael was working in Rome. The two artists never met, for Raphael was too busy to leave the Vatican and Francia was too old to travel. But they heard much of one another, and Francia as the elder, offered to help his junior in any way he could. He had never seen a picture of Raphael, and longed to view some work by the young man of whom everybody was talking. At last the opportunity came. Raphael was commissioned to paint a panel of ‘St. Cecilia’ for a Bolognese chapel, St. Giovanni in Monte; and when he had finished the painting he sent it to Francia at Bologna with a courteous letter begging the older artist to ‘correct any errors found in it,’ and then set it up on the altar for which it was intended.
When Francia drew the masterpiece from its case and viewed it in a good light, he was filled with amazement and with chagrin, so Vasari says, at his presumption in offering to help so great a genius:
‘Francia, half dead at the overwhelming power and beauty of the picture, which he had to compare with his own works lying around, though thoroughly discouraged, took it to St. Giovanni in Monte, to the chapel where it was to be. Returning home he took to his bed in an agony, feeling that art could offer him no more, and died, some suppose of grief and melancholy, due to his contemplation of the living picture of Raphael.’
That is the story told by Vasari, and though it may seem incredible to us that any artist should be so fatally affected by seeing the work of another, the fact that so strange a cause of death was related in good faith reveals to us how seriously art was taken in Italy in 1518.
The Road To Venice (continued)
Diamonds Of Fate
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
One of the most recent famous gems is the ‘Jonker,’ said to be amongst the four largest diamonds ever to come to light. It was dug from a muddy hole not far from Pretoria by a colored man in the service of an Afrikander names Jacobus Jonker. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer paid £60000 for it. Like most of these extraordinarily large stones in the rough, the Jonker,too showed defects which made is advisable to split it into several pieces. One of the minor pieces when cut weighed about twenty carats and was sold for a large sum to a London businessman in April, 1938. Although I only heard of the deal going through as I was leaving my office in the evening, one of the leading London papers had already got wind of it and rang me up for any information I could give. I mention this to show that sizable gems of quality are of perennial news value.
One can have too much even of the best. The recital of rare diamonds is no exception, but I cannot bring this chapter to a close without mentioning the two rarest diamonds in the world: one blue and the other green.
It was in the year 1642 that Tavernier bought in India a rough diamond weighing 112¼ carats, of a violet-blue so extremely rare that no other stone of such tint of any appreciable size has been known before or since. When later he sold the stone to Louis XIV in 1668 as a faceted stone, its weight had been reduced to sixty seven and one-eights carats.
Louis, who is spoken of as le roi soleil—the Sun King—owed this flattering epithet less to his mental gifts than to his love of display. On appropriate occasions he could deck himself out i such manner that his person put in the shade the lesser luminaries. ‘The King,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘on occasion of the reception of the Persian Ambassador, was dressed in a black suit ornamented with gold and embroidered with diamonds at a cost of twelve million, five hundred thousand livres. Suspended from a light blue ribbon round his neck he wore a dark-blue diamond as a pendant.’
At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1792 the French regalia was seized and stored at the Garde Meubles, but whatever else may have remained intact, the blue diamond had disappeared.
Now, when thirty two years had elapsed there appeared in the hands of a dealer, one Daniel Eliason, a blue diamond of a tint identical with that worn by Louis XIV, but it only weighed forty four and a quarter carats, or twenty three and one-eighth carats less than the King’s gem. Was this a new stone that had no connection with the royal jewel? The possibility must be admitted, but in the light of what transpired subsequently we are justified in arriving at a different conclusion.
But before we go in search of clues to the unravelling of the mystery, let us see what Mr Daniel Eliason did with his forty four and a half carat blue diamond. Being a trader, he did not wear it suspended round his neck, but seeking a customer for it, found him in the person of a Mr Henry Thomas Hope, and from the time the gentleman parted with £18000 to get possession of the lovely gem of a beautiful sapphire blue, it became known as the ‘Hope’ diamond. Of this stone E W Streeter, as great a connoisseur of gems as any of his contemporaries, says ‘that because of its extreme brilliancy, faultless texture, exquisite form (7/8-inch in breadth, 1 1/8 inches in length, and of unusual thickness), it is unique’. He estimated its value at £30000. It was his opinion that Louis XIV’s blue diamond had been cloven into two parts: one the size of the Hope diamond (being none other), and another, after allowing for the unavoidable waste in recutting, of ten to eleven carats.
