(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art Of Hogarth, Richard Wilson, And Sir Joshua Reynolds
1
In all the annals of British Art there is no more illustrious name than that of William Hogarth. Not only was he, as Mr E V Lucas has pointed out, ‘the first great national British painter, the first man to look at the English life around him like an Englishman and paint it without affectation or foreign influence, but he was the first to make pictures popular. Hogarth’s engravings from his own works produced a love of art that has steadily increased ever since. During Hogarth’s day thousands of houses that had had no pictures before acquired that picture habit which many years later Alderman Boydell and his team of engravers were to do so much to foster and establish.’
That is where Hogarth differs from the French democratic painters, from Chardin and Greuze, mentioned in the last chapter; he was an engraver as well as a painter, and so was one of the first artists in Europe to devote talent of the highest order to providing art for the masses as well as the classes. People who could not afford to buy oil paintings could buy engravings, and it was by his engravings that Hogarth first acquired fame.
William Hogarth was born in Bartholomew Close, Smithfield, on November 10, 1697. He was the son of a school master and printer’s reader, who was apparently a man of some education and had the intelligence to recognize his son’s talent for drawing, and to place no obstacle in his path. At an early age young Hogarth was apprenticed to a silversmith near Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square), for whom he chased tankards and salvers, and two years after his father’s death in 1718 he felt sufficiently confident in his powers to set up as an engraver on his own account. Meanwhile he had taken every opportunity of improving his drawing, and had attended classes at the art academy of Sir James Thornhill (1676-1734), a portrait painter and decorative artist much in favor with Queen Anne. He was especially renowned for his ceilings, and the Painted Hall at Greenwich is a famous example of Thornhill’s art.
Hogarth did not get on very well with Thornhill and his method of tuition, which consisted principally of giving his pupils pictures to copy. This did not suit a youth so enamoured of life as Hogarth, who had a habit of making notes on his thumbnail of faces and expressions and enlarging them afterwards on paper. In this way he trained his memory to carry the exact proportions and characteristics of what he had seen, so that his drawings, even done from memory, were extraordinarily vivacious and full of life. ‘Coping,’ Hogarth once said, ‘is like pouring water out of one vessel into another.’ He preferred to draw his own water, and this sturdy determination to see life for himself set him on the road to greatness. Previous English artists had not done this: they had looked at life through another man’s spectacles, and their pictures were more or less good imitations of the manner of Van Dyck, Lely, and Kneller.
Nevertheless he continued for a long time to frequent Thornhill’s academy, the real attraction being not the master’s tuition but his pretty daughter Jane. In the end Hogarth eloped with Miss Thornhill, whom he married without her father’s consent and very much against his will. At the time the match was considered a mésalliance, for Thornhill was a Member of Parliament and a knight, whereas Hogarth has as yet acquired little fame and had rather scandalized society by bringing out in 1724 a set of engravings, ‘The Talk of the Town,’ in which he satirized the tendency of fashionable London to lionise foreign singers.
Four years later, however, the tide was turned in Hogarth’s favor when Mr Gay lashed the same fashionable folly in The Beggar’s Opera, which, produced at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in January 1728, proved to be as great a popular success then as it has been in our own day. Hogarth was naturally attracted to a piece that revealed a spirit so akin to his own, and he painted several pictures of its scenes, one of which is now in the Tate Gallery. His genial, bohemian temperament delighted in the society of actors and writers, and Hogarth’s association with the company of The Beggar’s Opera indirectly led him to take up portrait painting. One of his earliest portraits is ‘Lavinia Fenton as Polly Peachum,’ the gay young actress who created the part and became Duchess of Bolton.
