(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The careful reader will have observed that no paintings are given above for the years 1523 to 1525, and indeed these were bad years for all painters. When Guilio de’ Medici was elected Pope as Clement VII in 1523, he found, as a historian has said, ‘the world in confusion, a great movement going on in Germany, a great war just begun between the three most powerful Christian monarchs—a war to which he himself was pledged.’ Two months after he had signed the treaty of alliance, Francis I of France was defeated and taken prisoner at Pavia, and Emperor’s troops—thousands of Protestants among them—headed for Rome. All the diplomatic wiles of the Pontiff were unavailing, and in May 1527 a horrified world beheld Christian troops, Germans, Spaniards, and Italians, engaged in the sack of Rome.
Basle, then a city of the Empire, though not exposed to the full force of the currents of war, was not untouched by these events, and Holbein, like a shrewd man of the world, began to look out for a shelter from the storm that was convulsing Europe. His native Germany was out of the question, for there paintings already in existence were being destroyed by zealots desirous of ‘purifying’ Protestant churches. During this time of waiting, when commissions for pictures were scarce, Holbein began that series of wood-engravings which have done as much as any of his paintings to make his name illustrious.
No works of Holbein have held a more lasting place in the popular imagination than his little woodcuts illustrating ‘The Dance of Death’. As remote in its origin as the ‘morality play, this picturing of the fact that all living beings must die was probably in its beginning a monkish device to compel those who could not read to realize their inevitable fate. This lesson was driven home by the universality with which the theme was expounded. In the older prints of this subject the highest and lowest in the land were shown each dancing with a dead partner of the same rank and calling, a king dancing with a dead king, a bishop dancing with a dead bishop, a merchant with a dead merchant, a laborer with a dead laborer. Whoever you were you could not escape death, that was always dancing at your heels. This was the age-old theme to which Holbein gave new life, and if his versions of the Dance of Death has eclipsed all other versions it is because Holbein was the first to present Death as an abstraction, common to all prints in the series, and because no other treatment of the theme has excelled his in the pictorial elements of design. Each of these prints is itself a perfect little picture—see how beautiful is the landscape with the setting sun in ‘The Husbandman’. As for its value as preaching, Holbein’s series serves a double purpose, emphasizing by the skeleton that accompanies all alike, Pope, Cardinal, Miser, Husbandman, and what not, the equality as well as the universality of death. Holbein’s message is not only that ‘all flesh is grass’; but also that under their skin ‘the colonel’s lady and Judith O’Grady’ are very much alike.
In 1526 Holbein found the haven for which he had been looking in England, an isle remote from the European storm center. It is probable that he had become known through Erasmus to Sir Thomas Moore, and so was invited to come; his painting of ‘The Household of Sir Thomas Moore’ was one of the earliest and most important paintings executed by Holbein during his first stay in England. In 1528 he returned to Basle for three years, and having dispatched thence his gorgeous portrait of ‘George Gisze, Merchant of the Steelyard’ to show what he could do in portraiture, he returned to England in 1531.
This handsome and exceedingly ornate portrait of a young merchant in his counting-house was a deliberate showpiece which had exactly the effect the painter intended. In troublous and uncertain times princes and great nobles were unreliable patrons; at any moment they might be dethroned, killed or executed. Like a prudent man Holbein wished to establish a connection with a steadier, yet equally rich stratum of society, namely the great merchants. Therefore he cleverly set his cap at the wealthy German merchants settled in London, and showed them in this portrait that he could make a merchant look as splendid and imposing as any king or noblemen. He delivered his sample, and human vanity did the rest. The German ‘Merchants of the Steelyard’ as this Corporation was styled, flocked to his studio in London. Three years later his first English patron, Sir Thomas Moore, was sent to the scaffold by Henry VIII because he declined to declare the nullity of that royal reprobate’s first marriage with Catherine of Aragon.
To have been the friend of Moore was at this time no commendation to the favor of the Court; nevertheless, Holbein was not the man to miss any opportunity of ‘getting on’ for want of a little tact and diplomacy. Firmly based on the support of the German merchants, he tried another method of approach. Very soon we find him painting his splendid portrait of ‘Robert Cheseman, the King’s Falconer’, painting first the minor and then the great courtiers, till at last, in 1536, he achieved what no doubt had been his aim from the first, and was appointed Court Painter to King Henry VIII.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
Thursday, December 20, 2007
The Beautiful Blonde Liked Emeralds
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:
Presently a tall graceful blonde, radiantly beautiful, exquisitely gowned, completely sure of herself, tapped Monsieur Gotin with her fan. ‘Comment vas-tu, Coco?’ she said, addressing him familiarly.
‘Ah, Margot, te voici,’ he replied, ‘I thought you were in the South of France with your sugar millionaire. Is he tired of you or you of him?
‘Six of one and half a dozen of the other,’ said she calmly. ‘Both of us like variety. You know I tire of any man after a month. Tiens, who is your young friend? I like the look of him. Why don’t you introduce him to me? You know my weakness for unspoiled youngsters.’
With no very good grace he introduced us. I bowed. She took my hand in hers. ‘I hope we shall be very good friends,’ she said.
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Monsieur Gotin decidedly. ‘I am in charge of this young man’s morals. Besides, Margot, I must reveal to you that he has no money to speak of and cannot pay for luxuries you are accustomed to. He has to work for his living.’
She pouted her lips and acted like a child to whom a favor has been denied. ‘With your permission,’ she said, and seated herself at our table. It was then that I noticed more closely the jewels she was wearing, a fine emerald ring, a fine golden chain round her neck which supported a piece of filigree with another large emerald in the center, two emeralds in her ears. No other jewelry.
‘Coffee?’ asked Monsieur Gotin.
‘A bottle of champagne,’ she said without hesitation.
‘You shall have what you want, Margot,’ he shrugged, ‘particularly as nothing could have been more calculated to put my young friend off you than that?’
‘How is that?’ she said, powdering her nose, and looking at me out of her great eyes, her large rather prominent eyes that looked so strangely childlike.
‘A friendship based upon champagne cannot be an alluring prospect for a young man who has just arrived in Paris with his way to make,’ said Monsieur Gotin smugly.
‘But I only make those pay who have the money,’ she replied, ‘and whose only attraction is a well-stuffed pocket book. You know, Coco, that when it suits me I can be generous, and for the time being I have no amant.’
Whereupon she started to talk to me in great good humor, asking me about myself and drawing me out marvelously. ‘You speak very good French,’ she said graciously.
‘You flatter me, mademoiselle,’ I said. ‘My French is school French and I am not fluent, I fear.’
‘That is just why you should at once adopt the only method of acquiring real fluency in our beautiful language,’ she said slyly.
‘What method is that?’ asked I, thinking of Ollendorf.
‘To sleep with your teacher,’ she said.
‘That will do,’ said Monsieur Gotin severely.
‘It will indeed,’ said Margot, ‘since you are determined to frustrate me, Coco. But all the same, I tell you that your young friend shall become my friend. But now I must leave you, messieurs,’ she said, rising. ‘I must go and find someone willing to part with ten louis for the pleasure of my company from now until breakfast time. I’m absolutely broke.’ She pressed into my hand her ivory card and disappeared with a wave of the hand among the milling crowd.
‘A delightful woman,’ said Monsieur Gotin, leaning over and taking the card out of my hand before I knew what he was doing. ‘Not the ordinary putain. She comes of excellent family and had a convent education. But,’ he added dispassionately, ‘she is passionate’—he tapped the table—‘unaccountable’—another tap—‘restless’—tap—‘and fearfully extravagant. She has ruined at least two fils de famille and will doubtless ruin more. I am not going to have her play with you, my young friend.’
‘But you introduced me to her?’ I said, bewildered.
‘Precisely. Hence it is my responsibility that you should go no farther with her.’ He tore the little card into tiny pieces.
‘The emeralds,’ I stammered, for their luster had been more on my mind than the beauty of their wearer. ‘They are lovely. And she says she is broke.’
‘Ah, the emeralds,’ he said. ‘They are Margot’s true passion. She would not part with one of them if she were starving, I believe. And she never wears anything but emeralds. She is a good judge and makes her admirers buy her the best.’
However, I was less interested in the handsome Margot than in her emeralds, and less interested in emeralds than, at the moment, finding my feet in Paris and holding down my job. My principal occupied a six room bachelor apartment in the vicinity of the Grand Opera. One room served him as an office, and when I entered upon my new duties another was assigned to me as a bedroom. It was really no more than a boxroom and I could scarcely turn round in it, but as the arrangement save me at least fifty francs a month, I was not dissatisfied.
The Beautiful Blonde Liked Emeralds (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Presently a tall graceful blonde, radiantly beautiful, exquisitely gowned, completely sure of herself, tapped Monsieur Gotin with her fan. ‘Comment vas-tu, Coco?’ she said, addressing him familiarly.
‘Ah, Margot, te voici,’ he replied, ‘I thought you were in the South of France with your sugar millionaire. Is he tired of you or you of him?
‘Six of one and half a dozen of the other,’ said she calmly. ‘Both of us like variety. You know I tire of any man after a month. Tiens, who is your young friend? I like the look of him. Why don’t you introduce him to me? You know my weakness for unspoiled youngsters.’
With no very good grace he introduced us. I bowed. She took my hand in hers. ‘I hope we shall be very good friends,’ she said.
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Monsieur Gotin decidedly. ‘I am in charge of this young man’s morals. Besides, Margot, I must reveal to you that he has no money to speak of and cannot pay for luxuries you are accustomed to. He has to work for his living.’
She pouted her lips and acted like a child to whom a favor has been denied. ‘With your permission,’ she said, and seated herself at our table. It was then that I noticed more closely the jewels she was wearing, a fine emerald ring, a fine golden chain round her neck which supported a piece of filigree with another large emerald in the center, two emeralds in her ears. No other jewelry.
‘Coffee?’ asked Monsieur Gotin.
‘A bottle of champagne,’ she said without hesitation.
‘You shall have what you want, Margot,’ he shrugged, ‘particularly as nothing could have been more calculated to put my young friend off you than that?’
‘How is that?’ she said, powdering her nose, and looking at me out of her great eyes, her large rather prominent eyes that looked so strangely childlike.
‘A friendship based upon champagne cannot be an alluring prospect for a young man who has just arrived in Paris with his way to make,’ said Monsieur Gotin smugly.
‘But I only make those pay who have the money,’ she replied, ‘and whose only attraction is a well-stuffed pocket book. You know, Coco, that when it suits me I can be generous, and for the time being I have no amant.’
Whereupon she started to talk to me in great good humor, asking me about myself and drawing me out marvelously. ‘You speak very good French,’ she said graciously.
‘You flatter me, mademoiselle,’ I said. ‘My French is school French and I am not fluent, I fear.’
‘That is just why you should at once adopt the only method of acquiring real fluency in our beautiful language,’ she said slyly.
‘What method is that?’ asked I, thinking of Ollendorf.
‘To sleep with your teacher,’ she said.
‘That will do,’ said Monsieur Gotin severely.
‘It will indeed,’ said Margot, ‘since you are determined to frustrate me, Coco. But all the same, I tell you that your young friend shall become my friend. But now I must leave you, messieurs,’ she said, rising. ‘I must go and find someone willing to part with ten louis for the pleasure of my company from now until breakfast time. I’m absolutely broke.’ She pressed into my hand her ivory card and disappeared with a wave of the hand among the milling crowd.
‘A delightful woman,’ said Monsieur Gotin, leaning over and taking the card out of my hand before I knew what he was doing. ‘Not the ordinary putain. She comes of excellent family and had a convent education. But,’ he added dispassionately, ‘she is passionate’—he tapped the table—‘unaccountable’—another tap—‘restless’—tap—‘and fearfully extravagant. She has ruined at least two fils de famille and will doubtless ruin more. I am not going to have her play with you, my young friend.’
‘But you introduced me to her?’ I said, bewildered.
‘Precisely. Hence it is my responsibility that you should go no farther with her.’ He tore the little card into tiny pieces.
‘The emeralds,’ I stammered, for their luster had been more on my mind than the beauty of their wearer. ‘They are lovely. And she says she is broke.’
‘Ah, the emeralds,’ he said. ‘They are Margot’s true passion. She would not part with one of them if she were starving, I believe. And she never wears anything but emeralds. She is a good judge and makes her admirers buy her the best.’
However, I was less interested in the handsome Margot than in her emeralds, and less interested in emeralds than, at the moment, finding my feet in Paris and holding down my job. My principal occupied a six room bachelor apartment in the vicinity of the Grand Opera. One room served him as an office, and when I entered upon my new duties another was assigned to me as a bedroom. It was really no more than a boxroom and I could scarcely turn round in it, but as the arrangement save me at least fifty francs a month, I was not dissatisfied.
The Beautiful Blonde Liked Emeralds (continued)
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Franschhoek
Franschhoek is considered the food and wine capital of South Africa + Le Quartier Français is one of the World's 50 Best Restaurants.
Useful links:
www.franschhoek.org.za
Cape Grace
12 Apostles
Ginja
Bukhara
Baia at the Waterfront
Useful links:
www.franschhoek.org.za
Cape Grace
12 Apostles
Ginja
Bukhara
Baia at the Waterfront
DTC Sightholders
The most complete unofficial list is on the Rapaport Web site.
http://www.diamonds.net/news/NewsItem.aspx?ArticleID=20030 .The companies that have been selected as DTC sightholders will be offered rough diamond supplies from DTC London + DTC South Africa (wholly owned + joint-venture DTC operations around the world). The contract period for the sights will run three years (2008-2011).
Useful link:
Diamond Trading Company
http://www.diamonds.net/news/NewsItem.aspx?ArticleID=20030 .The companies that have been selected as DTC sightholders will be offered rough diamond supplies from DTC London + DTC South Africa (wholly owned + joint-venture DTC operations around the world). The contract period for the sights will run three years (2008-2011).
Useful link:
Diamond Trading Company
Why We Recognise The Smell Of A Scent
(via ANI) Here is an interesting study by researchers on 'dynamic connectivity', which explains why, when we notice a scent, the brain quickly sorts through input and determines exactly what that smell is + other viewpoints @ http://in.news.yahoo.com/071217/139/6oinl.html
I see intriguing parallels between the smell of scent and colored stone/diamond grading + wine/tea/coffee/chocolate tasting.
I see intriguing parallels between the smell of scent and colored stone/diamond grading + wine/tea/coffee/chocolate tasting.
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
Directed by: Sergio Leone
Screenplay: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach
(via YouTube): The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGIelcG0r3s
The Good The Bad and the Ugly Finale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXldafIl5DQ
A Clint Eastwood classic + humorous + tragic + good story. I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Sergio Leone
Screenplay: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach
(via YouTube): The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Opening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGIelcG0r3s
The Good The Bad and the Ugly Finale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXldafIl5DQ
A Clint Eastwood classic + humorous + tragic + good story. I enjoyed it.