Now for the denouement of the riddle. In the year 1874 there actually came into the market, at a sale of the Duke of Brunswick’s jewels at Geneva, a triangular blue diamond weighing between twelve and thirteen carats; and subsequently elsewhere a very much smaller piece again of the same color and quality. Since all these stones were of the same rare blue tint which has never been encountered in any other diamond known in the world, and since their total weight—allowing for cleavage and cutting—is a rough equivalent of the royal French jewel, no doubt can exist in the mind of any logical person that the thief, whoever it was, had the original stone cut into three pieces as conditioned by its natural cleavage lines.
Diamonds Of Fate (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
One of the most recent famous gems is the ‘Jonker,’ said to be amongst the four largest diamonds ever to come to light. It was dug from a muddy hole not far from Pretoria by a colored man in the service of an Afrikander names Jacobus Jonker. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer paid £60000 for it. Like most of these extraordinarily large stones in the rough, the Jonker,too showed defects which made is advisable to split it into several pieces. One of the minor pieces when cut weighed about twenty carats and was sold for a large sum to a London businessman in April, 1938. Although I only heard of the deal going through as I was leaving my office in the evening, one of the leading London papers had already got wind of it and rang me up for any information I could give. I mention this to show that sizable gems of quality are of perennial news value.
One can have too much even of the best. The recital of rare diamonds is no exception, but I cannot bring this chapter to a close without mentioning the two rarest diamonds in the world: one blue and the other green.
It was in the year 1642 that Tavernier bought in India a rough diamond weighing 112¼ carats, of a violet-blue so extremely rare that no other stone of such tint of any appreciable size has been known before or since. When later he sold the stone to Louis XIV in 1668 as a faceted stone, its weight had been reduced to sixty seven and one-eights carats.
Louis, who is spoken of as le roi soleil—the Sun King—owed this flattering epithet less to his mental gifts than to his love of display. On appropriate occasions he could deck himself out i such manner that his person put in the shade the lesser luminaries. ‘The King,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘on occasion of the reception of the Persian Ambassador, was dressed in a black suit ornamented with gold and embroidered with diamonds at a cost of twelve million, five hundred thousand livres. Suspended from a light blue ribbon round his neck he wore a dark-blue diamond as a pendant.’
At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1792 the French regalia was seized and stored at the Garde Meubles, but whatever else may have remained intact, the blue diamond had disappeared.
Now, when thirty two years had elapsed there appeared in the hands of a dealer, one Daniel Eliason, a blue diamond of a tint identical with that worn by Louis XIV, but it only weighed forty four and a quarter carats, or twenty three and one-eighth carats less than the King’s gem. Was this a new stone that had no connection with the royal jewel? The possibility must be admitted, but in the light of what transpired subsequently we are justified in arriving at a different conclusion.
But before we go in search of clues to the unravelling of the mystery, let us see what Mr Daniel Eliason did with his forty four and a half carat blue diamond. Being a trader, he did not wear it suspended round his neck, but seeking a customer for it, found him in the person of a Mr Henry Thomas Hope, and from the time the gentleman parted with £18000 to get possession of the lovely gem of a beautiful sapphire blue, it became known as the ‘Hope’ diamond. Of this stone E W Streeter, as great a connoisseur of gems as any of his contemporaries, says ‘that because of its extreme brilliancy, faultless texture, exquisite form (7/8-inch in breadth, 1 1/8 inches in length, and of unusual thickness), it is unique’. He estimated its value at £30000. It was his opinion that Louis XIV’s blue diamond had been cloven into two parts: one the size of the Hope diamond (being none other), and another, after allowing for the unavoidable waste in recutting, of ten to eleven carats.
Now for the denouement of the riddle. In the year 1874 there actually came into the market, at a sale of the Duke of Brunswick’s jewels at Geneva, a triangular blue diamond weighing between twelve and thirteen carats; and subsequently elsewhere a very much smaller piece again of the same color and quality. Since all these stones were of the same rare blue tint which has never been encountered in any other diamond known in the world, and since their total weight—allowing for cleavage and cutting—is a rough equivalent of the royal French jewel, no doubt can exist in the mind of any logical person that the thief, whoever it was, had the original stone cut into three pieces as conditioned by its natural cleavage lines.
Diamonds Of Fate (continued)
How To Dream
The book, Dream: A Tale of Wonder, Wisdom & Wishes by Susan V. Bosak is about life's hopes and dreams, inspiring both children and adults.