This portrait—as indeed are all of Hogarth’s—is a wonderful achievement. It has nothing of the manner of Lely or Kneller or any of his predecessors; it is fresh, original, unmannered, and sets life itself before us. To some extent, perhaps he was influenced by Dutch painting, which has the same quality of honesty, but in the main he was ‘without a school, and without a precedent.’ Unlike the portrait painters who preceded and those who immediately succeeded him, Hogarth does not show us people or rank and fashion. His portraits are usually of people in his own class or lower, his relatives, actors and actresses, his servants. Hogarth was too truthful in his painting and not obsequious enough in his manner to be a favorite with society, and it was only occasionally that a member of the aristocracy had the courage to sit to him. Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, did, and the magnificent little full length in the National Portrait Gallery shows how vividly Hogarth grasped and expressed his character.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
Monday, January 21, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Kahlil Gibran Phenomenon
I think Kahlil Gibran is natural + 'The Prophet', a collection of twenty-six prose poems, delivered as sermons by a fictional wise man in a faraway time and place is a gem + he is perceived by the experts as the best selling poet of all time, after Shakespeare and Lao-tzu + since its publication, in 1923, 'The Prophet' has sold more than nine million copies in its American edition alone + translated into more than 20 languages + I think it's a brilliant man's philosophy on love, marriage, joy and sorrow, time, friendship +++++++
Useful links:
www.kahlil.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophet_(book)
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/01/07/080107crbo_books_acocella
Useful links:
www.kahlil.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophet_(book)
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/01/07/080107crbo_books_acocella
Energy Update
According to industry analysts today India is the fifth largest consumer of primary energy and the third largest consumer of oil in the Asia-Pacific region, after China and Japan + for all those engaged in the oil & gas business, India presents a tremendous opportunity to create value and wealth.
Useful link:
www.petrotech2009.org
Useful link:
www.petrotech2009.org
Coffee Update
Sreekumar Raghavan writes about coffee business in India + Brazil + Vietnam + trading and marketing strategies + price behavior + other viewpoints @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4963
Coffee: The Most Powerful Global Commodity
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4833
Coffee: The Most Powerful Global Commodity
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4833
Heard On The Street
Many hardworking dealers in gem/jewelry/art become failures as they reach the top of the pyramid because they cannot control their emotions. The password: emotional maturiy. Practice daily.
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an Academy Award-winning composer + he is particularly known for the scores he created for Alfred Hitchcock's films, most famously Psycho + he also composed notable scores for many other movies including Citizen Kane + Cape Fear + Taxi Driver + he penned the music for the original sensational radio broadcast of Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds + several fantasy films + many TV programs + he is still a prominent figure in the world of film music today + I love his music.
Useful links:
www.bernardherrmann.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Herrmann
Useful links:
www.bernardherrmann.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Herrmann
Henri Matisse's Dance
(via The Guardian) Jonathan Jones writes about the most beautiful modern painting in the world + its real story + the chromatic miracle of Dance + its color + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2243201,00.html
Useful link:
royalacademy.org.uk
Useful link:
royalacademy.org.uk
Indian Art 2008
Udayan Mukherjee interviews (Part 1 + 2) Dinesh Vazirani, Atul Dodiya, Peter Nagy, Mortimer Chatterjee, Sumeet Chopra, Arun Wadehra + their viewpoints on auction markets + collectors market in India @ http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/video/stockmarket/08/40/newsvideo/321865
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
3. Jewels Of The Roman Empire
Caesar was dead. Rome was on her way toward a different form of government, and with these changes came a change in ideology, affecting styles and customs. We find no record of just when the Roman dandy first risked the accusation of effeminacy and ventured to adorn his fingers with numbers of rings. We do not know whether the fashion developed slowly or whether it sprang up like wildfire overnight, for the solemn historian is prone to neglect such details. It took Pliny (who doubtless would be a most successful columnist were he living today) to give us the human-interest side of the news. Pliny, however, did not enter the scene until about the middle of the first century A.D., and by then the fashion of wearing an extravagant amount of jewelry had reached such proportions as to make exceedingly good copy for the lively pen of that gossipy old Roman. He gives us some colorful pictures. For instance, he reports on the simple betrothal ceremony of a Roman girl: ‘She was covered from head to foot with pearls and emeralds.’ And he compares at length the current fashion of wearing innumerable rings with the good old custom of confining rings to the fourth finger of one hand:
It was the custom at first to wear rings on a single finger only, the one namely that is next to the little finger, and thus we see the case in the statues of Numa and Servius Tullius. In later times it became the practice to put rings on the finger next to the thumb, even in the case of the statues of the gods; and, more recently again, it has become the fashion to wear them upon the little finger as well. Among the people of Gallia and Britannia, the middle finger, it is said, is used for this purpose. At the present day, however, among us, this is the only finger that is excepted, all others being loaded with rings, smaller rings even being separately adapted for the smaller joints of the finger. Some there are who heap several rings on the little finger alone.