Top 10 Movies 2007
(via Time/Richard Schickel): Top 10 Movies 2007
#1. Michael Clayton
#2. No Country for Old Men
#3. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
#4. After the Wedding
#5. Black Book
#6. Breach
#7. The Savages
#8. In the Valley of Elah
#9. There Will Be Blood
#10. Dan in Real Life
#1. Michael Clayton
#2. No Country for Old Men
#3. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
#4. After the Wedding
#5. Black Book
#6. Breach
#7. The Savages
#8. In the Valley of Elah
#9. There Will Be Blood
#10. Dan in Real Life
The New Breed
Robyn Meredith writes about a new generation of art collectors + parallels between the tech industry and the contemporary art world + other viewpoints @ http://www.forbes.com/global/2007/1224/072.html
The Undiscovered O'Keeffe
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp writes about the unknown Georgia O'Keeffe's works on paper + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=685
The Dawn Of The Reformation
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
After Durer’s death many carried on the tradition he had bequeathed to his country as an engraver—the prints of Aldegraver, Beham, and other followers are still treasured by collectors—but none of them won great fame in painting. Matthew Grunewald, Durer’s contemporary, had a pupil Lucas Cranach (1472-1553), who was much esteemed by his fellow citizens of Wittemberg and was appointed Court Painter to the Protestant prince Frederick of Saxony; but we have only to look at the doll-faced ‘Portrait of a Young Lady’ by him in the National Gallery to see how far Cranach’s art fell below that of Durer.
Only one other painter of German origin beside Durer has so far succeeded in capturing the world’s attention, namely Hans Holbein the Younger, who when Durer died in 1528 was a young man of thirty one, painting in England. No more than twenty six years separate the birth of Holbein from that of Durer, yet within the space of that one generation so great had been the revolution in men’s minds that the two artists seem to belong to different ages. Holbein grew up during the greatest Wonder-Time in world’s history. We who have benefited by and taken for granted the astounding discoveries made during what is known as the Epoch of Maximilian (1493-1519), which approximates to the opening of the reign of our Henry VIII, find it difficult to realize the crash of old ideas and the bombardment of new ones which filled the world during this epoch:
That time (as Lord Bryce has told us)—a time of change and movement in every part of human life, a time when printing had become common, and books were no longer confined to the clergy, when drilled troops were replacing the feudal militia, when the use of gunpowder was changing the face of war—was especially marked by one event to which the history of the world offers no parallel before or since, the discovery of America....The feeling of mysterious awe with which men had regarded the firm plain of the earth and her encircling ocean ever since the days of Homer vanished when astronomers and geographers taught them that she was an insignificant globe which, so far from being the center of the universe, was itself swept round in the motion of one of the least of its countless systems.
Nothing but an appreciation of these historical facts can teach us rightly to comprehend the essential difference between the art of the two great German masters: for as the ‘feeling of mysterious awe’ with which all his work, whether painted or engraved, is impregnated, makes Albert Durer the last and supreme expression of medievalism, so an inner consciousness of man’s insignificance and a frank recognition of material facts makes Holbein the first exponent in art of Modern Science.
The great Hans Holbein was the son of an artist of the same name, Han Holbein the Elder, a poor and struggling painter of religious pictures in the flourishing city of Augsburg. Here Hans Holbein the Younger was born in 1497. There was never any doubt as to his calling, for he belonged to a family of painters. Not only his father, but his uncle and his brother were painters also. His father, who was chiefly influenced by the Flemish painter Roger van der Weyden, had little to teach the son, and when he was seventeen or eighteen young Hans left his father’s house in company with his elder brother Ambrosius, and began a foreign tour which eventually ended as Basle. Owing to the lack of any exact records and the constant confusion of the two Holbeins, father and son, the details of Hobleins early life are still a matter of conjecture and controversy. Some hold that the elder Holbein with his family moved from Augsburg to Lucerne about 1514, but the one thing certain is that young Holbein was at Basle in 1515, where he at once found work as a designer with the printer and publisher Frobenius. Through Frobenius he came to know Erasmus, who had recently left France and now graced Basle with his universal fame as a scholar; and soon the young artist found plenty of employment both as a book illustrator and portraitist. One of the earliest and most loyal of his patrons was the Basle merchant Jacob Meyer, whose portrait and especially the splendid sketch for the same foreshadowed the future greatness of the artist as a portrait painter. About 1516 or 1517 Holbein the Younger was in Lucerne, where he decorated a house, and it is conjectured that about this time he also traveled in Italy; but there is no sure proof, and we can only guess at his movements till he reappears at Basle in 1519. Though but twenty two, he is now a man and a master. In 1520 he became a citizen of Basle—a necessity if he wished to practise painting in that city—and about the same time he married a widow with two children.
He was a master, but a master of another order to Durer. Holbein was a pure professional painter, anxious to do a day’s work and do it as well as he possibly could; but he did not attempt to show how life should be lived or to penetrate its mysteries: he was content to paint what he saw, paint it truly and splendidly, but like the wise child of a sophisticated age he refrained from a futile endeavor to dig beneath the surface. Holbein can show you the character of a man, as in his portrait of Jacob Meyer; but Durer would have tried to read his soul.
In 1521 he painted his masterly, though to many unattractive picture, ‘The Dead Man,’ horribly realistic some would say, yet in truth it is not morbid. For this outstretched corpse is painted with the calm detachment of a student of anatomy; it is a manifestation of the sceptical, inquiring, but unmoved gaze of Science confronted with a Fact. In 1522 he painted ‘Two Saints’ and a ‘Madonna’ in the following year a ‘Portrait of Erasmus,’ in 1526 a ‘Venus’ and a gay lady styled ‘Lais Corinthiaca’ and in 1529 he painted a great ‘Madonna’ for his friend Jacob Meyer.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
2
After Durer’s death many carried on the tradition he had bequeathed to his country as an engraver—the prints of Aldegraver, Beham, and other followers are still treasured by collectors—but none of them won great fame in painting. Matthew Grunewald, Durer’s contemporary, had a pupil Lucas Cranach (1472-1553), who was much esteemed by his fellow citizens of Wittemberg and was appointed Court Painter to the Protestant prince Frederick of Saxony; but we have only to look at the doll-faced ‘Portrait of a Young Lady’ by him in the National Gallery to see how far Cranach’s art fell below that of Durer.
Only one other painter of German origin beside Durer has so far succeeded in capturing the world’s attention, namely Hans Holbein the Younger, who when Durer died in 1528 was a young man of thirty one, painting in England. No more than twenty six years separate the birth of Holbein from that of Durer, yet within the space of that one generation so great had been the revolution in men’s minds that the two artists seem to belong to different ages. Holbein grew up during the greatest Wonder-Time in world’s history. We who have benefited by and taken for granted the astounding discoveries made during what is known as the Epoch of Maximilian (1493-1519), which approximates to the opening of the reign of our Henry VIII, find it difficult to realize the crash of old ideas and the bombardment of new ones which filled the world during this epoch:
That time (as Lord Bryce has told us)—a time of change and movement in every part of human life, a time when printing had become common, and books were no longer confined to the clergy, when drilled troops were replacing the feudal militia, when the use of gunpowder was changing the face of war—was especially marked by one event to which the history of the world offers no parallel before or since, the discovery of America....The feeling of mysterious awe with which men had regarded the firm plain of the earth and her encircling ocean ever since the days of Homer vanished when astronomers and geographers taught them that she was an insignificant globe which, so far from being the center of the universe, was itself swept round in the motion of one of the least of its countless systems.
Nothing but an appreciation of these historical facts can teach us rightly to comprehend the essential difference between the art of the two great German masters: for as the ‘feeling of mysterious awe’ with which all his work, whether painted or engraved, is impregnated, makes Albert Durer the last and supreme expression of medievalism, so an inner consciousness of man’s insignificance and a frank recognition of material facts makes Holbein the first exponent in art of Modern Science.
The great Hans Holbein was the son of an artist of the same name, Han Holbein the Elder, a poor and struggling painter of religious pictures in the flourishing city of Augsburg. Here Hans Holbein the Younger was born in 1497. There was never any doubt as to his calling, for he belonged to a family of painters. Not only his father, but his uncle and his brother were painters also. His father, who was chiefly influenced by the Flemish painter Roger van der Weyden, had little to teach the son, and when he was seventeen or eighteen young Hans left his father’s house in company with his elder brother Ambrosius, and began a foreign tour which eventually ended as Basle. Owing to the lack of any exact records and the constant confusion of the two Holbeins, father and son, the details of Hobleins early life are still a matter of conjecture and controversy. Some hold that the elder Holbein with his family moved from Augsburg to Lucerne about 1514, but the one thing certain is that young Holbein was at Basle in 1515, where he at once found work as a designer with the printer and publisher Frobenius. Through Frobenius he came to know Erasmus, who had recently left France and now graced Basle with his universal fame as a scholar; and soon the young artist found plenty of employment both as a book illustrator and portraitist. One of the earliest and most loyal of his patrons was the Basle merchant Jacob Meyer, whose portrait and especially the splendid sketch for the same foreshadowed the future greatness of the artist as a portrait painter. About 1516 or 1517 Holbein the Younger was in Lucerne, where he decorated a house, and it is conjectured that about this time he also traveled in Italy; but there is no sure proof, and we can only guess at his movements till he reappears at Basle in 1519. Though but twenty two, he is now a man and a master. In 1520 he became a citizen of Basle—a necessity if he wished to practise painting in that city—and about the same time he married a widow with two children.
He was a master, but a master of another order to Durer. Holbein was a pure professional painter, anxious to do a day’s work and do it as well as he possibly could; but he did not attempt to show how life should be lived or to penetrate its mysteries: he was content to paint what he saw, paint it truly and splendidly, but like the wise child of a sophisticated age he refrained from a futile endeavor to dig beneath the surface. Holbein can show you the character of a man, as in his portrait of Jacob Meyer; but Durer would have tried to read his soul.
In 1521 he painted his masterly, though to many unattractive picture, ‘The Dead Man,’ horribly realistic some would say, yet in truth it is not morbid. For this outstretched corpse is painted with the calm detachment of a student of anatomy; it is a manifestation of the sceptical, inquiring, but unmoved gaze of Science confronted with a Fact. In 1522 he painted ‘Two Saints’ and a ‘Madonna’ in the following year a ‘Portrait of Erasmus,’ in 1526 a ‘Venus’ and a gay lady styled ‘Lais Corinthiaca’ and in 1529 he painted a great ‘Madonna’ for his friend Jacob Meyer.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
The Agraffe Of Maximilian I
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
A most unusual agraffe was made in 1603 by the Augsburg master goldsmith Hans Georg Beuerl (now in the Schatzkhammer der Residenz, Munich). Set with 245 diamonds, it is an enormous jewel, weighing 410 grams and measuring 17.5 cm in height. It represents a trophy of weapons, with cuirass and helmet, set all over with diamonds, with six pearls adorning the upper part. The composition is dominated by large Table Cuts of exceptionally fine make, but it also contains a whole collection of different contemporary cuts, all beautifully fashioned, including trihedrally faceted lozenges.
A most unusual agraffe was made in 1603 by the Augsburg master goldsmith Hans Georg Beuerl (now in the Schatzkhammer der Residenz, Munich). Set with 245 diamonds, it is an enormous jewel, weighing 410 grams and measuring 17.5 cm in height. It represents a trophy of weapons, with cuirass and helmet, set all over with diamonds, with six pearls adorning the upper part. The composition is dominated by large Table Cuts of exceptionally fine make, but it also contains a whole collection of different contemporary cuts, all beautifully fashioned, including trihedrally faceted lozenges.
The Beautiful Blonde Liked Emeralds
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 chance to get away from Vienna came at last when a letter I had written to the head of an important firm of precious stone dealers in London (who was a relation of mine) brought me the welcome offer to join their Paris branch.
I was over the moon. My mother, although she was in great distress at the thought of losing me, refused to stand in my way, and so the great day came when with a good wardrobe, a little money I had saved up and the with the most wonderful plans for the future, I set out for Paris.
At first I was terribly disappointed with the city of whose beauty and charm I had heard and read so much, and during the first weeks I was so despondent that it would not have taken much to lure me back to Vienna.
One of my letters of introduction was a passport to the acquaintance of a certain Monsieur Gotin whom I had met at the home of my principal in Vienna. He was a bachelor in a good position, and my old chief had thought him a good parti for his daughter and had gone to great lengths to entertain him every time he went to Vienna.
It was Monsieur Gotin who first offered to introduce me to the night life of Paris. He would take me to dinner and then on to a show, he said. I was full of anticipation, for I had as yet seen nothing but office, street and boulevard-café life. I soon found that this Monsieur Gotin was a rare hypocrite, a smug fellow who had been lauded by the old gentleman in Vienna as a model of what a God-fearing young man should be. Dinner over, he suggested a visit to the Casino de Paris.
‘I am in your hands, monsieur,’ said I, wondering a little, for I thought it a queer place to be taken to by a model of propriety. The revue which was then being staged had the name of being one of the best of its kind for many seasons, but for all that, most of the audience seemed to be paying no attention whatever to the performance. In fact, the house was divided into two parts: the auditorium and the ‘promenoir’, and of the two the promenoir was the most important, because few of the men to be found there bothered to step beyond it. Instead they sat at small side tables on raised platforms where refreshments were served, and surveyed in comfort the moving crowd of well-groomed men and elegant demimondes who formed the concourse. Buy why should I describe at length what every traveled Englishman and American who has been in Paris probably knows by heart?
Even as a raw youth I, too, had seen painted vice on the trottoirs of Vienna’s mean streets and had fled from it as one flees from the plague. I had encountered it, too, in the fashionable thoroughfares of my home city in more alluring guise, but they were still street women all, to be passed by with disdain and fear if one’s upbringing had been as mine.
But here, openly unashamedly, in full view of many ‘good’ women who had come from all parts of the world to see Paris night life, were men young and old, some so decrepit that they could scarcely walk with aid of two sticks, buzzing around the graceful scented cocottes like bluebottles attracted by a morsel of decaying meat. We joined the promenaders. Monsieur Gotin and I, and I noticed that he had a friendly smile and a wave for several of the ladies who for the moment were seated alone at one or other of the little raised tables. Sometimes he would stop for a moment to exchange badinage with sundry female habituées, and finally he suggested that we, too, should take our seats. He ordered coffee and liqueurs and leaned back at his ease, pointing out to me those among the promenaders who were men of note. To me they all looked alike, personages of importance, well-groomed adventurers, blackguards, guides, pimps and procurers, except that perhaps often the gentlemen looked the least gentlemanly.
The scene was brilliantly lit, the orchestra played ceaselessly, the atmosphere was heavy with a medley of scents. There was a great buzz of voices, much senseless laughter, a gaiety somewhat forced: the picture of Pleasure with a capital P.
The Beautiful Blonde Liked Emeralds (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
My chance to get away from Vienna came at last when a letter I had written to the head of an important firm of precious stone dealers in London (who was a relation of mine) brought me the welcome offer to join their Paris branch.
I was over the moon. My mother, although she was in great distress at the thought of losing me, refused to stand in my way, and so the great day came when with a good wardrobe, a little money I had saved up and the with the most wonderful plans for the future, I set out for Paris.