Useful link:
http://www.tcpnow.com/books/dream.html
Useful link:
http://www.tcpnow.com/books/dream.html
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
When Nature Calls, Use Your Cell Phone
(via Budget Travel): When nature calls, use bathroom locator service @ www.mizpee.com
Here's how it works: Turn on your phone's Web browser, and search for bathrooms by city and street address. The site will fetch a list of the nearest ones, along with details, such as whether each bathroom has a diaper-changing station.
Call MizPee
Here's how it works: Turn on your phone's Web browser, and search for bathrooms by city and street address. The site will fetch a list of the nearest ones, along with details, such as whether each bathroom has a diaper-changing station.
Call MizPee
The Jewelry Channel
www.tjc.tv is interactive + includes user forums + blogs + live broadcast 24 hours a day + a unique shopping experience.
Meet The Woman Who Dictates The Taste Of Coffee
Jenny Gold writes about Tracy May Adair, who holds the grand title of master coffee cupper for Folgers + how to taste Folgers coffee + other viewpoints @ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16671564&ft=1&f=3
In my view, the concept of grading and tasting coffee is similar to colored stone grading / diamond grading / wine tasting / tea tasting + it's subjective, educational.
In my view, the concept of grading and tasting coffee is similar to colored stone grading / diamond grading / wine tasting / tea tasting + it's subjective, educational.
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane (1941)
Directed by: Orson Welles
Screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
(via YouTube): Citizen Kane (1941) Full Film - Part 1/12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYbXQmD_Fq8
One of the greatest films + a rare gem + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Orson Welles
Screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
(via YouTube): Citizen Kane (1941) Full Film - Part 1/12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYbXQmD_Fq8
One of the greatest films + a rare gem + I enjoyed it.
Pearls Of Dubai
The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre + Arrow Pearls of Australia would be culturing Akoya pearls in the region (United Arab Emirates) + the pilot project of 100000 oysters would be harvested early in 2009 + the concept is to produce a branded ‘Dubai’ line of cultured pearls, 8-9 mm size + marketed
via local jewelers.
Cultured pearl industry is a highly fragmented industry. In my view, the cultured pearl industry may go through boom and busts in the coming years due to proliferation of producers around the world + the unpredictability of nature.
I also believe the popularity of pearls in the traditional and emerging consumer populations are growing due to improvement in quality, innovative jewelry designers + creative retailers.
via local jewelers.
Cultured pearl industry is a highly fragmented industry. In my view, the cultured pearl industry may go through boom and busts in the coming years due to proliferation of producers around the world + the unpredictability of nature.
I also believe the popularity of pearls in the traditional and emerging consumer populations are growing due to improvement in quality, innovative jewelry designers + creative retailers.
Wallinger Takes Turner prize With Re-creation Of Parliament Protest
(via The Guardian) Charlotte Higgins writes about Mark Wallinger, the Turner prize winner + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/turnerprize2007/story/0,,2221510,00.html
The Master Swindler Of Yugoslavia
Konstantin Akinsha writes about Ante Topic Mimara, Yugoslav mystery man: a collector, dealer, painter, restorer, forger, alleged art thief, and probable spy + the Mimara Museum + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=975
The Road To Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art of Mantegna, Francia, Correggio, Bellini, And Giorgione
It takes nine tailors to make a man. So runs the familiar sayings, but one tailor of Padua in the fifteenth century sufficed to found a school of painting which has won immortal fame. In all the history of art no stranger figure exists than than of Franceso Squarcione, tailor and embroiderer of Padua. He had little to do with painting or painters till he was past forty, and yet this man was the master of 137 pupils and the the ‘Father’ of the glorious schools of Venice, Parma, Bologna, Lombardy, and Ferrara.
Here let us pause to explain tht while the succession of painters known as the Florentine School were perfecting their art, as related in the last chapter, groups of artists had already begun to collect in other Italian cities. So far back at 1375, twelve years before the birth of Fra Angelico, a Florentine painter named Justus had settled in Padua; and when Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, Padua was already famous as an art center.
But to return to our tailor. To the University of Padua came, at one time or another, all the learned men of Italy. Nothing was heard in the streets but talk of ancient lore and the beauty of ancient art. The astute tailor soon found that a fragment of sculpture or a stone with a Greek inscription brought him more and better customers than the display of the latest fashions. Gradually the tailoring and embroidering became a side-line in his complicated business, and the shop of Squarcione gained much fame as a store house of antique treasures of art. Artists came to him asking to be allowed to draw his fine old statues.