Seneca, too, expressed himself on the extremes of fashion, declaring: ‘We adorn our fingers with rings, and a jewel is displayed on every joint.’
Orators were cautioned against overloading their hands with rings; and Pliny, disgusted by such display of vanity, declared that they piqued themselves upon a thing in which only musicians glory. Such a comparison carried a sharp sting, for in those days musicians were considered no better than jugglers and buffoons—in the lowest class of entertainers.
During all this period, glass-making in Rome was flourishing industry. Besides ornamental bowls, vases, jugs, and so on, the glassmaker turned out countless trinkets such as twisted glass bangles, finger rings, bracelets and beads—innumerable beads of all colors, styles and sizes. The glass factory of that day consisted of only one small furnace run by a master glassman with the help of a slave or two. Certain of the glass makers specialized in the making of paste gems. Not only was the blue of lapis lazuli and the chestnut brown of sard duplicated in glass, but even the onyx, with its bands of light and dark, was expertly imitated.
Now it is quite usual for current books on gems to dismiss the pastes of the Roman glass maker as merely a practical method of providing colorful ring stones for those who could not afford the costly gems of the Orient. But it is well to hold in mind that in those days, and for centuries to follow, gems were largely judged on the basis of color only. To the man who was not an expert in differentiating between stones, a ruby, a garnet and a bit of ruby-colored glass might appear of equal value, and a rich red bit of glass might even seem more desirable than a pale ruby of uneven color. The glass maker of the first century A D was not above devoting his best efforts to the imitation of real stones with an eye to selling them at fabulous prices. Indeed, so prevalent was the custom of counterfeiting gems that Pliny cautioned buyers to beware of the treacherous practise.
By this time most of the precious and semi-precious stones known to us had been discovered and there is reason to believe the list now included the diamond. Greek writers of earlier days speak of the adamas (invincible) and some students point to this as proof that the diamond was known to the Greeks. However, they applied the term equally to hard metals and to emery (corundum) and there is nothing to indicate that any hard stone, such as the colorless sapphire (also corundum) did not have a better claim to the name adamas than did the diamond.
Pliny describes the adamas of his time as a stone found among the river sands of India. Some varieties, he says, resemble in shape two pyramids placed placed base to base. Since the octahedron is a form characteristic of certain diamond crystals, the river stones were probably true diamonds.
The manner of testing a genuine adamas was severe. According to Pliny the stone was placed on an anvil and hammered. If the blow broke the crystal it was proof that the gem was false; but if on the other hand, the crystal broke the anvil then it was a real adamas! Since even a diamond can be shattered into fragments by the moderate blow of a hammer, no precious stone could have survived the drastic test.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
3. Jewels Of The Roman Empire
Caesar was dead. Rome was on her way toward a different form of government, and with these changes came a change in ideology, affecting styles and customs. We find no record of just when the Roman dandy first risked the accusation of effeminacy and ventured to adorn his fingers with numbers of rings. We do not know whether the fashion developed slowly or whether it sprang up like wildfire overnight, for the solemn historian is prone to neglect such details. It took Pliny (who doubtless would be a most successful columnist were he living today) to give us the human-interest side of the news. Pliny, however, did not enter the scene until about the middle of the first century A.D., and by then the fashion of wearing an extravagant amount of jewelry had reached such proportions as to make exceedingly good copy for the lively pen of that gossipy old Roman. He gives us some colorful pictures. For instance, he reports on the simple betrothal ceremony of a Roman girl: ‘She was covered from head to foot with pearls and emeralds.’ And he compares at length the current fashion of wearing innumerable rings with the good old custom of confining rings to the fourth finger of one hand:
It was the custom at first to wear rings on a single finger only, the one namely that is next to the little finger, and thus we see the case in the statues of Numa and Servius Tullius. In later times it became the practice to put rings on the finger next to the thumb, even in the case of the statues of the gods; and, more recently again, it has become the fashion to wear them upon the little finger as well. Among the people of Gallia and Britannia, the middle finger, it is said, is used for this purpose. At the present day, however, among us, this is the only finger that is excepted, all others being loaded with rings, smaller rings even being separately adapted for the smaller joints of the finger. Some there are who heap several rings on the little finger alone.