At first I was terribly disappointed with the city of whose beauty and charm I had heard and read so much, and during the first weeks I was so despondent that it would not have taken much to lure me back to Vienna.
One of my letters of introduction was a passport to the acquaintance of a certain Monsieur Gotin whom I had met at the home of my principal in Vienna. He was a bachelor in a good position, and my old chief had thought him a good parti for his daughter and had gone to great lengths to entertain him every time he went to Vienna.
It was Monsieur Gotin who first offered to introduce me to the night life of Paris. He would take me to dinner and then on to a show, he said. I was full of anticipation, for I had as yet seen nothing but office, street and boulevard-café life. I soon found that this Monsieur Gotin was a rare hypocrite, a smug fellow who had been lauded by the old gentleman in Vienna as a model of what a God-fearing young man should be. Dinner over, he suggested a visit to the Casino de Paris.
‘I am in your hands, monsieur,’ said I, wondering a little, for I thought it a queer place to be taken to by a model of propriety. The revue which was then being staged had the name of being one of the best of its kind for many seasons, but for all that, most of the audience seemed to be paying no attention whatever to the performance. In fact, the house was divided into two parts: the auditorium and the ‘promenoir’, and of the two the promenoir was the most important, because few of the men to be found there bothered to step beyond it. Instead they sat at small side tables on raised platforms where refreshments were served, and surveyed in comfort the moving crowd of well-groomed men and elegant demimondes who formed the concourse. Buy why should I describe at length what every traveled Englishman and American who has been in Paris probably knows by heart?
Even as a raw youth I, too, had seen painted vice on the trottoirs of Vienna’s mean streets and had fled from it as one flees from the plague. I had encountered it, too, in the fashionable thoroughfares of my home city in more alluring guise, but they were still street women all, to be passed by with disdain and fear if one’s upbringing had been as mine.
But here, openly unashamedly, in full view of many ‘good’ women who had come from all parts of the world to see Paris night life, were men young and old, some so decrepit that they could scarcely walk with aid of two sticks, buzzing around the graceful scented cocottes like bluebottles attracted by a morsel of decaying meat. We joined the promenaders. Monsieur Gotin and I, and I noticed that he had a friendly smile and a wave for several of the ladies who for the moment were seated alone at one or other of the little raised tables. Sometimes he would stop for a moment to exchange badinage with sundry female habituées, and finally he suggested that we, too, should take our seats. He ordered coffee and liqueurs and leaned back at his ease, pointing out to me those among the promenaders who were men of note. To me they all looked alike, personages of importance, well-groomed adventurers, blackguards, guides, pimps and procurers, except that perhaps often the gentlemen looked the least gentlemanly.
The scene was brilliantly lit, the orchestra played ceaselessly, the atmosphere was heavy with a medley of scents. There was a great buzz of voices, much senseless laughter, a gaiety somewhat forced: the picture of Pleasure with a capital P.
The Beautiful Blonde Liked Emeralds (continued)
Heard On The Street
In order to trade effectively, one has to understand that gem/art markets are filled with large number of market participants (with/without knowledge) + hopes + fears + thoughts. It’s the people + their thoughts + their expectations that create sometimes strange behavior + inefficient markets + mispriced gems/art = opportunities to make money.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
We Are The Music Makers
A nice poem.
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy (1844 - 1881): We Are The Music Makers
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy (1844 - 1881): We Are The Music Makers
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
The Services Imperative
(via Knowledge at Wharton) Stephen Brown + Mary Jo Bitner's views on the future of business services + the impact in the global economy + other viewpoints @ http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&id=1517
Top 10 Movies 2007
(via Time/Richard Corliss): Top 10 Movies 2007
#1. No Country for Old Men
#2. The Lives of Others
#3. Killer of Sheep
#4. Atonement
#5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
#6. Persepolis
#7. No End in Sight
#8. In the Valley of Elah
#9. Waitress
#10. Beowulf
#1. No Country for Old Men
#2. The Lives of Others
#3. Killer of Sheep
#4. Atonement
#5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
#6. Persepolis
#7. No End in Sight
#8. In the Valley of Elah
#9. Waitress
#10. Beowulf
The Fly
The Fly (1986)
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Screenplay: David Cronenberg, George Langelaan, Charles Edward Pogue
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis
(via YouTube): The Fly (1986 Movie Trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7xoyu08xNE&feature=related
The Fly (1986) - Behind the Scenes_Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Knr9GrYbQ
The Fly (1986) - Behind the Scenes_Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CbMT2v4vV0&feature=related
A unique metamorphosis + love/loss concept + the special effects, I loved it.
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Screenplay: David Cronenberg, George Langelaan, Charles Edward Pogue
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis
(via YouTube): The Fly (1986 Movie Trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7xoyu08xNE&feature=related
The Fly (1986) - Behind the Scenes_Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Knr9GrYbQ
The Fly (1986) - Behind the Scenes_Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CbMT2v4vV0&feature=related
A unique metamorphosis + love/loss concept + the special effects, I loved it.
That's Amore
Bernard Condon writes about the art of smoking a Cuban stogie + Salvatore Parisi + the Pelo de Oro plant + other viewpoints @ http://www.forbes.com/global/2007/1224/086.html
This comment: 'Smoking a Havana cigar is like having sex with a real woman. If the parallel seems ridiculous, you don't know Havanas--or you don't know real women.'
Brilliant!
This comment: 'Smoking a Havana cigar is like having sex with a real woman. If the parallel seems ridiculous, you don't know Havanas--or you don't know real women.'
Brilliant!
The Genetic Esthetic
Barbara Pollack writes about artists using cutting-edge medical technology--from X rays and MRIs to DNA diagnostics--as part of their art-making practices + obtaining images of their insides + pushing the boundaries of self-exposure, subjecting themselves to painful scrutiny on many levels + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=679
The Dawn Of The Reformation
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
It was in 1517 that Martin Luther sounded the tocsin for the Reformation by nailing his ninety five theses on the nature of papal indulgences to the great door of the Church of Wittemberg. It was in the following year that Durer received kindness and attention from his imperial patron, the Catholic prince Maximilian I. The artist was in a difficult position, but though he took no definite side in the great controversy which ensued, his sympathy with the Reformers is shown in this picture by the fact that each of the four Apostles is holding and studying a Bible. It is significant to note that this painting was not a commission, but was painted by Durer to please himself and for presentation to the city of his birth. Here is the letter which accompanied the gift to the Council of Nuremberg:
Prudent, honorable, wise, dear Masters, I have been intending, for a long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance, but I have been prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my works, for I felt that with such i could not stand well before your Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.
Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent prayer that you will favorably and graciously receive it, and will be and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.
Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.
Possibly it was a remembrance of this picture in particular which prompted Luther, in his consolatory letter to the artist’s friend Pirkheimer, to pen this memorable epitaph on Albert Durer:
It is well for pious man to mourn the best of men, but you should call him happy, for Christ illuminated him and called him away in a good hour from the tempests and, possibly, yet more stormy times: so that he, who was worthy only to see the best, might not be compelled to see the worst.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
It was in 1517 that Martin Luther sounded the tocsin for the Reformation by nailing his ninety five theses on the nature of papal indulgences to the great door of the Church of Wittemberg. It was in the following year that Durer received kindness and attention from his imperial patron, the Catholic prince Maximilian I. The artist was in a difficult position, but though he took no definite side in the great controversy which ensued, his sympathy with the Reformers is shown in this picture by the fact that each of the four Apostles is holding and studying a Bible. It is significant to note that this painting was not a commission, but was painted by Durer to please himself and for presentation to the city of his birth. Here is the letter which accompanied the gift to the Council of Nuremberg:
Prudent, honorable, wise, dear Masters, I have been intending, for a long time past, to show my respect for your Wisdoms by the presentation of some humble picture of mine as a remembrance, but I have been prevented from so doing by the imperfection and insignificance of my works, for I felt that with such i could not stand well before your Wisdoms. Now, however, that I have just painted a panel upon which I have bestowed more trouble than on any other painting, I considered none more worthy to keep it as a remembrance than your Wisdoms.
Therefore, I present it to your Wisdoms with the humble and urgent prayer that you will favorably and graciously receive it, and will be and continue, as I have ever found you, my kind and dear Masters.
Thus shall I be diligent to serve your Wisdoms in all humility.
Possibly it was a remembrance of this picture in particular which prompted Luther, in his consolatory letter to the artist’s friend Pirkheimer, to pen this memorable epitaph on Albert Durer:
It is well for pious man to mourn the best of men, but you should call him happy, for Christ illuminated him and called him away in a good hour from the tempests and, possibly, yet more stormy times: so that he, who was worthy only to see the best, might not be compelled to see the worst.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
Trihedrally Faceted Gothic Roses
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
This term is used for a design in which each basic triangular face has been replaced by a flat three-sided pyramid—that is, by three triangular faces raised to a low point. This is one of the very oldest faceting patterns, originally applied only a triangular rough. As in the case of six-facet Rose, the crystal shape which inspired the early cutters was likely to have been a cleavage with three natural faces. Such roughs may have been cleaved accidentally off a well developed trisoctaheral face, or they may have been a corner of a cuboid crystal.
Once the triangular rough had been fashioned into the simple pattern with three facets, an optical illusion caused by internal reflection made the Chiffre look as though it had nine facets, and this may have inspired cutters to apply trihedral facetings on the faces of rounded octahedrons, which was much easier to achieve than perfect plane facets. The subdividing of often numerous triangular faces into small facets was considered attractive and provided a popular alternative to Table Cuts, with their large, severe facets and strict geometry. Trihedral faceting was soon applied to flat-bottomed diamonds of every possible outline. It was most popular for angular shapes, but was also fairly common for diamonds with rounded outlines.
Not all diamonds with trihedral faceting are flatblacks. Some have pavilions of varying depths, difficult to distinguish in the closed settings of historical jewels and almost impossible to see in photographs. Most pavilion based diamonds (at least until the middle of the seventeenth century) were fashioned into Burgundian Point Cuts or Pointed Star Cuts.
In addition to Chiffres and six facet Roses, the Gothic Rose Cut included flat-bottomed diamonds of every conceivable outline, produced by economically minded cutters striving to save weight while achieving certain decorative effects as well as maximum display. Facets were applied at random, though usually in combinations of triangular facets. Perfect symmetry existed in the minds of artisans and designers only as an ideal and not necessarily as a practical goal.
The cube or hexoctahedron, is extremely rare in gem quality stones, but cube faces appear frequently in crystal combinations. The corners of a cubic formation can easily be cleaved off and produce excellent forms for further fashioning into Rose Cuts.
The kite-shaped diamond in the Dresden Cross Pendant clearly shows its trihedral faceting partly because of its unusual height (at the blunt end the face edge stands at an angle of 45º to the flat bottom) which makes it an outstanding feature. The soiled and damaged ancient foiling makes it impossible to analyze color or clarity adequately. The diamond is now yellowish and inclusions can be seen even with the naked eye. The choice of such a stone indicates that the jeweler was more interested in creating something beautiful than in producing a valuable piece of jewelry.
This term is used for a design in which each basic triangular face has been replaced by a flat three-sided pyramid—that is, by three triangular faces raised to a low point. This is one of the very oldest faceting patterns, originally applied only a triangular rough. As in the case of six-facet Rose, the crystal shape which inspired the early cutters was likely to have been a cleavage with three natural faces. Such roughs may have been cleaved accidentally off a well developed trisoctaheral face, or they may have been a corner of a cuboid crystal.
Once the triangular rough had been fashioned into the simple pattern with three facets, an optical illusion caused by internal reflection made the Chiffre look as though it had nine facets, and this may have inspired cutters to apply trihedral facetings on the faces of rounded octahedrons, which was much easier to achieve than perfect plane facets. The subdividing of often numerous triangular faces into small facets was considered attractive and provided a popular alternative to Table Cuts, with their large, severe facets and strict geometry. Trihedral faceting was soon applied to flat-bottomed diamonds of every possible outline. It was most popular for angular shapes, but was also fairly common for diamonds with rounded outlines.
Not all diamonds with trihedral faceting are flatblacks. Some have pavilions of varying depths, difficult to distinguish in the closed settings of historical jewels and almost impossible to see in photographs. Most pavilion based diamonds (at least until the middle of the seventeenth century) were fashioned into Burgundian Point Cuts or Pointed Star Cuts.
In addition to Chiffres and six facet Roses, the Gothic Rose Cut included flat-bottomed diamonds of every conceivable outline, produced by economically minded cutters striving to save weight while achieving certain decorative effects as well as maximum display. Facets were applied at random, though usually in combinations of triangular facets. Perfect symmetry existed in the minds of artisans and designers only as an ideal and not necessarily as a practical goal.
The cube or hexoctahedron, is extremely rare in gem quality stones, but cube faces appear frequently in crystal combinations. The corners of a cubic formation can easily be cleaved off and produce excellent forms for further fashioning into Rose Cuts.
The kite-shaped diamond in the Dresden Cross Pendant clearly shows its trihedral faceting partly because of its unusual height (at the blunt end the face edge stands at an angle of 45º to the flat bottom) which makes it an outstanding feature. The soiled and damaged ancient foiling makes it impossible to analyze color or clarity adequately. The diamond is now yellowish and inclusions can be seen even with the naked eye. The choice of such a stone indicates that the jeweler was more interested in creating something beautiful than in producing a valuable piece of jewelry.
The Case Of The Nun’s Ruby
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:
Jacob nodded his head up and down several times, but went away unmoved. When I saw him next he brought out of his pocket a crimson bottle-stopper of no ordinary size, and after pledging me to strict secrecy—confided to me that no king or emperor in the world possessed a finer ruby than that which he then held in his hand. For the time was several months later and poor Jacob was in a mental home where they were treating him very kindly. But he never recovered from the result of his shock when he discovered that he, the infallible Jacob W., had been the victim of his own faulty judgment and this five thousand pound ruby was laboratory grown.
There is a footnote to manufactured rubies: manufactured alexandrites, which are a variety of chrysoberyl, first discovered in 1833. Alexandrites are found in the Ural mountains and were given their name to celebrate the coming-of-age of the young Tsar Alexander II. When faceted and polished they are translucent and lustrous, but they are distinguished from all other gems by the intriguing way in which their blue or dark green daylight color changes into raspberry red in artificial light. (Footnote: Alexandrites are also produced in Ceylon,but not such good ones as in the Urals. For a long time the Ceylon gem dealers thought they were green sapphires until a specimen was consigned to London where it was tested by experts. The Ceylon Observer of January 11th, 1887, has an account of an alexandrite of immense size, 1876 carats—being a carat for almost every year of the date. Its owner refused 10000 rupees for it and it was eventually cut into small pieces).
Good alexandrites of any considerable size are extremely rare and fanciers are willing to pay high prices for really fine specimens. It was I who, more or less unwittingly, was responsible for the introduction of synthetic alexandrites to the world’s markets. The idea would never have occurred to me ordinarily, for most of my career has been spent with real gems and not with imitations and artificial stones. But there used to come to my office in Hatton Garden every month or so an analytical chemist, an exiled Russian resident in Paris, who specialized in the manufacture of high-grade scientific rubies. If I never bought anything from him it was not his fault, for he was an excellent salesman for one who had divided most of his life between laboratory and classroom.