Squarcione had a keen eye to the main chance, and the power to discover and use the talents of others. Whether he himself ever painted is doubtful, but in 1441, when he was a man of forty-seven, he managed to qualify himself for admission to the Guild of Painters at Padua. His business instinct would not allow him to let slip a ready-made opportunity. When students sought to study his unrivalled collection of antique models, they found themselves bound as apprentices to Squarcione; and hence forward—on the strength of their work—Squarcione blossomed into the proprietor of a flourishing art business.
In 1443 he was given the contract to decorate with paintings the Chapel of the Eremitani at Padua, and this contract he fulfilled for the most part by the hand of a boy of twelve, whom two years earlier Squarcione had adopted as his son and pupil. This boy was a nameless orphan, who acquired undying fame as Andrea Mantegna. He was only ten years old when, as the ‘son of Squarcione,’ he was admitted a member of the Padua Guild of Painters, and from this fact alone we can guess his extraordinary precocity. At the age of twelve Mantegna was employed on important paintings for the Chapel of the Eremitani, and it was the reputation of the pupil, rather than that of the master, which brought students in shoals to Padua.
Another great piece of good luck which befell Squarcione was the arrival in Padua of the Venetian painter Jacopo Bellini (c. 1400-71), whom the wily contractor inveigled into his business, and there is little room for doubt that Bellini was for many years the actual teacher of painting in the school of the Paduan contractor. Mantegna got his drawing from observing the Greek statues among Squarcione’s antiques, but he learnt coloring from Bellini, who was his true master. But so precocious was the genius of Mantegna that at seventeen he had already formed his style and brought his natural talents to mature perfection. At this age he painted an altar piece for St. Sophia at Padua, a picture which, as the sixteenth century critic Vasari wrote, ‘might well be the production of a skilled veteran and not of a mere boy.’
Success begets success, and at an early age Mantegna was able to set up for himself. Squarcione became still more furious when Mantegna married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, who had now broken away from the firm and become a rival. Henceforward the old contractor blamed Mantegna’s works as much as he had previously praised them, ‘saying they were bad, because he had imitated marble, a thing impossible in painting, since stones always possess a certain harshness and never have that softness peculiar to flesh and natural objects.’
It is true that Mantegna’s sense of form was severe and his figures often remind us of marble statues, but the envious carping of his old master in no wise injured his reputation. His fame spread throughout Italy, and Pope Innocent VIII invited him to Rome, where he was employed on painting the walls of the Belvedere. The payments for this work were not so regular as the painter thought they should have been, and one day he ventured to drop a hint to the Pope, who had come to look at Mantegna’s paintings of the Virtues.
‘What is that figure?’ asked the Pontiff.
‘One much honored here, your Holiness,’ said the artist pointedly. ‘It is Prudence.’
‘You should associate patience with her,’ replied the Pope, who understood the allusion, and later when the work was completed we are told Mantegna was ‘richly rewarded.’
After painting in various Italian cities, Mantegna returned to Mantua, where he built himself a handsome house, and there in 1506, he died at the age of seventy five. The peculiar qualities of his art, his austere draughtsmanship and compact design may be seen in many works in England, notably in ‘The Triumph of Julius Caesar’ at Hampton Court, and in his ‘Madonna and Child’ and ‘Triumph of Scipio’ in the National Gallery; but the most perfect example of Mantegna’s art is his great picture ‘Parnassus’ in the Louvre at Paris. Here, Mantegna is able to express all his love of Greek art in picturing the home of the Nine Muses, who dance in homage round Venus and Apollo, while Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, awaits with Pegasus, the winged horse, to bear inspiration from this mythological heaven to the artists and poets of the earth.
The Road To Venice (continued)
The Art of Mantegna, Francia, Correggio, Bellini, And Giorgione
It takes nine tailors to make a man. So runs the familiar sayings, but one tailor of Padua in the fifteenth century sufficed to found a school of painting which has won immortal fame. In all the history of art no stranger figure exists than than of Franceso Squarcione, tailor and embroiderer of Padua. He had little to do with painting or painters till he was past forty, and yet this man was the master of 137 pupils and the the ‘Father’ of the glorious schools of Venice, Parma, Bologna, Lombardy, and Ferrara.