Seneca, too, expressed himself on the extremes of fashion, declaring: ‘We adorn our fingers with rings, and a jewel is displayed on every joint.’
Orators were cautioned against overloading their hands with rings; and Pliny, disgusted by such display of vanity, declared that they piqued themselves upon a thing in which only musicians glory. Such a comparison carried a sharp sting, for in those days musicians were considered no better than jugglers and buffoons—in the lowest class of entertainers.
During all this period, glass-making in Rome was flourishing industry. Besides ornamental bowls, vases, jugs, and so on, the glassmaker turned out countless trinkets such as twisted glass bangles, finger rings, bracelets and beads—innumerable beads of all colors, styles and sizes. The glass factory of that day consisted of only one small furnace run by a master glassman with the help of a slave or two. Certain of the glass makers specialized in the making of paste gems. Not only was the blue of lapis lazuli and the chestnut brown of sard duplicated in glass, but even the onyx, with its bands of light and dark, was expertly imitated.
Now it is quite usual for current books on gems to dismiss the pastes of the Roman glass maker as merely a practical method of providing colorful ring stones for those who could not afford the costly gems of the Orient. But it is well to hold in mind that in those days, and for centuries to follow, gems were largely judged on the basis of color only. To the man who was not an expert in differentiating between stones, a ruby, a garnet and a bit of ruby-colored glass might appear of equal value, and a rich red bit of glass might even seem more desirable than a pale ruby of uneven color. The glass maker of the first century A D was not above devoting his best efforts to the imitation of real stones with an eye to selling them at fabulous prices. Indeed, so prevalent was the custom of counterfeiting gems that Pliny cautioned buyers to beware of the treacherous practise.
By this time most of the precious and semi-precious stones known to us had been discovered and there is reason to believe the list now included the diamond. Greek writers of earlier days speak of the adamas (invincible) and some students point to this as proof that the diamond was known to the Greeks. However, they applied the term equally to hard metals and to emery (corundum) and there is nothing to indicate that any hard stone, such as the colorless sapphire (also corundum) did not have a better claim to the name adamas than did the diamond.
Pliny describes the adamas of his time as a stone found among the river sands of India. Some varieties, he says, resemble in shape two pyramids placed placed base to base. Since the octahedron is a form characteristic of certain diamond crystals, the river stones were probably true diamonds.
The manner of testing a genuine adamas was severe. According to Pliny the stone was placed on an anvil and hammered. If the blow broke the crystal it was proof that the gem was false; but if on the other hand, the crystal broke the anvil then it was a real adamas! Since even a diamond can be shattered into fragments by the moderate blow of a hammer, no precious stone could have survived the drastic test.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
Table Cuts
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The first consideration was always size. The cutters soon learned that they could retain display with one or more or even all of a diamond’s corners left blunt. The reason for these blunt corners was not, as some authors have claimed, that sharp corners were too fragile, but that they were part of a technique which left visible the largest possible area of diamond. For the same reason, cutters began to introduce small or narrow facets to take the place of damaged or missing corners, as long as this did not interfere with size. Table Cuts with rounded outlines were fashioned from naturally rounded crystals such as curved octahedrons and rhombic dodecahedrons. But at the same time cutters had to remember that excessive weight, and clumsy angles and height proportions, might seriously reduce the light effects, when a more appropriate cut might give brilliance and in some cases even fire. Such problems could be solved in the planning stage by ‘stepping’ either the crown or the pavilion or both, by raising the girdle in order to spread the cut, or by giving the diamond a fancy outline.