Now I often regretted never being able to reward with a small order the pleasant half-hours I used to enjoy with this scholarly and cultured man. One day when he was unusually anxious to book an order, I pointed to a small alexandrite lying on my work table.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘It is a compatriot of yours,’ I said, ‘but unlike you, it is a turncoat.’ Then I explained to him the peculiar property of the stone.
‘Show me,’ said he, so I took him into a dark corner, lit a wax vesta, and like an unfailing miracle it was red stone and now lay in my hand and not a green stone.
‘Very intriguing,’ he said.
‘Now if you could only turn our scientific alexandrites,’ I suggested, more than half in jest. ‘Why, you could book me for a bushel of them.’
‘I shall have a good try,’ he said soberly, and said no more about it. I had completely forgotten the incident when three of four months later he turned up and without ado laid a small parcel of stones on the table. It did not take long to discover that he had succeeded in what I had thought to be impossible. But I was more surprised still when he quoted me a price per carat extremely moderate. I bought all he had with him, and subsequently arranged to take his entire output. It was my idea to corner the market; but alas for such hopes, secrets of that kind are hard to keep, and within the year others were turning out scientific alexandrites in such quantities that it became unprofitable to handle them in Europe.
I managed, however, to arouse a wide interest in these ‘funny’ stones in China and Japan, and the quantity these two markets absorbed was amazing. While it lasted I had no cause to complain. There was, and I believe still is, a shop in Hong Kong kept by two Chinese brothers where I frequently met a number of prominent Cantonese, both Government officials connected with Dr Sun Yat Sen’s administration and also not a few military officers of higher rank.
Several of these officers were, as the Americans say, ‘tickled to death’ with alexandrites, the stones that could change sides as effectively as any Chinese brigand general. All of them bought these scientific alexandrite novelties of me; not single specimens, but by the handful. Among these friendly customers was a close-cropped military man who one day, not so many years later, would acquire a news value as great as that of the Austrian house painter’s or the Swedish cinema star’s. His name was Chiang Kai Shek.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Jacob nodded his head up and down several times, but went away unmoved. When I saw him next he brought out of his pocket a crimson bottle-stopper of no ordinary size, and after pledging me to strict secrecy—confided to me that no king or emperor in the world possessed a finer ruby than that which he then held in his hand. For the time was several months later and poor Jacob was in a mental home where they were treating him very kindly. But he never recovered from the result of his shock when he discovered that he, the infallible Jacob W., had been the victim of his own faulty judgment and this five thousand pound ruby was laboratory grown.
There is a footnote to manufactured rubies: manufactured alexandrites, which are a variety of chrysoberyl, first discovered in 1833. Alexandrites are found in the Ural mountains and were given their name to celebrate the coming-of-age of the young Tsar Alexander II. When faceted and polished they are translucent and lustrous, but they are distinguished from all other gems by the intriguing way in which their blue or dark green daylight color changes into raspberry red in artificial light. (Footnote: Alexandrites are also produced in Ceylon,but not such good ones as in the Urals. For a long time the Ceylon gem dealers thought they were green sapphires until a specimen was consigned to London where it was tested by experts. The Ceylon Observer of January 11th, 1887, has an account of an alexandrite of immense size, 1876 carats—being a carat for almost every year of the date. Its owner refused 10000 rupees for it and it was eventually cut into small pieces).
Good alexandrites of any considerable size are extremely rare and fanciers are willing to pay high prices for really fine specimens. It was I who, more or less unwittingly, was responsible for the introduction of synthetic alexandrites to the world’s markets. The idea would never have occurred to me ordinarily, for most of my career has been spent with real gems and not with imitations and artificial stones. But there used to come to my office in Hatton Garden every month or so an analytical chemist, an exiled Russian resident in Paris, who specialized in the manufacture of high-grade scientific rubies. If I never bought anything from him it was not his fault, for he was an excellent salesman for one who had divided most of his life between laboratory and classroom.
Now I often regretted never being able to reward with a small order the pleasant half-hours I used to enjoy with this scholarly and cultured man. One day when he was unusually anxious to book an order, I pointed to a small alexandrite lying on my work table.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘It is a compatriot of yours,’ I said, ‘but unlike you, it is a turncoat.’ Then I explained to him the peculiar property of the stone.
‘Show me,’ said he, so I took him into a dark corner, lit a wax vesta, and like an unfailing miracle it was red stone and now lay in my hand and not a green stone.
‘Very intriguing,’ he said.
‘Now if you could only turn our scientific alexandrites,’ I suggested, more than half in jest. ‘Why, you could book me for a bushel of them.’
‘I shall have a good try,’ he said soberly, and said no more about it. I had completely forgotten the incident when three of four months later he turned up and without ado laid a small parcel of stones on the table. It did not take long to discover that he had succeeded in what I had thought to be impossible. But I was more surprised still when he quoted me a price per carat extremely moderate. I bought all he had with him, and subsequently arranged to take his entire output. It was my idea to corner the market; but alas for such hopes, secrets of that kind are hard to keep, and within the year others were turning out scientific alexandrites in such quantities that it became unprofitable to handle them in Europe.
I managed, however, to arouse a wide interest in these ‘funny’ stones in China and Japan, and the quantity these two markets absorbed was amazing. While it lasted I had no cause to complain. There was, and I believe still is, a shop in Hong Kong kept by two Chinese brothers where I frequently met a number of prominent Cantonese, both Government officials connected with Dr Sun Yat Sen’s administration and also not a few military officers of higher rank.
Several of these officers were, as the Americans say, ‘tickled to death’ with alexandrites, the stones that could change sides as effectively as any Chinese brigand general. All of them bought these scientific alexandrite novelties of me; not single specimens, but by the handful. Among these friendly customers was a close-cropped military man who one day, not so many years later, would acquire a news value as great as that of the Austrian house painter’s or the Swedish cinema star’s. His name was Chiang Kai Shek.
Heard On The Street
Keep moving. That is the best way to stay in business. Hard work + flexibility + stamina = Solid strength.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Central Statistical Organization, Burma
Here is an interesting statistics via Burma's Central Statistical Organization on foreign investment + I believe the main investors in Burma are from China, Russia, South Korea, Singapore, India, Thailand, Malaysia, United Kingdom, to mention a few.
Useful link:
http://www.csostat.gov.mm/S11MA02.asp
Useful link:
http://www.csostat.gov.mm/S11MA02.asp
Rare Wine Auctions Titillate Tipplers
Dominique Schroeder writes about rare wine auctions in Paris + the new trend among the wealthy international buyers, especially from China and Russia + other viewpoints @ http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071215/lf_afp/lifestylewineauction_071215033214
Useful links:
www.idealwine.com
www.conseildesventes.com
www.artcurial.com
Useful links:
www.idealwine.com
www.conseildesventes.com
www.artcurial.com
Next-Gen Travel Sites + Better Deals
(via Wired/John Brandon): These startups search airline and travel-booking sites to find the best deal + hand you off to the site offering that fare when you're ready to buy.
FareChase
http://farechase.yahoo.com
Farecast
www.farecast.com
SideStep
www.sidestep.com
Kayak
www.kayak.com
FareChase
http://farechase.yahoo.com
Farecast
www.farecast.com
SideStep
www.sidestep.com
Kayak
www.kayak.com
The 400 Blows
The 400 Blows (1959)
Directed by: François Truffaut
Screenplay: François Truffaut, Marcel Moussy
Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy
(via YouTube): Criterion Trailer 5: The 400 Blows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYCD1IBzzC0
François Truffaut / Les Quatre cents coups(400 Blows)trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUSMbawWUIo&feature=related
Realistic + experimental + a good story. I enjoyed it.
Directed by: François Truffaut
Screenplay: François Truffaut, Marcel Moussy
Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy
(via YouTube): Criterion Trailer 5: The 400 Blows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYCD1IBzzC0
François Truffaut / Les Quatre cents coups(400 Blows)trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUSMbawWUIo&feature=related
Realistic + experimental + a good story. I enjoyed it.
Under The Hammer
Tim Kelly writes about a renaissance in Japanese art + Japan's leading art auction house, Shinwa Art Auction + other viewpoints @ http://www.forbes.com/global/2007/1224/068.html
Yang Yong And The Four Elephants
Jonathan Napack writes about the emerging avant-garde of China’s Pearl River Delta + a unique urban laboratory + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=665
The Dawn Of The Reformation
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
In a letter to his friend Pirkheimer, Durer relates how the Doge and the Patriarch of Venice came to see his picture, and still more interesting in his account how the veteran Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini praised the picture in public and further proved his admiration for the work of the Northern painter. Bellini, Durer wrote, ‘wanted to have something of mine, and himself came and asked me to paint him something and he would pay well for it. All men tell me what an upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very old, but is still the best painter of them all.’ It was at this time that the incident about the paintbrush already narrated occurred.
Altogether this visit to Venice was a success. It definitely established Durer’s reputation as a painter, his small panels sold well, and later he went to Bologna, where he received a great ovation, but even the flattery of a Bolognese who declared he could ‘die happy’ now he had seen Durer did not turn the artist’s head, and he returned to Nuremberg the same modest, conscientious artist he had always been.
The succeeding years were very fertile in paintings, his principal productions being the ‘Crucifixion,’ now at Dresden, the ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ in which he tried to give his ideal of beauty of form, and the important altarpiece which he painted for the Frankfurt merchant Jacob Heiler.
But the artist still found that painting did not bring him in so much profit as engraving, and after he had completed his great ‘Adoration of the Trinity’ in 1511 he gave most of his time to engraving, continuing the first ‘Passion’ series and the ‘Life of the Virgin.’ It was after the death of his mother in 1514 that he produced his famous print ‘Melancholia’ a composition full of curious symbolism in which a seated female figure is shown brooding on the tragedies of existence.
Equally famous and still more difficult wholly to understand is the copper engraving known as ‘The Great Fortune’ or ‘Nemesis’. It is supposed that this engraving was suggested by a passage in Poliziano’s Latin poem, which may be thus translated:
There is goddess who, aloft in the empty air, advances girdled about with a cloud....She it is who crushes extravagant hopes, who threatens the proud, to whom is given to beat down the haughty spirit and the haughty step, and to confound over-great possessions. Her the men of old called Nemesis.....In her hand bears bridles and a chalice, and smiles for ever with an awful smile, and stands resisting mad designs.
No work has aroused more controversy than this design; some have regarded it as a splendid rendering of the physical attributes of mature womanhood, but others have pronounced the ugliness of the figure to be ‘perfectly repulsive’ while others again have found it hard to reconcile the extreme realism of the woman’s form with the fanciful imagination shown in her environment.
But however many opinions there may be as to the success of this engraving as an illustration, there is only one view about its merits as a decoration. Mr T Sturge Moore, himself an expert and gifted engraver, has well emphasized this point by reminding the readers of his book on Durer ‘that it is an engraving and not a woman that we are discussing: and that this engraving is extremely beautiful in arabesque and black and white pattern, rich, rhythmical and harmonious.’ If the experiment be made of turning the print upside down, so that attention is no longer concentrated on its meaning as an illustration, its extraordinary ingenuity and interest as a pattern will at once become apparent.
In 1518 Durer again resumed his activity as a painter: in that year he was summoned by the Emperor Maximilian to Augsburg, where he was employed in painting portraits of the emperor and of many of his nobles. In 1521 he visited the Netherlands and received much attention in Brussels and Antwerp; though he drew and painted several portraits during his travels, he took up engraving again when he returned to Nuremberg. The series he then began is known as the ‘Second Passion’; this set he did not live to complete. He died in 1528. Two years earlier he painted his celebrated ‘Four Apostles,’ which have a peculiar interest not only as Durer’s last effort in picture making, but also as an indication of the artist’s attitude towards the Reformation.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
In a letter to his friend Pirkheimer, Durer relates how the Doge and the Patriarch of Venice came to see his picture, and still more interesting in his account how the veteran Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini praised the picture in public and further proved his admiration for the work of the Northern painter. Bellini, Durer wrote, ‘wanted to have something of mine, and himself came and asked me to paint him something and he would pay well for it. All men tell me what an upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very old, but is still the best painter of them all.’ It was at this time that the incident about the paintbrush already narrated occurred.
Altogether this visit to Venice was a success. It definitely established Durer’s reputation as a painter, his small panels sold well, and later he went to Bologna, where he received a great ovation, but even the flattery of a Bolognese who declared he could ‘die happy’ now he had seen Durer did not turn the artist’s head, and he returned to Nuremberg the same modest, conscientious artist he had always been.
The succeeding years were very fertile in paintings, his principal productions being the ‘Crucifixion,’ now at Dresden, the ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ in which he tried to give his ideal of beauty of form, and the important altarpiece which he painted for the Frankfurt merchant Jacob Heiler.
But the artist still found that painting did not bring him in so much profit as engraving, and after he had completed his great ‘Adoration of the Trinity’ in 1511 he gave most of his time to engraving, continuing the first ‘Passion’ series and the ‘Life of the Virgin.’ It was after the death of his mother in 1514 that he produced his famous print ‘Melancholia’ a composition full of curious symbolism in which a seated female figure is shown brooding on the tragedies of existence.
Equally famous and still more difficult wholly to understand is the copper engraving known as ‘The Great Fortune’ or ‘Nemesis’. It is supposed that this engraving was suggested by a passage in Poliziano’s Latin poem, which may be thus translated:
There is goddess who, aloft in the empty air, advances girdled about with a cloud....She it is who crushes extravagant hopes, who threatens the proud, to whom is given to beat down the haughty spirit and the haughty step, and to confound over-great possessions. Her the men of old called Nemesis.....In her hand bears bridles and a chalice, and smiles for ever with an awful smile, and stands resisting mad designs.
No work has aroused more controversy than this design; some have regarded it as a splendid rendering of the physical attributes of mature womanhood, but others have pronounced the ugliness of the figure to be ‘perfectly repulsive’ while others again have found it hard to reconcile the extreme realism of the woman’s form with the fanciful imagination shown in her environment.
But however many opinions there may be as to the success of this engraving as an illustration, there is only one view about its merits as a decoration. Mr T Sturge Moore, himself an expert and gifted engraver, has well emphasized this point by reminding the readers of his book on Durer ‘that it is an engraving and not a woman that we are discussing: and that this engraving is extremely beautiful in arabesque and black and white pattern, rich, rhythmical and harmonious.’ If the experiment be made of turning the print upside down, so that attention is no longer concentrated on its meaning as an illustration, its extraordinary ingenuity and interest as a pattern will at once become apparent.