Here let us pause to explain tht while the succession of painters known as the Florentine School were perfecting their art, as related in the last chapter, groups of artists had already begun to collect in other Italian cities. So far back at 1375, twelve years before the birth of Fra Angelico, a Florentine painter named Justus had settled in Padua; and when Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, Padua was already famous as an art center.
But to return to our tailor. To the University of Padua came, at one time or another, all the learned men of Italy. Nothing was heard in the streets but talk of ancient lore and the beauty of ancient art. The astute tailor soon found that a fragment of sculpture or a stone with a Greek inscription brought him more and better customers than the display of the latest fashions. Gradually the tailoring and embroidering became a side-line in his complicated business, and the shop of Squarcione gained much fame as a store house of antique treasures of art. Artists came to him asking to be allowed to draw his fine old statues.
Squarcione had a keen eye to the main chance, and the power to discover and use the talents of others. Whether he himself ever painted is doubtful, but in 1441, when he was a man of forty-seven, he managed to qualify himself for admission to the Guild of Painters at Padua. His business instinct would not allow him to let slip a ready-made opportunity. When students sought to study his unrivalled collection of antique models, they found themselves bound as apprentices to Squarcione; and hence forward—on the strength of their work—Squarcione blossomed into the proprietor of a flourishing art business.
In 1443 he was given the contract to decorate with paintings the Chapel of the Eremitani at Padua, and this contract he fulfilled for the most part by the hand of a boy of twelve, whom two years earlier Squarcione had adopted as his son and pupil. This boy was a nameless orphan, who acquired undying fame as Andrea Mantegna. He was only ten years old when, as the ‘son of Squarcione,’ he was admitted a member of the Padua Guild of Painters, and from this fact alone we can guess his extraordinary precocity. At the age of twelve Mantegna was employed on important paintings for the Chapel of the Eremitani, and it was the reputation of the pupil, rather than that of the master, which brought students in shoals to Padua.
Another great piece of good luck which befell Squarcione was the arrival in Padua of the Venetian painter Jacopo Bellini (c. 1400-71), whom the wily contractor inveigled into his business, and there is little room for doubt that Bellini was for many years the actual teacher of painting in the school of the Paduan contractor. Mantegna got his drawing from observing the Greek statues among Squarcione’s antiques, but he learnt coloring from Bellini, who was his true master. But so precocious was the genius of Mantegna that at seventeen he had already formed his style and brought his natural talents to mature perfection. At this age he painted an altar piece for St. Sophia at Padua, a picture which, as the sixteenth century critic Vasari wrote, ‘might well be the production of a skilled veteran and not of a mere boy.’
Success begets success, and at an early age Mantegna was able to set up for himself. Squarcione became still more furious when Mantegna married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, who had now broken away from the firm and become a rival. Henceforward the old contractor blamed Mantegna’s works as much as he had previously praised them, ‘saying they were bad, because he had imitated marble, a thing impossible in painting, since stones always possess a certain harshness and never have that softness peculiar to flesh and natural objects.’
It is true that Mantegna’s sense of form was severe and his figures often remind us of marble statues, but the envious carping of his old master in no wise injured his reputation. His fame spread throughout Italy, and Pope Innocent VIII invited him to Rome, where he was employed on painting the walls of the Belvedere. The payments for this work were not so regular as the painter thought they should have been, and one day he ventured to drop a hint to the Pope, who had come to look at Mantegna’s paintings of the Virtues.
‘What is that figure?’ asked the Pontiff.
‘One much honored here, your Holiness,’ said the artist pointedly. ‘It is Prudence.’
‘You should associate patience with her,’ replied the Pope, who understood the allusion, and later when the work was completed we are told Mantegna was ‘richly rewarded.’
After painting in various Italian cities, Mantegna returned to Mantua, where he built himself a handsome house, and there in 1506, he died at the age of seventy five. The peculiar qualities of his art, his austere draughtsmanship and compact design may be seen in many works in England, notably in ‘The Triumph of Julius Caesar’ at Hampton Court, and in his ‘Madonna and Child’ and ‘Triumph of Scipio’ in the National Gallery; but the most perfect example of Mantegna’s art is his great picture ‘Parnassus’ in the Louvre at Paris. Here, Mantegna is able to express all his love of Greek art in picturing the home of the Nine Muses, who dance in homage round Venus and Apollo, while Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, awaits with Pegasus, the winged horse, to bear inspiration from this mythological heaven to the artists and poets of the earth.