When eventually, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, all well-proportioned Tables had been recut into Brilliants, only those of poor quality remained on the market, and eventually the cut went completely out of fashion. A fresh supply, clumsily cut the sole purpose of retaining maximum weight, arrived from India. It is not surprising, therefore, that for a long time after the middle of the eighteenth century hardly anyone had ever seen a really beautiful Table Cut. A new term was introduced to describe these crude gems—the Indian Cut. However, the well-proportioned old Table Cut has been brought back, not exactly as it was but still beautiful. It is now known as the Square Cut (Carré) for small stones, and as the Emerald Cut for larger stones. These are always step cut, with modern height proportions.
Until the fourteenth century it was normal for at least pointed diamonds to be documented without any mention of shape or faceting. It is possible that the French expression plat (as opposed to pointe) is one of the earliest indications of the existence of Table Cuts. One also comes across the Latin phrase quadratus planus. Plat appears in the inventories of Queen Joan of France (1360), King John the Good of France (1364) and the Duke of Burgundy (1420), among a number of others. Diamonds are described as quarrez, but also as plat, en façon de mirouer and roont. Plat also refers to comparatively flat diamonds regardless of their outline or faceting. But from this time on, quarrez is also often used to indicate Table Cuts, with increasing frequency towards the end of the fifteenth century, and often combined with the word plat.
Table Cuts (continued)
The first consideration was always size. The cutters soon learned that they could retain display with one or more or even all of a diamond’s corners left blunt. The reason for these blunt corners was not, as some authors have claimed, that sharp corners were too fragile, but that they were part of a technique which left visible the largest possible area of diamond. For the same reason, cutters began to introduce small or narrow facets to take the place of damaged or missing corners, as long as this did not interfere with size. Table Cuts with rounded outlines were fashioned from naturally rounded crystals such as curved octahedrons and rhombic dodecahedrons. But at the same time cutters had to remember that excessive weight, and clumsy angles and height proportions, might seriously reduce the light effects, when a more appropriate cut might give brilliance and in some cases even fire. Such problems could be solved in the planning stage by ‘stepping’ either the crown or the pavilion or both, by raising the girdle in order to spread the cut, or by giving the diamond a fancy outline.
When eventually, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, all well-proportioned Tables had been recut into Brilliants, only those of poor quality remained on the market, and eventually the cut went completely out of fashion. A fresh supply, clumsily cut the sole purpose of retaining maximum weight, arrived from India. It is not surprising, therefore, that for a long time after the middle of the eighteenth century hardly anyone had ever seen a really beautiful Table Cut. A new term was introduced to describe these crude gems—the Indian Cut. However, the well-proportioned old Table Cut has been brought back, not exactly as it was but still beautiful. It is now known as the Square Cut (Carré) for small stones, and as the Emerald Cut for larger stones. These are always step cut, with modern height proportions.
Until the fourteenth century it was normal for at least pointed diamonds to be documented without any mention of shape or faceting. It is possible that the French expression plat (as opposed to pointe) is one of the earliest indications of the existence of Table Cuts. One also comes across the Latin phrase quadratus planus. Plat appears in the inventories of Queen Joan of France (1360), King John the Good of France (1364) and the Duke of Burgundy (1420), among a number of others. Diamonds are described as quarrez, but also as plat, en façon de mirouer and roont. Plat also refers to comparatively flat diamonds regardless of their outline or faceting. But from this time on, quarrez is also often used to indicate Table Cuts, with increasing frequency towards the end of the fifteenth century, and often combined with the word plat.
Table Cuts (continued)
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
4
Contemporary with Fragonard was a painter, who, though never the equal of Chardin as a craftsman, nevertheless approached him in the democratic temper of his art. Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), who was born near Macon and came to Paris in 1746, suddenly acquired fame and popularity when he was thirty by exhibiting at the Salon of 1755 his picture ‘A Father Explaining The Bible to his family.’ This familiar scene, with its everyday details and its personages taken from humble life, made an immediate appeal to the bourgeois, who found in it those new ideas of simplicity and morality which Jean Jacques Rousseau had spread among the middle classes. Lady Dilke, who evidently suspected the moral sincerity of Greuze, pronounced his pictures to be ‘stained by artificiality.’ His pictures were rendered attractive, she argued, by a ‘vein of wanton suggestion which found an echo in the dainty disorder in which his heroines are dressed.’