In 1518 Durer again resumed his activity as a painter: in that year he was summoned by the Emperor Maximilian to Augsburg, where he was employed in painting portraits of the emperor and of many of his nobles. In 1521 he visited the Netherlands and received much attention in Brussels and Antwerp; though he drew and painted several portraits during his travels, he took up engraving again when he returned to Nuremberg. The series he then began is known as the ‘Second Passion’; this set he did not live to complete. He died in 1528. Two years earlier he painted his celebrated ‘Four Apostles,’ which have a peculiar interest not only as Durer’s last effort in picture making, but also as an indication of the artist’s attitude towards the Reformation.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
The Case Of The Nun’s Ruby
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:
The De Maderos also experienced bad fortune above the average. They, in turn, during another revolutionary upheaval in 1908 (if there was indeed ‘bad luck’ in the stones it had taken, you see, a long time to descend upon the De Maderos, for Maximilian was executed in 1867), had to flee the country. They stowed away on an east bound liner. Their ship encountered a storm during which the Princess Charlotte’s rubies went down in the Chesapeake Bay, never presumably to rise again until the earth gives up its dead and the sea its treasures.
England’s great ruby, which has a place in the King’s state crown, has probably the longest European pedigree of all rubies, for it was a gift to the Black Prince from a King of Castile some hundred years ago. But the Black Prince’s ruby is after all only a spinel ruby, which, as has been said, is a thing of comparatively low degree.
Then there were the celebrated rubies of Queen Marie of Roumania, who died a little while ago. These gems came to her from her mother, a Russian Tsar’s daughter, and she in turn handed them onto her daughter, Princess Ileana, now Archduchess Anton of Hapsburg. She is reported to have said at the time that they would go better with Princess Ileana’s dark beauty than with her own English fairness, and in truth rubies are jewels that prefer brunettes.
Of great and noble rubies the tale is unending. Queen Mary has some exquisite rubies set in a brooch and pendant which she inherited under the will of the Countess Torby, wife of the Grand Duke Michael of Russia. These jewels had originally been chosen for the Empress Alexandra of Russia and are magnificent. There is a portrait of Queen Mary by David Jagger in which these jewels appear as the principal ornaments worn by the royal sitter.
Then there is the freak ruby said to be the most famous in the world because so much spiritual and religious significance has been attached to it by its owner and others. This is, or was, owned by a member of the Indian Legislative Council, and has deep within it, veiled by scarlet cloud, what appears to be the tiny image of a dark-skinned man robed in white and with his head swathed in a white turban.
But enough of individual rubies in the grand style. I have said enough to show what the world ancient and modern thinks of rubies. Indeed, there is a magnificence and color about a fine ruby that makes it peculiarly suited to the treasure chests of kings as well as extravagantly rich enough for the haversacks of romance.
There are other rubies, as I have said. I have mentioned the spinel ruby already. The balas ruby or rubicelle are just other names for spinel; but rubellite is the name frequently bestowed upon a wine-red tourmaline, which is a much softer stone and of rather complex chemical composition into which corundum enters. The finest rubellites come from the Ural mountains.
The New World has its ‘rubies’, too. A stone which occurs in Australia and which, because it is red, translucent and lustrous, is called by some native sons an Adelaide ruby, is really no more than an almandine garnet. The garnet is the Jack of all stones and in its time plays many parts in the credulous eye, for to the layman everything that is red is ruby, everything that is white, diamond, and so on, in spite of color being perhaps the least of identifying signs.
A Brazilian ruby, however, is no garnet. It is dark red topaz, whether its color is natural or has been brought about by application of heat. Part of the name is right, for the stone does, in fact, come from Brazil.
I remember not without sadness a conversation I had a few years ago in my office about rubies. There came to see an old friend, Jacob W., a well-known expert and dealer in precious stones, and we were meeting for the last time in ‘the Garden’, though neither of us knew it.
After some beating about the bush in a vain effort to provoke my curiosity, Jacob brought out above the level of my desk a good-sized ruby and said: ‘What price this?’
But I showed no eagerness to inspect, and although the stone appeared to be a fine one, expressed none of the admiration that at first sight I felt. For we dealers in gems never go into ecstasies over each other’s goods. A gem we have once praised overmuch may some day seek us out a potential buyer. Studied indifference is the safest policy, however fine the gem.
‘A good stone this, Jacob,’ I said without enthusiasm.
‘It is a good stone if I know one,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ve actually overdrawn my account to the tune of two thousand pounds without advising my bank. If I had not closed with the owner, I’d never have seen the stone again. And I had to have it.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ I said. ‘Lend you the money?’
‘No, I’d rather owe the bank than my best friend. I want to know what you think of it. Was I justified in putting myself into a hole over it?’
‘How can I tell until I know what you paid.’
‘Five thousand pounds,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot for an eight carat stone.’
‘I’ve not been handling first grade rubies much lately,’ said I. ‘But yours seems to be top-notcher, though too dear, in my opinion.’
Secretly I thought better of the stone than I let on, but when Jacob saw that I was not going to give myself away, he pocketed the stone and we drifted into a general talk on rubies.
‘What a vogue they are having,’ said Jacob. ‘Burma rubies, that is. It beats me why Siam and spinel rubies aren’t keeping pace with Burmas. They’re good enough stones, after all.’
‘Yes, but you wouldn’t pay much of a price for them yourself,’ I said. ‘Burma rubies get the big prices because they’ve got the hardness and refractive power and charm.’
‘Textbook stuff,’ he said contemptuously. ‘I know all that. But what makes the fashion for one gem one year and for a different gem the next? Why should rubies be in now and soon maybe pearls or emerald again? I’ve never got to the bottom of that.’
‘Because the woman say so,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Did you think it was the jewelers or the dealers who made the prices?’
But he was following another line of thought. ‘At any rate, we dealers in rubies and sapphires and emeralds have to be thankful that the precious stones don’t have quite the ups and downs of the others. My rubies, for instance, have been precious since the beginning of time and women have always wanted them.’
‘Do you remember when the scientific ruby, and before it the reconstructed ruby, seemed likely to knock the bottom out of the ruby market?’
‘I heard something about it once,’ said Jacob indifferently. But the gem dealer is not interested in ancient history—anything that happened more than five or six years before—and I saw that I should have to speak quickly to hold his interest at all.
‘Well, it began when the the Frenchman, Professor Verneuil, succeeded in producing small rubies in his laboratory,’ I said. ‘He used inferior, almost worthless Burma stones, which he crushed to powder. Then he introduced a suitable coloring matter and fused the powder electrically. The resulting mass, when it had been cut and polished, could hardly be told from the natural stone. The professor called his products ‘reconstructed rubies’ and took no more interest in them.
‘If it had stopped there, all would have been well. But there was the usual bunch of smart fools with short sight about. One fellow in particular—and I shan’t say who, because I never had any use for him—got to know the professor’s method. He was a goldsmith of sorts, not very good at his job, and he of all men took to making rubies. Naturally he didn’t know any better than to unload his trash wholesale, and when he didn’t make the expected fortune he sold the secret process to anyone who would buy. Of course, rubies went flop.’
Jacob grunted his contempt for all fools, particularly in the gem business.
I said: ‘Well, then this Professor Verneuil was struck by another idea. He started off, not with powdered ruby, but—since ruby is but corundum, after all—with corundum itself. Corundum is a form of alumina, which occurs abundantly in the soil anywhere, so the professor took some alumina, experimented with it for a while, and finally produced the true scientific or synthetic ruby.’
‘And a lot of good synthetic rubies have done anyone,’ snorted Jacob.
‘Well,’ said I, ‘if by ‘anyone’ you mean the trade, I grant you the synthetic ruby hasn’t done any good. But for industrial purposes it is just as good as the Burma, and after all, most manufactured rubies are absorbed by industry. As for the trade, there are the usual tests. By the way, Jacob, I suppose you’ve had the tests applied to your latest acquisition?’
‘Bah,’ said he irritably. ‘Scientific bosh. I trust my own knowledge all my life. You can’t teach the old dog new tricks, my friend.’
‘Precaution is precaution,’ I said. ‘Did I tell you what happened to me? My late partner in Paris had a ruby consigned to him from Amsterdam and I sold it in London to an expert, and he sold it a West End jeweler. All honest men! But the ruby was a dud. The experts all along the line had trusted each other to apply the test. It was the Amsterdam dealer who lost. He’d taken the gem from an exiled Russian Grand Duchess who hadn’t any money to pay him back.’
The Case Of The Nun’s Ruby (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
The De Maderos also experienced bad fortune above the average. They, in turn, during another revolutionary upheaval in 1908 (if there was indeed ‘bad luck’ in the stones it had taken, you see, a long time to descend upon the De Maderos, for Maximilian was executed in 1867), had to flee the country. They stowed away on an east bound liner. Their ship encountered a storm during which the Princess Charlotte’s rubies went down in the Chesapeake Bay, never presumably to rise again until the earth gives up its dead and the sea its treasures.
England’s great ruby, which has a place in the King’s state crown, has probably the longest European pedigree of all rubies, for it was a gift to the Black Prince from a King of Castile some hundred years ago. But the Black Prince’s ruby is after all only a spinel ruby, which, as has been said, is a thing of comparatively low degree.
Then there were the celebrated rubies of Queen Marie of Roumania, who died a little while ago. These gems came to her from her mother, a Russian Tsar’s daughter, and she in turn handed them onto her daughter, Princess Ileana, now Archduchess Anton of Hapsburg. She is reported to have said at the time that they would go better with Princess Ileana’s dark beauty than with her own English fairness, and in truth rubies are jewels that prefer brunettes.
Of great and noble rubies the tale is unending. Queen Mary has some exquisite rubies set in a brooch and pendant which she inherited under the will of the Countess Torby, wife of the Grand Duke Michael of Russia. These jewels had originally been chosen for the Empress Alexandra of Russia and are magnificent. There is a portrait of Queen Mary by David Jagger in which these jewels appear as the principal ornaments worn by the royal sitter.
Then there is the freak ruby said to be the most famous in the world because so much spiritual and religious significance has been attached to it by its owner and others. This is, or was, owned by a member of the Indian Legislative Council, and has deep within it, veiled by scarlet cloud, what appears to be the tiny image of a dark-skinned man robed in white and with his head swathed in a white turban.
But enough of individual rubies in the grand style. I have said enough to show what the world ancient and modern thinks of rubies. Indeed, there is a magnificence and color about a fine ruby that makes it peculiarly suited to the treasure chests of kings as well as extravagantly rich enough for the haversacks of romance.
There are other rubies, as I have said. I have mentioned the spinel ruby already. The balas ruby or rubicelle are just other names for spinel; but rubellite is the name frequently bestowed upon a wine-red tourmaline, which is a much softer stone and of rather complex chemical composition into which corundum enters. The finest rubellites come from the Ural mountains.
The New World has its ‘rubies’, too. A stone which occurs in Australia and which, because it is red, translucent and lustrous, is called by some native sons an Adelaide ruby, is really no more than an almandine garnet. The garnet is the Jack of all stones and in its time plays many parts in the credulous eye, for to the layman everything that is red is ruby, everything that is white, diamond, and so on, in spite of color being perhaps the least of identifying signs.
A Brazilian ruby, however, is no garnet. It is dark red topaz, whether its color is natural or has been brought about by application of heat. Part of the name is right, for the stone does, in fact, come from Brazil.
I remember not without sadness a conversation I had a few years ago in my office about rubies. There came to see an old friend, Jacob W., a well-known expert and dealer in precious stones, and we were meeting for the last time in ‘the Garden’, though neither of us knew it.
After some beating about the bush in a vain effort to provoke my curiosity, Jacob brought out above the level of my desk a good-sized ruby and said: ‘What price this?’
But I showed no eagerness to inspect, and although the stone appeared to be a fine one, expressed none of the admiration that at first sight I felt. For we dealers in gems never go into ecstasies over each other’s goods. A gem we have once praised overmuch may some day seek us out a potential buyer. Studied indifference is the safest policy, however fine the gem.
‘A good stone this, Jacob,’ I said without enthusiasm.
‘It is a good stone if I know one,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ve actually overdrawn my account to the tune of two thousand pounds without advising my bank. If I had not closed with the owner, I’d never have seen the stone again. And I had to have it.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ I said. ‘Lend you the money?’
‘No, I’d rather owe the bank than my best friend. I want to know what you think of it. Was I justified in putting myself into a hole over it?’
‘How can I tell until I know what you paid.’
‘Five thousand pounds,’ he said. ‘It’s a lot for an eight carat stone.’
‘I’ve not been handling first grade rubies much lately,’ said I. ‘But yours seems to be top-notcher, though too dear, in my opinion.’
Secretly I thought better of the stone than I let on, but when Jacob saw that I was not going to give myself away, he pocketed the stone and we drifted into a general talk on rubies.
‘What a vogue they are having,’ said Jacob. ‘Burma rubies, that is. It beats me why Siam and spinel rubies aren’t keeping pace with Burmas. They’re good enough stones, after all.’
‘Yes, but you wouldn’t pay much of a price for them yourself,’ I said. ‘Burma rubies get the big prices because they’ve got the hardness and refractive power and charm.’
‘Textbook stuff,’ he said contemptuously. ‘I know all that. But what makes the fashion for one gem one year and for a different gem the next? Why should rubies be in now and soon maybe pearls or emerald again? I’ve never got to the bottom of that.’
‘Because the woman say so,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Did you think it was the jewelers or the dealers who made the prices?’
But he was following another line of thought. ‘At any rate, we dealers in rubies and sapphires and emeralds have to be thankful that the precious stones don’t have quite the ups and downs of the others. My rubies, for instance, have been precious since the beginning of time and women have always wanted them.’
‘Do you remember when the scientific ruby, and before it the reconstructed ruby, seemed likely to knock the bottom out of the ruby market?’
‘I heard something about it once,’ said Jacob indifferently. But the gem dealer is not interested in ancient history—anything that happened more than five or six years before—and I saw that I should have to speak quickly to hold his interest at all.
‘Well, it began when the the Frenchman, Professor Verneuil, succeeded in producing small rubies in his laboratory,’ I said. ‘He used inferior, almost worthless Burma stones, which he crushed to powder. Then he introduced a suitable coloring matter and fused the powder electrically. The resulting mass, when it had been cut and polished, could hardly be told from the natural stone. The professor called his products ‘reconstructed rubies’ and took no more interest in them.
‘If it had stopped there, all would have been well. But there was the usual bunch of smart fools with short sight about. One fellow in particular—and I shan’t say who, because I never had any use for him—got to know the professor’s method. He was a goldsmith of sorts, not very good at his job, and he of all men took to making rubies. Naturally he didn’t know any better than to unload his trash wholesale, and when he didn’t make the expected fortune he sold the secret process to anyone who would buy. Of course, rubies went flop.’
Jacob grunted his contempt for all fools, particularly in the gem business.
I said: ‘Well, then this Professor Verneuil was struck by another idea. He started off, not with powdered ruby, but—since ruby is but corundum, after all—with corundum itself. Corundum is a form of alumina, which occurs abundantly in the soil anywhere, so the professor took some alumina, experimented with it for a while, and finally produced the true scientific or synthetic ruby.’
‘And a lot of good synthetic rubies have done anyone,’ snorted Jacob.
‘Well,’ said I, ‘if by ‘anyone’ you mean the trade, I grant you the synthetic ruby hasn’t done any good. But for industrial purposes it is just as good as the Burma, and after all, most manufactured rubies are absorbed by industry. As for the trade, there are the usual tests. By the way, Jacob, I suppose you’ve had the tests applied to your latest acquisition?’