The Road To Venice (continued)
Diamonds Of Fate
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
There is another ‘Regent’ called the ‘Regent of Portugal’ to distinguish it from the Pitt. This again was a Brazilian diamond. It was found in 1775 in Brazil by a poor negro slave to whom it brought more luck than usually accrues to him humble discoverers of great gems. For he was given his freedom and a pension of £50 a year. This round stone, whose original weight is not on record, turned the scale when faceted at 215 carats. I have seen its value given by an ‘authority’ as 396800 guineas, supposedly an expert assessment. He must have been a great authority on diamonds indeed who could with such precision put a value on a gem for which there could at no time exist an open market. Great diamonds have no price. They are, like any gem of the first class, worth what they can bring.
From a stone which bears the name of ‘Sea or River of Light’ we can expect no less than that it should be of the finest water, matchless in luster and of a size comparable with the largest of its kind. Certainly the ‘Darya-i-nur,’ possessing all these qualities, is truly well name. One hundred and eighty six carats of flashing fire, reflected by facets cut rose shape, make this diamond one of the mineral wonders of the world. But it is only one of two, for it is one of a pair of marvelous gems of Hindustan origin which are set in two matchless bracelets owned by the Shah of Persia (or should I say Iran?).
The other stone, the celebrated ‘Taj-e-mah,’ is even finer than its mate, for it is undoubtedly the greatest gem in the Persian collection. It also is rose cut and weighs 146 carats, so that the two stones together in the one pair of bracelets weigh 332 carats. Their value, as near as can be given by anyone (bearing in mind my remark about values above) for two such exceptional values, cannot be short of one million pounds sterling.
The Taj-e-mah was brought away from Hindustan by the Perso-Tartar conqueror Nadir Shah in 1739 amongst other looted treasure, his total bag having been estimated as worth between thirty and sixty million pounds. Nadir Shah’s successor, Shah Rokh, was a spineless ruler who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the resolute Aga Mohammed. Determined not to give up his treasure, which he had had the forethought to hide, Shah Rokh defied the tortures of his implacable enemy and clung tenaciously for a long time to his secret. Hunger, thirst, cold, heat and other intelligent and refined methods of persuasion did Aga Mohammed try upon his luckless victim. Finally he deprived him of his eyesight, and Shah Rokh was persuaded to give up what was left of his inheritance, the great diamond Taj-e-mah amongst the rest. But to Aga Mohammed the stone brought no luck, for he was assassinated.
A stone which is famous for having belonged to Shah Jehan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, to whom it came from Akbar Shah, is called the ‘Akbar Shah’. It is noteworthy for having engraved upon both sides an inscription by which two Moguls hoped to have their names commemorated for ever. The fact that the art of engraving thus appears to have been known at the time might seem to invalidate my argument, in an earlier chapter, against the ‘diamond’ in the High Priest’s breastplate. But the method by which these names were written on the stone was not perhaps true engraving in the technical sense, but done with worms—the juice of certain worms have a unique action upon the incorruptible diamond, or so it was claimed.
Akbar Shah himself had the first writing put upon the diamond:
‘Shah Akbar, The Shah of the World, 1028 A.H’
When it came into the possession of Shah Jahan, he had set upon it these words:
‘To the Lord of Two Worlds, 1039 A.H, Shah Jehan’
But their hopes of immortality were mocked by later events in a world that knows the dead are powerless. The great stone was recut. In Shah Jehan’s time it had weighed 116 carats, but when the two Arabic inscriptions on either side of it had been destroyed, its weight was reduced to seventy two carats. In this state it was purchased by the Gaekwar of Baroda for £35000.
Another great diamond also in the treasury of Baroda is one less well known, but flawless. It is called ‘English Dresden’ after the merchant who sold it and who claimed for it, as another did for the Porter-Rhodes, that it was the most perfect stone for its size in the world. He also claimed that for color it excelled even the Kohinoor. In the rough the English Dresden weighed 119½ carats, but cutting and polishing brought it down to seventy six and a half carats. The Gaekwar of Baroda paid £40000 for it, so it is said.