There are some strange parallels between the life of Greuze and that of Watteau, who died four years before his birth. Greuze’s father was also a carpenter, and he also opposed his son’s determination to become an artist. Greuze also began his career in extreme poverty, but fortunately he had a more robust constitution and withstood hardship better than Watteau. Greuze’s father whipped him when he caught him drawing, and Grueze also ran away to Paris with another painter, and he, too, when he got there found that nobody wanted to give him any employment. Both men were close on thirty before the turning point came, Watteau by his election to the Academy, and Grueze by the exhibition of his picture at the Salon. But there the parallel ends, and the close of Greuze’s life is more like that of Fragonard. For he also outlived his popularity and died in poverty.
It seems extraordinary that Grueze, the most popular of painters at all times, should have fared so badly at the end of his life. We cannot account for it by saying that Greuze could not accommodate himself to the change of taste brought about by the French Revolution, for throughout his career he was distinctly a bourgeois rather than an aristocratic painter. No, we must seek another explanation.
The miserable truth is that the seemingly sweet and innocent little person, who looks out at us continually from those pictures of girl’s heads which have brought the painter his greatest posthumous fame, was the cause of her immortaliser’s wretched end. To look at all the portraits of her which hang in the Wallace Collection, or at the one entitled ‘Girl Looking Up,’ which is in the National Gallery, is to find it difficult to believe that the original was an arrant little baggage. Yet some people, who profess to be judges of character, say that the Greuze girl is not so innocent as she pretends to be.
The historic truth is that she was the daughter of an old bookseller on the Quai des Augustins, Paris, and Greuze is said to have married her to save her reputation. He married Anne Gabriel in haste, and he repented at his leisure. Owing to her husband’s constant exposition of her charms, Madame Greuze became one of the noted beauties of the day, and though her husband was devoted to her and gave her crazily everything he could that she wanted, the ungrateful little hussy repaid him by robbing him not only of his peace of mind but of large sums of money that he had saved.
It is easy to be wise after the event, and Mr John Rivers in his book on Greuze and his Models maintains that every feature of Anne Gabriel ‘announced a hasty, passionate, and rather voluptuous nature’; nevertheless we are inclined, as human beings ourselves liable to error, to give our sympathy to Greuze and praise him for a generous and chivalrous action rather than to condemn him for having made an imprudent marriage. Though he painted other beautiful women, it is by his various fanciful portraits of his erring wife that Greuze has obtained his worldwide popularity, and there is hardly another instance in art of a painter who has achieved so great a fame by his exposition of the physical charms of a single model.
4
Contemporary with Fragonard was a painter, who, though never the equal of Chardin as a craftsman, nevertheless approached him in the democratic temper of his art. Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), who was born near Macon and came to Paris in 1746, suddenly acquired fame and popularity when he was thirty by exhibiting at the Salon of 1755 his picture ‘A Father Explaining The Bible to his family.’ This familiar scene, with its everyday details and its personages taken from humble life, made an immediate appeal to the bourgeois, who found in it those new ideas of simplicity and morality which Jean Jacques Rousseau had spread among the middle classes. Lady Dilke, who evidently suspected the moral sincerity of Greuze, pronounced his pictures to be ‘stained by artificiality.’ His pictures were rendered attractive, she argued, by a ‘vein of wanton suggestion which found an echo in the dainty disorder in which his heroines are dressed.’
There are some strange parallels between the life of Greuze and that of Watteau, who died four years before his birth. Greuze’s father was also a carpenter, and he also opposed his son’s determination to become an artist. Greuze also began his career in extreme poverty, but fortunately he had a more robust constitution and withstood hardship better than Watteau. Greuze’s father whipped him when he caught him drawing, and Grueze also ran away to Paris with another painter, and he, too, when he got there found that nobody wanted to give him any employment. Both men were close on thirty before the turning point came, Watteau by his election to the Academy, and Grueze by the exhibition of his picture at the Salon. But there the parallel ends, and the close of Greuze’s life is more like that of Fragonard. For he also outlived his popularity and died in poverty.