‘Bah,’ said he irritably. ‘Scientific bosh. I trust my own knowledge all my life. You can’t teach the old dog new tricks, my friend.’
‘Precaution is precaution,’ I said. ‘Did I tell you what happened to me? My late partner in Paris had a ruby consigned to him from Amsterdam and I sold it in London to an expert, and he sold it a West End jeweler. All honest men! But the ruby was a dud. The experts all along the line had trusted each other to apply the test. It was the Amsterdam dealer who lost. He’d taken the gem from an exiled Russian Grand Duchess who hadn’t any money to pay him back.’
The Case Of The Nun’s Ruby (continued)
Deadly Ascent
(via Nova) Deadly Ascent explores the difficulties of climbing Denali (Mt McKinley) + what is interesting is the intriguing parallels between mountaineering + gem/art trading. Experienced climbers describe Denali as not a technically difficult task but the fact of the matter is it's full of surprises + at times you have a situation where a group of climbers may make the ascent in good weather, return and tell their friends how easy it was (just like in gem/art business), and friends will put together a team, make an attempt and die.
Top 10 Graphic Novels 2007
(via Time/Chris Onstad) Top 10 Graphic Novels 2007
#1. Achewood http://achewood.com
Written by Chris Onstad
#2. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier
Written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Kevin O'Neill
#3. All Star Superman
Written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Frank Quitely
#4. Marvel Zombies 2
Written by Robert Kirkman, illustrated by Sean Phillips and Arthur Suydam
#5. Jack of the Fables, Vol. 1: The (Nearly) Great Escape
Written by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges and Tony Aikins, illustrated by Andrew Pepoy
#6. Erfworld http://www.erfworld.com
Written by Rob Balder, illustrated by Jamie Noguchi
#7. The Principles of Uncertainty
Written by Maira Kalman
#8. Exit Wounds
Written by Rutu Modan
#9. Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm
Written by Percy Carey and Ronald Wimberly
#10. The Complete Peanuts, 1963-1964
Written by Charles M. Schulz
#1. Achewood http://achewood.com
Written by Chris Onstad
#2. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier
Written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Kevin O'Neill
#3. All Star Superman
Written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Frank Quitely
#4. Marvel Zombies 2
Written by Robert Kirkman, illustrated by Sean Phillips and Arthur Suydam
#5. Jack of the Fables, Vol. 1: The (Nearly) Great Escape
Written by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges and Tony Aikins, illustrated by Andrew Pepoy
#6. Erfworld http://www.erfworld.com
Written by Rob Balder, illustrated by Jamie Noguchi
#7. The Principles of Uncertainty
Written by Maira Kalman
#8. Exit Wounds
Written by Rutu Modan
#9. Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm
Written by Percy Carey and Ronald Wimberly
#10. The Complete Peanuts, 1963-1964
Written by Charles M. Schulz
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana is a Grammy Award-winning Mexican-born American Latin rock musician + guitarist + he combines salsa + rock + blues + jazz fusion to create a unique and recognizable sound of music. There is energy in his music + he is a musical genius + love his music.
‘Everybody gets wet when it rains, from the prostitutes to the pope. My music strives to communicate that message of unity.’
-Carlos Santana
Useful links:
www.santana.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Santana
‘Everybody gets wet when it rains, from the prostitutes to the pope. My music strives to communicate that message of unity.’
-Carlos Santana
Useful links:
www.santana.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Santana
Top 10 Museum Exhibits 2007
(via Time/Richard Lacayo): Top 10 Museum Exhibits 2007
#1. Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
#2. Matisse: Painter as Sculptor
Dallas Museum of Art and Nasher Sculpture Center
#3. Vija Celmins: A Drawings Retrospective
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
#4. J.M.W. Turner
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
#5. Martin Puryear
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
#6. Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
#7. Van Gogh and Expressionism
Neue Galerie, New York City
#8. Howard Hodgkin: Paintings 1992-2007
Yale Center for British Art
#9. Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution
The Geffen Contemporary at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art
#10. Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
#1. Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
#2. Matisse: Painter as Sculptor
Dallas Museum of Art and Nasher Sculpture Center
#3. Vija Celmins: A Drawings Retrospective
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
#4. J.M.W. Turner
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
#5. Martin Puryear
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
#6. Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
#7. Van Gogh and Expressionism
Neue Galerie, New York City
#8. Howard Hodgkin: Paintings 1992-2007
Yale Center for British Art
#9. Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution
The Geffen Contemporary at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art
#10. Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
10 Top Places Travelers Stumbled Upon
(via users of travel website www.igougo.com + based on their experiences):
1. Amarante, Portugal - a magnificent little city.
2. Sigulda, Latvia - a beautiful little town.
3. Avebury, England - a Stonehenge alternative.
4. Sorata, Bolivia - a mythical Shangri-La.
5. Camargue, France - for a Spanish/Gypsy flavor.
6. Victoria, Argentina - the 'City of the Seven Hills'.
7. Budva, Montenegro - on a dramatic coastline.
8. Bohol, Philippines - one of Philippines' secrets
9.Cuyutlan, Mexico - black sand, green waves, sea turtles.
10. Perthshire, Scotland - in the heart of highlands.
1. Amarante, Portugal - a magnificent little city.
2. Sigulda, Latvia - a beautiful little town.
3. Avebury, England - a Stonehenge alternative.
4. Sorata, Bolivia - a mythical Shangri-La.
5. Camargue, France - for a Spanish/Gypsy flavor.
6. Victoria, Argentina - the 'City of the Seven Hills'.
7. Budva, Montenegro - on a dramatic coastline.
8. Bohol, Philippines - one of Philippines' secrets
9.Cuyutlan, Mexico - black sand, green waves, sea turtles.
10. Perthshire, Scotland - in the heart of highlands.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Melissa Mathison
Cast: Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore
(via YouTube): E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - Original Trailer (1982)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4yUQJeKZNs&feature=related
E.T.- The Extra Terrestrial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAP9f_GJQxI
E.T Funny Scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHApjDCkt9U&feature=related
I think E.T is a lovely film + the little creature with feelings was a moving experience . I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Melissa Mathison
Cast: Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore
(via YouTube): E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - Original Trailer (1982)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4yUQJeKZNs&feature=related
E.T.- The Extra Terrestrial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAP9f_GJQxI
E.T Funny Scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHApjDCkt9U&feature=related
I think E.T is a lovely film + the little creature with feelings was a moving experience . I enjoyed it.
Landmark Map Of World On Display
(via BBC News) Vincent Dowd writes about the map, which has just gone on permanent display for the first time, bought by America's Library of Congress four years ago (the map is thought to have been drawn exactly 500 years ago by a monk in the present-day French region of Lorraine) + other viewpoints @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7142784.stm
Art, Restored
David Armstrong writes about Julian G.Y. Radcliffe, the founder and chairman of Art Loss Register, which maintains the world's largest database for stolen art + other viewpoints@ http://www.forbes.com/global/2007/1224/090.html
Useful link:
www.artloss.com
Useful link:
www.artloss.com
Lights, Action, Camera!
Barbara Pollack writes about new direction (s) in photography, taking postmodern theory into the realm of constructed narratives and fabricated realities by international photographers + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=643
The Dawn Of The Reformation
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Returning to Nuremberg in 1494, Albert Durer—as we shall henceforth call him—married almost immediately Agnes Frei, daughter of a respected citizen. The young artist already had some reputation: in 1497 he painted the portrait of his father, and in the following year the splendid portrait of himself. This comparatively early work, now at Madrid, shows all the characteristics of his later portraits; it has a simple dignity almost amounting to austerity, remarkable penetration into character, and in execution it shows perfect mastery of drawing and coloring.
In 1498 Albert Durer published a series of wood-engravings illustrating the Apocalypse, which greatly increased his reputation, for in these he was able to show not only the perfection of his drawing and design, but also the extraordinary power of his imagination. No design in this series is more famous than ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, which has recently become still more widely known by the popular novel of Ibanez and the film with the same title, both of which were directly inspired by Durer’s masterpiece.
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat thereon had a bow: and there was given unto him a crown: and he came forth conquering and to conquer....And another horse came forth, a red horse: and to him that sat thereon it was given to take peace from the earth, and that they should slay one another: and there was given to him a great sword.....And I saw, and behold a black horse; and he that sat thereon had a balance in his hand. And I heard as it were a voice saying, A measure of wheat for a penny....and behold a pale horse; and he that sat upon him, his name was Death.
These are the verses from Revelation (vi. 2-8) which Durer set himself to illustrate; and since it was executed in a period just previous to the Reformation, some critics have argued that its inner meaning is an attack on the Papacy. It is improbable, however, that Durer was at this time in any way actuated by religious bias; the series as a whole certainly attacks corruption, both lay and ecclesiastical, but in this woodcut, the most famous of the series, it is more likely that Durer confined himself strictly to his text. The Holy Roman Empire was in a chronic state of war, and Durer must have seen enough of fighting in his youth and early manhood to know who and what were the grim companions of conquest. The meaning of this magnificent rushing design is clear; it reveals Durer’s view of War, war which sweeps mercilessly on, sparing neither man nor woman, priest nor layman, and inevitably accompanied by Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The most subtle touch of a satire is the third rider with the balances. In portraying Famine as this sleek, well-nourished, handsomely clothed man, Durer seems to hint that he is not ignorant of the existence of the War-Profiteer. The emaciated horse and its rider by his side tell their own tale.
It was by his engravings still more than by his paintings that Durer became famous, for the prints spread throughout Europe and created a great sensation. But though invited to become a citizen of Venice or Antwerp by these municipalities, Durer remained loyal to his native city. He continued to reside in Nuremberg. After his father’s death in 1502 his responsibilities increased, for now in addition to his own family Albert had to look after his mother and his younger brother Hans.
When commissions for portraits and altar-pieces were not forthcoming, Durer’s wife used to hawk at fairs and gatherings her husband’s prints illustrating episodes in the life of the Holy Family, and these wood and copper engravings not only brought in ready money by satisfying a popular demand, but they were the foundation of the artist’s reputation as an engraver. The success of these separate prints was immediate, and soon after the publication of the Apocalypse prints, Durer set to work on other sets of engravings, one of which was to illustrate the Passion of Our Lord and another the Life of the Virgin.
At the instigation and by the kindness of his friend, Wilibald Pirkheimer, who lent him the money for the journey, Durer in 1506 paid a visit to Venice, where he was commissioned by the German merchants to paint a panel for their chapel. At first the painters of Venice were inclined to regard Albert Durer as a mere engraver who did not understand how to use color, but the completion of this panel soon silenced hostile criticism and the work proved to be a veritable triumph for the painter.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
Returning to Nuremberg in 1494, Albert Durer—as we shall henceforth call him—married almost immediately Agnes Frei, daughter of a respected citizen. The young artist already had some reputation: in 1497 he painted the portrait of his father, and in the following year the splendid portrait of himself. This comparatively early work, now at Madrid, shows all the characteristics of his later portraits; it has a simple dignity almost amounting to austerity, remarkable penetration into character, and in execution it shows perfect mastery of drawing and coloring.
In 1498 Albert Durer published a series of wood-engravings illustrating the Apocalypse, which greatly increased his reputation, for in these he was able to show not only the perfection of his drawing and design, but also the extraordinary power of his imagination. No design in this series is more famous than ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, which has recently become still more widely known by the popular novel of Ibanez and the film with the same title, both of which were directly inspired by Durer’s masterpiece.
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat thereon had a bow: and there was given unto him a crown: and he came forth conquering and to conquer....And another horse came forth, a red horse: and to him that sat thereon it was given to take peace from the earth, and that they should slay one another: and there was given to him a great sword.....And I saw, and behold a black horse; and he that sat thereon had a balance in his hand. And I heard as it were a voice saying, A measure of wheat for a penny....and behold a pale horse; and he that sat upon him, his name was Death.
These are the verses from Revelation (vi. 2-8) which Durer set himself to illustrate; and since it was executed in a period just previous to the Reformation, some critics have argued that its inner meaning is an attack on the Papacy. It is improbable, however, that Durer was at this time in any way actuated by religious bias; the series as a whole certainly attacks corruption, both lay and ecclesiastical, but in this woodcut, the most famous of the series, it is more likely that Durer confined himself strictly to his text. The Holy Roman Empire was in a chronic state of war, and Durer must have seen enough of fighting in his youth and early manhood to know who and what were the grim companions of conquest. The meaning of this magnificent rushing design is clear; it reveals Durer’s view of War, war which sweeps mercilessly on, sparing neither man nor woman, priest nor layman, and inevitably accompanied by Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The most subtle touch of a satire is the third rider with the balances. In portraying Famine as this sleek, well-nourished, handsomely clothed man, Durer seems to hint that he is not ignorant of the existence of the War-Profiteer. The emaciated horse and its rider by his side tell their own tale.
It was by his engravings still more than by his paintings that Durer became famous, for the prints spread throughout Europe and created a great sensation. But though invited to become a citizen of Venice or Antwerp by these municipalities, Durer remained loyal to his native city. He continued to reside in Nuremberg. After his father’s death in 1502 his responsibilities increased, for now in addition to his own family Albert had to look after his mother and his younger brother Hans.
When commissions for portraits and altar-pieces were not forthcoming, Durer’s wife used to hawk at fairs and gatherings her husband’s prints illustrating episodes in the life of the Holy Family, and these wood and copper engravings not only brought in ready money by satisfying a popular demand, but they were the foundation of the artist’s reputation as an engraver. The success of these separate prints was immediate, and soon after the publication of the Apocalypse prints, Durer set to work on other sets of engravings, one of which was to illustrate the Passion of Our Lord and another the Life of the Virgin.
At the instigation and by the kindness of his friend, Wilibald Pirkheimer, who lent him the money for the journey, Durer in 1506 paid a visit to Venice, where he was commissioned by the German merchants to paint a panel for their chapel. At first the painters of Venice were inclined to regard Albert Durer as a mere engraver who did not understand how to use color, but the completion of this panel soon silenced hostile criticism and the work proved to be a veritable triumph for the painter.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
The Case Of The Nun’s Ruby
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:
Actually this was an episode of mystery in the vein of Le Queux or Edgar Wallace. I have grievously misled you, although the story contains a nun and also a ruby, both of high degree.
While I was still busy measuring up the copper roofs of the religious house near Cracow, I used to meet some times the Abbess of the nunnery, a most stately lady of gentle grace. I had learned that she came of a very noble Polish family, but of course into the religious life and no one was allowed to refer in her presence to her rank.
This lady took quite an interest in my doings about the place, and she used to ask me many questions about my own people. Where did they live? What did they do? Was I happy? Did I see sometimes a puzzled flicker in her eyes as she surveyed me, scion of a race so strangely different, surely, in its life and aspirations from her own? However, when I told her that my mother traded in pearls and precious stones she remembered a ruby of her own to which she attributed considerable value. She had long thought of selling it so that she might apply the proceeds to some charitable cause. And now here was I, a messenger, if an odd one, who might further her charitable aims.