Diamonds Of Fate (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
There is another ‘Regent’ called the ‘Regent of Portugal’ to distinguish it from the Pitt. This again was a Brazilian diamond. It was found in 1775 in Brazil by a poor negro slave to whom it brought more luck than usually accrues to him humble discoverers of great gems. For he was given his freedom and a pension of £50 a year. This round stone, whose original weight is not on record, turned the scale when faceted at 215 carats. I have seen its value given by an ‘authority’ as 396800 guineas, supposedly an expert assessment. He must have been a great authority on diamonds indeed who could with such precision put a value on a gem for which there could at no time exist an open market. Great diamonds have no price. They are, like any gem of the first class, worth what they can bring.
From a stone which bears the name of ‘Sea or River of Light’ we can expect no less than that it should be of the finest water, matchless in luster and of a size comparable with the largest of its kind. Certainly the ‘Darya-i-nur,’ possessing all these qualities, is truly well name. One hundred and eighty six carats of flashing fire, reflected by facets cut rose shape, make this diamond one of the mineral wonders of the world. But it is only one of two, for it is one of a pair of marvelous gems of Hindustan origin which are set in two matchless bracelets owned by the Shah of Persia (or should I say Iran?).
The other stone, the celebrated ‘Taj-e-mah,’ is even finer than its mate, for it is undoubtedly the greatest gem in the Persian collection. It also is rose cut and weighs 146 carats, so that the two stones together in the one pair of bracelets weigh 332 carats. Their value, as near as can be given by anyone (bearing in mind my remark about values above) for two such exceptional values, cannot be short of one million pounds sterling.
The Taj-e-mah was brought away from Hindustan by the Perso-Tartar conqueror Nadir Shah in 1739 amongst other looted treasure, his total bag having been estimated as worth between thirty and sixty million pounds. Nadir Shah’s successor, Shah Rokh, was a spineless ruler who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the resolute Aga Mohammed. Determined not to give up his treasure, which he had had the forethought to hide, Shah Rokh defied the tortures of his implacable enemy and clung tenaciously for a long time to his secret. Hunger, thirst, cold, heat and other intelligent and refined methods of persuasion did Aga Mohammed try upon his luckless victim. Finally he deprived him of his eyesight, and Shah Rokh was persuaded to give up what was left of his inheritance, the great diamond Taj-e-mah amongst the rest. But to Aga Mohammed the stone brought no luck, for he was assassinated.
A stone which is famous for having belonged to Shah Jehan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, to whom it came from Akbar Shah, is called the ‘Akbar Shah’. It is noteworthy for having engraved upon both sides an inscription by which two Moguls hoped to have their names commemorated for ever. The fact that the art of engraving thus appears to have been known at the time might seem to invalidate my argument, in an earlier chapter, against the ‘diamond’ in the High Priest’s breastplate. But the method by which these names were written on the stone was not perhaps true engraving in the technical sense, but done with worms—the juice of certain worms have a unique action upon the incorruptible diamond, or so it was claimed.
Akbar Shah himself had the first writing put upon the diamond:
‘Shah Akbar, The Shah of the World, 1028 A.H’
When it came into the possession of Shah Jahan, he had set upon it these words:
‘To the Lord of Two Worlds, 1039 A.H, Shah Jehan’
But their hopes of immortality were mocked by later events in a world that knows the dead are powerless. The great stone was recut. In Shah Jehan’s time it had weighed 116 carats, but when the two Arabic inscriptions on either side of it had been destroyed, its weight was reduced to seventy two carats. In this state it was purchased by the Gaekwar of Baroda for £35000.
Another great diamond also in the treasury of Baroda is one less well known, but flawless. It is called ‘English Dresden’ after the merchant who sold it and who claimed for it, as another did for the Porter-Rhodes, that it was the most perfect stone for its size in the world. He also claimed that for color it excelled even the Kohinoor. In the rough the English Dresden weighed 119½ carats, but cutting and polishing brought it down to seventy six and a half carats. The Gaekwar of Baroda paid £40000 for it, so it is said.
Diamonds Of Fate (continued)
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
The Jewels Of Paris
Kate Betts writes about the growing luxury market via emerging markets like China, India, Russia and others + Paris's Place Vendome connection + other viewpoints @ http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1640285,00.html
25 Most Powerful Businesspeople
(via Fortune) Here is a list of the most powerful businesspeople in the world + more.
Companies That Could Change the World
(via The World Economic Forum): Here is a list of startup 'energy' companies that could change business and society:
www.gridpoint.com
www.ls9.com
www.skysails.info
www.nanostellar.com
www.gridpoint.com
www.ls9.com
www.skysails.info
www.nanostellar.com
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