It seems extraordinary that Grueze, the most popular of painters at all times, should have fared so badly at the end of his life. We cannot account for it by saying that Greuze could not accommodate himself to the change of taste brought about by the French Revolution, for throughout his career he was distinctly a bourgeois rather than an aristocratic painter. No, we must seek another explanation.
The miserable truth is that the seemingly sweet and innocent little person, who looks out at us continually from those pictures of girl’s heads which have brought the painter his greatest posthumous fame, was the cause of her immortaliser’s wretched end. To look at all the portraits of her which hang in the Wallace Collection, or at the one entitled ‘Girl Looking Up,’ which is in the National Gallery, is to find it difficult to believe that the original was an arrant little baggage. Yet some people, who profess to be judges of character, say that the Greuze girl is not so innocent as she pretends to be.
The historic truth is that she was the daughter of an old bookseller on the Quai des Augustins, Paris, and Greuze is said to have married her to save her reputation. He married Anne Gabriel in haste, and he repented at his leisure. Owing to her husband’s constant exposition of her charms, Madame Greuze became one of the noted beauties of the day, and though her husband was devoted to her and gave her crazily everything he could that she wanted, the ungrateful little hussy repaid him by robbing him not only of his peace of mind but of large sums of money that he had saved.
It is easy to be wise after the event, and Mr John Rivers in his book on Greuze and his Models maintains that every feature of Anne Gabriel ‘announced a hasty, passionate, and rather voluptuous nature’; nevertheless we are inclined, as human beings ourselves liable to error, to give our sympathy to Greuze and praise him for a generous and chivalrous action rather than to condemn him for having made an imprudent marriage. Though he painted other beautiful women, it is by his various fanciful portraits of his erring wife that Greuze has obtained his worldwide popularity, and there is hardly another instance in art of a painter who has achieved so great a fame by his exposition of the physical charms of a single model.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson will be erecting four giant waterfalls in New York for three months this summer in a public art project funded by New York's Public Art Fund (estimated cost: US$15 million) + the concept is about seeing water in a different way, which will range in height from 90 to 120 feet -- around the same as the Statue of Liberty from head to toe + the New York City officials are hoping to emulate the success of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's project, 'The Gates,' which drew around 1.5 million visitors to the city in February 2005 to view about 7,500 saffron panels draped through Central Park + the idea could bring an additional $55 million to the city's economy.
Useful link:
www.olafureliasson.net
I liked the idea + the concept is powered by renewable energy sources + the falls will be lit only by low-level lighting at night.
Useful link:
www.olafureliasson.net
I liked the idea + the concept is powered by renewable energy sources + the falls will be lit only by low-level lighting at night.
The Science Of Winning
The Science of Winning by Burton P. Fabricand draws some great analogies in market efficiencies + the book is entertaining.
Here is what the description of The Science of Winning says (via Amazon):
This book picks out the very best elements of Burton P. Fabricand's many works on betting and investment. Employing chaos theory, efficient market hypothesis, and the symmetry of free markets to help investors at both codes improve their investment performance, the implications of this astounding work are far-reaching.
Here is what the description of The Science of Winning says (via Amazon):
This book picks out the very best elements of Burton P. Fabricand's many works on betting and investment. Employing chaos theory, efficient market hypothesis, and the symmetry of free markets to help investors at both codes improve their investment performance, the implications of this astounding work are far-reaching.
Sala Design Pavilion
The 41st edition of the Bangkok Gem and Jewelry Fair, scheduled between Feb 27 and March 2, 2008, will introduce the Sala Design Pavilion + a new but unique concept featuring the color purple, the hue that's long been associated with royalty + the Thai manufacturers have overcome the age-old challenge of making purple gold strong, yet soft enough to withstand being shaped into jewelry as well as less reactive to contaminants + the 41st fair will also provide matchmaking plan that allows visitors to make business-to-business connections and appointments prior to the fair with 1,000 + exhibitors in 16 key categories of goods and services.