I offered at once to send the gem to Vienna for valuation and for an offer to be made. On the following day she gave it into my hands without apparent hesitation—although she can have known nothing of me—and I dispatched it to my mother. An offer came back. She accepted it. And generous to a fault, she paid me a commission altogether disproportionate to my services. Such was my first vacation—a busman’s holiday; my first effort also as a gem broker.
When I returned to Vienna my head was filled with the idea of the money to be earned by gem broking and as a merchant. ‘If I can pick up a ruby from a nun,’ I said to my mother, ‘and make more money on it than I earn in two months at my job, I ought to be in your line of business.’
But she would hear nothing of it, not because she did not think that her profession was not as good as any other, but because she was afraid I might make money too easily; she thought that making money too easily was the worst thing that could happen to a young man. But what with her paternal care and, later on, many other reasons, I never, whether as young man or adult, underwent the supreme misfortune of gaining easy money—the nun’s ruby along being excepted, naturally.
Look back, the ruby of the Abbess Anastasia seems now to have been a veritable pόint de départ in the story of my life. It also serves another purpose. It is as good an excuse as any other to embark upon the subject of rubies in general.
It was presumably the Oriental ruby which King Solomon had in mind when he appraised its worth as being less than that of a good woman; few who have expert knowledge of both would be prepared to challenge his statement—which is, however, clear proof that his generation, no less than all succeeding ones, considered the red transparent variety of crystallized corundum as the gem of gems.
The world ‘ruby’ is derived quite straightforwardly from the Latin rubens; that is, ‘red’. When you talk of an Oriental ruby you mean a particular kind of ruby which is found in Upper Burma, not just any sort of ruby that might be ‘picked up’ east of Suez! This Burmese ruby ranks next in the scale of hardness to the sapphire. There is, as a matter of fact, little to choose between the Oriental ruby and the sapphire in respect of hardness, that of the former being 8.5 and that of the latter 9.
There are other rubies. The spinel ruby, another red transparent stone, is closely allied also to corundum, but is of lesser density and inferior hardness, and for these reasons it is not held in the same esteem as the Oriental ruby.
Oriental rubies vary in color from pale rose to deep crimson. Frequently the stone has a tinge of purple. Particularly valued by the connoisseur is the ‘pigeon’s blood ruby,’ whose very name conveys even to the layman the idea of a high-grade gem. There is a place called Mogok, about ninety miles N.N.E of Mandalay, which is the home of the Burma ruby, where it is found embedded in limestone formations. From this region come all the great rubies. And many great rubies there have been in history.
There was the noble stone, for instance, by which a great sought to write his name imperishable upon human memory. He knew better than Shelly’s Ozymandias, ‘King of Kings’:
‘I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.......Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies......
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
The Mogul Emperor Jehangir had his name carved on a noble ruby, secure in the belief that thereby he would be remembered by posterity for a longer period than through monuments of stone or the records of historians. For the ruby may be small. It may be easily lost in times of disturbance. But somehow, somewhere, it will survive destruction and appear again. The Mogul ruby passed in time into the hands of Shah Jehan, who gave it to his lovely wife, the same lady for whom as a sorrowing widower he built the Taj Mahal, jewel of jewels among buildings. And royal gem as it was, it came at last into the hands of Queen Victoria, a few years before the great diamond, Kohinoor.
Another ruby, one of extraordinary size—for it was nearly as large as a pigeon’s egg as well as being the color of pigeon’s blood—also graced royalty and was set in the diadem made for the coronation of Catherine the Great of Russia. But there are more tragic rubies. Such were the rubies composing a fine parure which belonged to the Princess Charlotte of Belgium, she who married the Archduke Maximilian of Austria and as his wife became Empress of Mexico. They have seemed to bring no luck to their possessors. Consider the fate of those who have owned them.
Few more unhappy heads have worn crowns than Maximilian’s. It was Napoleon III who induced Maximilian to accept the Mexican throne. When Charlotte accompanied him to the Americas she took with her her fine set of rubies. But within a short time the new ruler of Mexico found trouble. He was arraigned as a usurper. Charlotte precipitately fled her palace at Chapultepec, not leaving her husband to his fate, but to seek support, armed support, from Napoleon III. But Napoleon callously refused the help she begged. The Emperor Maximilian, younger brother of the Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria-Hungary (for so near is that dark exotic tale to our time) was tried by a revolutionary tribunal and shot. Many years after, the Princess Charlotte also ended her days, in a mental home. But her rubies, which she had left behind at Chapultepec, fell into the hands of the great family of De Madero.
The Case Of The Nun’s Ruby (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Actually this was an episode of mystery in the vein of Le Queux or Edgar Wallace. I have grievously misled you, although the story contains a nun and also a ruby, both of high degree.
While I was still busy measuring up the copper roofs of the religious house near Cracow, I used to meet some times the Abbess of the nunnery, a most stately lady of gentle grace. I had learned that she came of a very noble Polish family, but of course into the religious life and no one was allowed to refer in her presence to her rank.
This lady took quite an interest in my doings about the place, and she used to ask me many questions about my own people. Where did they live? What did they do? Was I happy? Did I see sometimes a puzzled flicker in her eyes as she surveyed me, scion of a race so strangely different, surely, in its life and aspirations from her own? However, when I told her that my mother traded in pearls and precious stones she remembered a ruby of her own to which she attributed considerable value. She had long thought of selling it so that she might apply the proceeds to some charitable cause. And now here was I, a messenger, if an odd one, who might further her charitable aims.
I offered at once to send the gem to Vienna for valuation and for an offer to be made. On the following day she gave it into my hands without apparent hesitation—although she can have known nothing of me—and I dispatched it to my mother. An offer came back. She accepted it. And generous to a fault, she paid me a commission altogether disproportionate to my services. Such was my first vacation—a busman’s holiday; my first effort also as a gem broker.
When I returned to Vienna my head was filled with the idea of the money to be earned by gem broking and as a merchant. ‘If I can pick up a ruby from a nun,’ I said to my mother, ‘and make more money on it than I earn in two months at my job, I ought to be in your line of business.’
But she would hear nothing of it, not because she did not think that her profession was not as good as any other, but because she was afraid I might make money too easily; she thought that making money too easily was the worst thing that could happen to a young man. But what with her paternal care and, later on, many other reasons, I never, whether as young man or adult, underwent the supreme misfortune of gaining easy money—the nun’s ruby along being excepted, naturally.
Look back, the ruby of the Abbess Anastasia seems now to have been a veritable pόint de départ in the story of my life. It also serves another purpose. It is as good an excuse as any other to embark upon the subject of rubies in general.
It was presumably the Oriental ruby which King Solomon had in mind when he appraised its worth as being less than that of a good woman; few who have expert knowledge of both would be prepared to challenge his statement—which is, however, clear proof that his generation, no less than all succeeding ones, considered the red transparent variety of crystallized corundum as the gem of gems.
The world ‘ruby’ is derived quite straightforwardly from the Latin rubens; that is, ‘red’. When you talk of an Oriental ruby you mean a particular kind of ruby which is found in Upper Burma, not just any sort of ruby that might be ‘picked up’ east of Suez! This Burmese ruby ranks next in the scale of hardness to the sapphire. There is, as a matter of fact, little to choose between the Oriental ruby and the sapphire in respect of hardness, that of the former being 8.5 and that of the latter 9.
There are other rubies. The spinel ruby, another red transparent stone, is closely allied also to corundum, but is of lesser density and inferior hardness, and for these reasons it is not held in the same esteem as the Oriental ruby.
Oriental rubies vary in color from pale rose to deep crimson. Frequently the stone has a tinge of purple. Particularly valued by the connoisseur is the ‘pigeon’s blood ruby,’ whose very name conveys even to the layman the idea of a high-grade gem. There is a place called Mogok, about ninety miles N.N.E of Mandalay, which is the home of the Burma ruby, where it is found embedded in limestone formations. From this region come all the great rubies. And many great rubies there have been in history.
There was the noble stone, for instance, by which a great sought to write his name imperishable upon human memory. He knew better than Shelly’s Ozymandias, ‘King of Kings’:
‘I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.......Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies......
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
The Mogul Emperor Jehangir had his name carved on a noble ruby, secure in the belief that thereby he would be remembered by posterity for a longer period than through monuments of stone or the records of historians. For the ruby may be small. It may be easily lost in times of disturbance. But somehow, somewhere, it will survive destruction and appear again. The Mogul ruby passed in time into the hands of Shah Jehan, who gave it to his lovely wife, the same lady for whom as a sorrowing widower he built the Taj Mahal, jewel of jewels among buildings. And royal gem as it was, it came at last into the hands of Queen Victoria, a few years before the great diamond, Kohinoor.
Another ruby, one of extraordinary size—for it was nearly as large as a pigeon’s egg as well as being the color of pigeon’s blood—also graced royalty and was set in the diadem made for the coronation of Catherine the Great of Russia. But there are more tragic rubies. Such were the rubies composing a fine parure which belonged to the Princess Charlotte of Belgium, she who married the Archduke Maximilian of Austria and as his wife became Empress of Mexico. They have seemed to bring no luck to their possessors. Consider the fate of those who have owned them.
Few more unhappy heads have worn crowns than Maximilian’s. It was Napoleon III who induced Maximilian to accept the Mexican throne. When Charlotte accompanied him to the Americas she took with her her fine set of rubies. But within a short time the new ruler of Mexico found trouble. He was arraigned as a usurper. Charlotte precipitately fled her palace at Chapultepec, not leaving her husband to his fate, but to seek support, armed support, from Napoleon III. But Napoleon callously refused the help she begged. The Emperor Maximilian, younger brother of the Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria-Hungary (for so near is that dark exotic tale to our time) was tried by a revolutionary tribunal and shot. Many years after, the Princess Charlotte also ended her days, in a mental home. But her rubies, which she had left behind at Chapultepec, fell into the hands of the great family of De Madero.
The Case Of The Nun’s Ruby (continued)
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Yo - Yo Ma
Yo - Yo Ma is a French-born American cellist + winner of multiple Grammy Awards + he works with musicians from diverse countries + his music possesses a unique luster and tone + he currently plays with his own Silk Road Ensemble.
He is an inspiration + a great cellist.
Useful links:
www.yo-yoma.com
www.silkroadproject.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-Yo_Ma
He is an inspiration + a great cellist.
Useful links:
www.yo-yoma.com
www.silkroadproject.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-Yo_Ma
Chocolate In Beta Testing
Katie Hafner writes about Louis Rossetto, the co-founder of Wired magazine + the application of the language of high-technology business to chocolate making + the story of Tcho dark chocolate + other viewpoints @ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/technology/10chocolate.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
Useful link:
Tcho.com
Useful link:
Tcho.com
The New Risk Architecture
(via Knowledge@Wharton) Erwann Michel-Kerjan's report on 'The New Risk Architecture' representing business + politics + arts + universities + other viewpoints @ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1862.cfm
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo (2003)
Directed by: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
Screenplay: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds
Cast: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe
(via YouTube): Finding Nemo Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfgeIZyrIM0
Finding Nemo - Seagulls - "Mine? Mine?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E4pYvJTyBA
A new way of visual story telling + the graphic language was persuasive + it's a modified form of movie art. I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
Screenplay: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds
Cast: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe
(via YouTube): Finding Nemo Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfgeIZyrIM0
Finding Nemo - Seagulls - "Mine? Mine?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E4pYvJTyBA
A new way of visual story telling + the graphic language was persuasive + it's a modified form of movie art. I enjoyed it.
Hidden Horror
(via The Guardian) Jonathan Jones writes about Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim altarpiece, a masterpiece of religious art + its fascination/inspiration + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2225942,00.html
The Art Of The Deal
Susan Adams writes about the Nahmad family + their influence in the art world + other viewpoints @ http://www.forbes.com/global/2007/1224/076.html
Useful links:
www.hellynahmadgallery.com
www.hellynahmad.com
Useful links:
www.hellynahmadgallery.com
www.hellynahmad.com
The Dawn Of The Reformation
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art of Albert Durer And of Holbein The Younger
So far we have been following mainly the development of art in Italy, but that country had no monopoly of painting and sculpture during the Middle Ages. Ever since the time of the Van Eycke paintings had been produced by natives of most of the great countries of Europe—even in England, where Odo the Goldsmith was employed by King Henry III to execute wall paintings for the Palace of Westminster—but either because their work was not powerful enough to capture the imagination of Europe or, quite as probably, because they had no historians and biographers to trumpet their praises, the early artists of England, France, and Germany never acquired the fame won by their brethren of Italy and Flanders. With few exceptions their names, and in many cases their works, have been entirely lost.
Full many flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
When all has been said, however, the fact remains that Italy was the center of the world for medieval Europe, and to it came ll who were desirous of learning, culture, and advancement. In those times the painter born elsewhere made his way to Italy as naturally and inevitably as the artist of today makes his pilgrimage to Paris; and in Italy the stranger artist was treated, not as a foreigner, but as a provincial. Looking at the political divisions of Europe today, we are apt to forget that in the Middle Ages the Christian nations of Europe were considered to be one family. Just as the Pope of Rome was the religious Head of all Christendom, so in theory, if not in practice, its secular Head was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The capital of the Empire, again in theory, was Rome, though in practice the Emperor was usually not very safe outside his own kingdom in Germany.
When the Italian historian Vasari describes the great German artist Albert Durer as a ‘Fleming,’ he is making the same sort of mistake that a Londoner might make when he was uncertain whether a west countryman came from Devon or Cornwall; and just as some Londoners are so narrow-minded that they cannot imagine any preeminent greatness outside the metropolis, so Vasari in a patronizing way wrote of Durer:
Had this man, so nobly endowed by Nature, so assiduous and possessed of so many talents, been a native of Tuscany instead of Flanders, had he been able to study the treasures of Rome and Florence as we have done, he would have excelled us all, as he is now the best and most esteemed among his own countrymen.
If Vasari thought this talent had much to learn from Italy, there were Italian artists who thought they had something to learn from Durer. Giovanni Bellini, greatly admired Durer’s painting, and found his rendering of hair so marvelous that he thought the artist must have a special brush for the purpose. So when Durer visited Venice and in his polite way offered to do anything in his power for Venetian artists, Bellini begged to be given the brush with which he painted hairs. Durer picked up a handful of his brushes and told Bellini to choose any one he wished. “I mean the brush with which you draw several hairs with one stroke,’ the Venetian explained. Durer smiled and replied, ‘ I use no other than these, and to prove it you may watch me,’ Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew ‘some very long wavy tresses, such as women generally wear.’ Bellini looked on wonderfully, and afterwards confessed that had he not seen it nothing would have convinced him that such a painting was possible.
Who was Durer? Strangely enough, the artist who most fully revealed the spirit of awakening Germany was of Hungarian descent. His father, Albert Durer the Elder—whose portraits by his son hangs in the National Gallery, London—was born in Hungary. After traveling in the Netherlands for some time, he finally settled in Nuremberg, where his son was born on May 21, 1471. Albert the Younger had everything to foster the development of his gifts, his father was a goldsmith, and his grandfather also; hence their removal to Nuremberg, a city which was in constant communication with Venice and had already begun to rival it in the arts and crafts of jewelry and metalwork. It is worth noticing that young Albert’s godfather was the bookseller and expert printer Anton Koberger, and through him his godson probably became familiar with fine prints and engravings from his earliest years.
The father intended the son to succeed him his craft, but as the latter tells us in his memoirs, “I was more inclined to painting, and this I confessed to my father. My father was not pleased,’ he adds with characteristic simplicity. Nevertheless young Durer got his way, and in 1486 was apprenticed to Michael Wohgemut, a local artist then at the zenith of his fame. Wohlgemut had a large art school, which was the most important in Nuremberg, and here young Durer learnt to paint and also, possibly, to practise wood-engraving. But such a master had little to teach so brilliant a pupil, and after three years Durer the Elder wisely took his son away and sent him abroad for four years. Young Albert traveled in the south of Germany and probably paid his first visit to Venice during this period.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
The Art of Albert Durer And of Holbein The Younger
So far we have been following mainly the development of art in Italy, but that country had no monopoly of painting and sculpture during the Middle Ages. Ever since the time of the Van Eycke paintings had been produced by natives of most of the great countries of Europe—even in England, where Odo the Goldsmith was employed by King Henry III to execute wall paintings for the Palace of Westminster—but either because their work was not powerful enough to capture the imagination of Europe or, quite as probably, because they had no historians and biographers to trumpet their praises, the early artists of England, France, and Germany never acquired the fame won by their brethren of Italy and Flanders. With few exceptions their names, and in many cases their works, have been entirely lost.
Full many flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
When all has been said, however, the fact remains that Italy was the center of the world for medieval Europe, and to it came ll who were desirous of learning, culture, and advancement. In those times the painter born elsewhere made his way to Italy as naturally and inevitably as the artist of today makes his pilgrimage to Paris; and in Italy the stranger artist was treated, not as a foreigner, but as a provincial. Looking at the political divisions of Europe today, we are apt to forget that in the Middle Ages the Christian nations of Europe were considered to be one family. Just as the Pope of Rome was the religious Head of all Christendom, so in theory, if not in practice, its secular Head was the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The capital of the Empire, again in theory, was Rome, though in practice the Emperor was usually not very safe outside his own kingdom in Germany.
When the Italian historian Vasari describes the great German artist Albert Durer as a ‘Fleming,’ he is making the same sort of mistake that a Londoner might make when he was uncertain whether a west countryman came from Devon or Cornwall; and just as some Londoners are so narrow-minded that they cannot imagine any preeminent greatness outside the metropolis, so Vasari in a patronizing way wrote of Durer:
Had this man, so nobly endowed by Nature, so assiduous and possessed of so many talents, been a native of Tuscany instead of Flanders, had he been able to study the treasures of Rome and Florence as we have done, he would have excelled us all, as he is now the best and most esteemed among his own countrymen.
If Vasari thought this talent had much to learn from Italy, there were Italian artists who thought they had something to learn from Durer. Giovanni Bellini, greatly admired Durer’s painting, and found his rendering of hair so marvelous that he thought the artist must have a special brush for the purpose. So when Durer visited Venice and in his polite way offered to do anything in his power for Venetian artists, Bellini begged to be given the brush with which he painted hairs. Durer picked up a handful of his brushes and told Bellini to choose any one he wished. “I mean the brush with which you draw several hairs with one stroke,’ the Venetian explained. Durer smiled and replied, ‘ I use no other than these, and to prove it you may watch me,’ Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew ‘some very long wavy tresses, such as women generally wear.’ Bellini looked on wonderfully, and afterwards confessed that had he not seen it nothing would have convinced him that such a painting was possible.
Who was Durer? Strangely enough, the artist who most fully revealed the spirit of awakening Germany was of Hungarian descent. His father, Albert Durer the Elder—whose portraits by his son hangs in the National Gallery, London—was born in Hungary. After traveling in the Netherlands for some time, he finally settled in Nuremberg, where his son was born on May 21, 1471. Albert the Younger had everything to foster the development of his gifts, his father was a goldsmith, and his grandfather also; hence their removal to Nuremberg, a city which was in constant communication with Venice and had already begun to rival it in the arts and crafts of jewelry and metalwork. It is worth noticing that young Albert’s godfather was the bookseller and expert printer Anton Koberger, and through him his godson probably became familiar with fine prints and engravings from his earliest years.
The father intended the son to succeed him his craft, but as the latter tells us in his memoirs, “I was more inclined to painting, and this I confessed to my father. My father was not pleased,’ he adds with characteristic simplicity. Nevertheless young Durer got his way, and in 1486 was apprenticed to Michael Wohgemut, a local artist then at the zenith of his fame. Wohlgemut had a large art school, which was the most important in Nuremberg, and here young Durer learnt to paint and also, possibly, to practise wood-engraving. But such a master had little to teach so brilliant a pupil, and after three years Durer the Elder wisely took his son away and sent him abroad for four years. Young Albert traveled in the south of Germany and probably paid his first visit to Venice during this period.
The Dawn Of The Reformation (continued)
Forevermark: The New De Beers Monopoly?
Chaim Even Zohar writes about the new Forevermark policy + the proprietary technology to 'insert' the icon and identification number on the crown of the polished diamond + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
Basically Faceted Gothic Roses
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Another very early ring has been described as follows: ‘the unusually high head of the ring is pyramidally built out of four basically faceted Gothic Roses. A large number of outlines and basic facetings are classified under his heading; some of the faceting designs were also applied to pavilion-based stones. The facets followed the crystal faces, or at least pretended to follow them.
Another very early ring has been described as follows: ‘the unusually high head of the ring is pyramidally built out of four basically faceted Gothic Roses. A large number of outlines and basic facetings are classified under his heading; some of the faceting designs were also applied to pavilion-based stones. The facets followed the crystal faces, or at least pretended to follow them.
Foundations Of The Bridge: The Technicalities Of Gem Trading
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:
A word or two to the possible customer is perhaps not amiss here. When you are buying a piece of jewelry, remember you are buying something for a lifetime and take your time over it. Make your purchase from a reputable jeweler and even then look at it as carefully as you know how, not only to make sure you are getting your money’s worth, but also to see you are getting what you really want. When you can, buy from a local jeweler. There are a number of reasons why you should do this. One is that you should patronize a neighbor when you can. If he has not got what you want in his window, he will go to some pains to get it for you, for the wholesalers will be only too glad to supply on approval a whole range of goods from which to select. Don’t be afraid of making a fuss. If you are a genuine buyer, you have a right to call the tune. Another reason why you should buy from a local man rather than from a great glittering store is the fact that you will pay less. It is you, the client, who pays for the electric lights, the pile carpets and the gentlemanly assistants who wash their hands with invisible soap.
When you are examining goods ask for a magnifying glass and insist on looking at them by the light of day and not by artificial light. Make sure that the stones are firmly set...then buy with a clear mind, and when you have bought, insure.
There is a right a wrong way of looking after jewelry. All pieces of jewelry, for instance, ought to be kept in a case by themselves in such a way that there is no chance of the stones rubbing against each other. Layers of cotton wool, placed at the bottom and between the various articles, will achieve this. Periodically make sure that the stones have not worked loose in their settings. This can be done by gently pressing a matchstick against the table of each stone. If the stone has become loose it will wobble, if ever so slightly, and it may be that a mere tightening up of one of the claws needs to be done to avoid a serious loss. Then again fine atmospheric dust, or soapsuds, or perspiration, or all together, may dim the luster of gems in their settings after a little while. Do not attempt to get rid of the accumulation by means of a toothpick or a pin. There is far better and safer way. Cover the bottom of a wineglass with a little industrial alcohol (unless you think the use of brandy or whisky no waste in such circumstances!), slide your set jewelry gently into the glass and leave it there for five or ten minutes. When you take them out, don’t wipe them with a cloth, but just waft them about until they are dry. All the dirt will have dissolved and your stones will shine as brightly as they did the day you bought them.
Oh, before I close, there’s one point about heirloom jewelry. There is no reason why heirlooms should not be remodelled and brought up-to-date. In fact, quite the contrary. The precious metal is there and so are the gems, and the cost of remodelling is small, provided you don’t specify designs that require further purchases of stones or metal. Many a heavy old piece of jewelry that looks like a cross between a candelabra and a miniature set of gold plate could be turned in a few days into an article showing dignity and good taste.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
A word or two to the possible customer is perhaps not amiss here. When you are buying a piece of jewelry, remember you are buying something for a lifetime and take your time over it. Make your purchase from a reputable jeweler and even then look at it as carefully as you know how, not only to make sure you are getting your money’s worth, but also to see you are getting what you really want. When you can, buy from a local jeweler. There are a number of reasons why you should do this. One is that you should patronize a neighbor when you can. If he has not got what you want in his window, he will go to some pains to get it for you, for the wholesalers will be only too glad to supply on approval a whole range of goods from which to select. Don’t be afraid of making a fuss. If you are a genuine buyer, you have a right to call the tune. Another reason why you should buy from a local man rather than from a great glittering store is the fact that you will pay less. It is you, the client, who pays for the electric lights, the pile carpets and the gentlemanly assistants who wash their hands with invisible soap.
When you are examining goods ask for a magnifying glass and insist on looking at them by the light of day and not by artificial light. Make sure that the stones are firmly set...then buy with a clear mind, and when you have bought, insure.
There is a right a wrong way of looking after jewelry. All pieces of jewelry, for instance, ought to be kept in a case by themselves in such a way that there is no chance of the stones rubbing against each other. Layers of cotton wool, placed at the bottom and between the various articles, will achieve this. Periodically make sure that the stones have not worked loose in their settings. This can be done by gently pressing a matchstick against the table of each stone. If the stone has become loose it will wobble, if ever so slightly, and it may be that a mere tightening up of one of the claws needs to be done to avoid a serious loss. Then again fine atmospheric dust, or soapsuds, or perspiration, or all together, may dim the luster of gems in their settings after a little while. Do not attempt to get rid of the accumulation by means of a toothpick or a pin. There is far better and safer way. Cover the bottom of a wineglass with a little industrial alcohol (unless you think the use of brandy or whisky no waste in such circumstances!), slide your set jewelry gently into the glass and leave it there for five or ten minutes. When you take them out, don’t wipe them with a cloth, but just waft them about until they are dry. All the dirt will have dissolved and your stones will shine as brightly as they did the day you bought them.
Oh, before I close, there’s one point about heirloom jewelry. There is no reason why heirlooms should not be remodelled and brought up-to-date. In fact, quite the contrary. The precious metal is there and so are the gems, and the cost of remodelling is small, provided you don’t specify designs that require further purchases of stones or metal. Many a heavy old piece of jewelry that looks like a cross between a candelabra and a miniature set of gold plate could be turned in a few days into an article showing dignity and good taste.
Good Books
Below is a collection of links to 'Best Books of 2007' list.
Financial Times
The Economist
NYT Sunday Book Review: 100 Notable
NYT Sunday Book Review: Top Ten
Publisher's Weekly
Amazon
Boston Globe
Washington Post
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday Times
Financial Times
The Economist
NYT Sunday Book Review: 100 Notable
NYT Sunday Book Review: Top Ten
Publisher's Weekly
Amazon
Boston Globe
Washington Post
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday Times
Heard On The Street
The happiest moment in a gem dealer's life is buying a gemstone and the second happiest moment is selling it.
Friday, December 14, 2007
8 1/2
8 1/2 (1963)
Directed by: Federico Fellini
Screenplay: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano (story); Ennio Flaiano , Tullio Pinelli, Federico Fellini, Brunello Rondi
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée
(via YouTube): Scene from Fellini's 8 ½
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YozQlhdu4QU
8 1/2 dream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEqBdde5H0
Fellini 8 1/2 - Guido's Harem (the whole scene)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZP8EmKSl48
Fellini 8½ Opening Scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsAkWc7c8Mo
Federico Fellini is a gem + the comic frenzy of the characters in the film is so natural, I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Federico Fellini
Screenplay: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano (story); Ennio Flaiano , Tullio Pinelli, Federico Fellini, Brunello Rondi
Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée
(via YouTube): Scene from Fellini's 8 ½
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YozQlhdu4QU
8 1/2 dream
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmEqBdde5H0
Fellini 8 1/2 - Guido's Harem (the whole scene)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZP8EmKSl48
Fellini 8½ Opening Scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsAkWc7c8Mo
Federico Fellini is a gem + the comic frenzy of the characters in the film is so natural, I enjoyed it.
Emirates Airline
(via Knowledge@Wharton) Maurice Flanagan, who launched the global air giant in 1985 remains executive vice chairman, the Dubai-based Emirates continues to increase traffic and revenues + the reasons for Emirates' ascent + his own management style + other viewpoints @ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1860.cfm
The Chiffre Cut (Dutch Schiffertje Or Schilde)
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Various Gothic diamonds are documented as being ‘faceted’ without any further detail. Some of these must have been stones with flat bases and domed faceted tops. As always, the shape of the original crystal was large responsible for the shape into which the diamond was cut. A favorite cut was the Shield, for which the rough was probably a piece accidentally cleaved from a crystal such as rhombic dodecahedron or the trisoctahedrally developed face of an octahedron. The shapes of the crystal system to which diamonds belong have most of their octahedral faces slightly raised in curved triangular form and can easily be fashioned into Chiffres after an initial cleaving operation.
This type of three-faceted shield-shaped diamond has been known at least since the early fourteenth century, and is still occasionally produced today, though only in very small sizes. It is now termed the Chiffre Cut after the word ‘cipher’, the arithmetical symbol for nought. It is the least expensive type of cut—a rounded, flattish, triangular pyramid. The term Shield Cut is reserved for historical gems. William Jones illustrated a ‘decade-ring’, its head decorated all over with three and four facet Shield Cuts.
Various Gothic diamonds are documented as being ‘faceted’ without any further detail. Some of these must have been stones with flat bases and domed faceted tops. As always, the shape of the original crystal was large responsible for the shape into which the diamond was cut. A favorite cut was the Shield, for which the rough was probably a piece accidentally cleaved from a crystal such as rhombic dodecahedron or the trisoctahedrally developed face of an octahedron. The shapes of the crystal system to which diamonds belong have most of their octahedral faces slightly raised in curved triangular form and can easily be fashioned into Chiffres after an initial cleaving operation.
This type of three-faceted shield-shaped diamond has been known at least since the early fourteenth century, and is still occasionally produced today, though only in very small sizes. It is now termed the Chiffre Cut after the word ‘cipher’, the arithmetical symbol for nought. It is the least expensive type of cut—a rounded, flattish, triangular pyramid. The term Shield Cut is reserved for historical gems. William Jones illustrated a ‘decade-ring’, its head decorated all over with three and four facet Shield Cuts.
Arts 2007
(via The Guardian) The year's biggest names: their highs and lows + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2225582,00.html
Collecting In Cyberspace
Kelly Devine Thomas writes about online art market + the new consumer phenomenon + the discreet, unregulated, and highly fragmented art industry + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=622
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