Useful links:
www.bangkokgemsfair.com
www.ospgemsjewelry.com
Useful links:
www.bangkokgemsfair.com
www.ospgemsjewelry.com
Harold Clayton Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd was an American film actor + producer + he was most famous for his silent comedies + he is best remembered for his 'glasses character' + the thrill sequences + Safety Last! is my favorite.
Useful links:
www.haroldlloyd.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd
Useful links:
www.haroldlloyd.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd
NASA Learning Technologies
NASA is in the early stages of creating a virtual world designed to educate players on rocket science and technology + the goal of this virtual world is to create a synthetic environment that could serve as tools for teaching a range of complex subjects.
Useful link:
http://learn.arc.nasa.gov
I wish the gem/jewelry/art industry had a similar concept.
Useful link:
http://learn.arc.nasa.gov
I wish the gem/jewelry/art industry had a similar concept.
Cash Flu
A study by Swiss scientists revealed that the flu virus can nestle and survive on banknotes for more than two weeks + if the virus was mixed with human mucus on the banknote, it could survive for two and a half weeks + a flu pandemic could be prolonged due to the millions of bank notes in circulation + the researchers are studying to see how much of a factor banknotes might be in flu transmission + the main risks remain airborne transmission and direct human contact.
What about gemstones and jewelry! Go to the gem and jewelry markets around the world and see for yourself. Are they different from banknotes? I doubt it.
What about gemstones and jewelry! Go to the gem and jewelry markets around the world and see for yourself. Are they different from banknotes? I doubt it.
The Genie Is Out Of The Bottle
Chaim Even Zohar writes about the Brenig case + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
Table Cuts
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The classical Table Cut may be defined as a pavilion-based gem with a table facet and a culet. The standard form was originally quadrangular with four main facets in the crown and four in the pavilion. Other outlines were imposed if the shape of the rough was favorable. These were described as rounds, shields, hearts, half-moons, calf’s heads, windows, epaulettes, whistles, bullets, etc. They not only had different contours but also different numbers of main facets. Occasionally they also had additional non-standard faceting.
Certain cuts which are extensions of the classical Table Cut but are faceted according to a specific pattern—for instance, the Cuboid Cut, the French Cut, the Scissor Cut and even the Brilliant Cut—are dealt with under their separate headings. The old Table Cuts themselves are subdivided into three groups according to their different height proportions, which produce different light effects. These are the Full Table Cut, the Mirror Cut and the Tablet. Briefly, the first includes the full proportioned type with c.45°angles of inclination in both crown and pavilion; the second, stones with a flat crown and a very spread table facet, but a full pavilion; the third, exceptionally flat stones with both an outsized table facet and an outsized culet.
The first Table Cuts were produced from dodecahedrons (of which there was, more or less accidentally, an ample supply) but the cutters gradually developed satisfactory angles and proportions which were commercially profitable because they could be achieved with a smaller loss of weight than a low Point Cut. Besides retaining size they were more attractive in appearance. The cutters then discovered the proportions that would give the best light effects for each shape. The style of cut which featured one square within another became particularly popular, following the vogue for similar shapes in architecture and fashion.
Table Cuts (continued)
The classical Table Cut may be defined as a pavilion-based gem with a table facet and a culet. The standard form was originally quadrangular with four main facets in the crown and four in the pavilion. Other outlines were imposed if the shape of the rough was favorable. These were described as rounds, shields, hearts, half-moons, calf’s heads, windows, epaulettes, whistles, bullets, etc. They not only had different contours but also different numbers of main facets. Occasionally they also had additional non-standard faceting.
Certain cuts which are extensions of the classical Table Cut but are faceted according to a specific pattern—for instance, the Cuboid Cut, the French Cut, the Scissor Cut and even the Brilliant Cut—are dealt with under their separate headings. The old Table Cuts themselves are subdivided into three groups according to their different height proportions, which produce different light effects. These are the Full Table Cut, the Mirror Cut and the Tablet. Briefly, the first includes the full proportioned type with c.45°angles of inclination in both crown and pavilion; the second, stones with a flat crown and a very spread table facet, but a full pavilion; the third, exceptionally flat stones with both an outsized table facet and an outsized culet.
The first Table Cuts were produced from dodecahedrons (of which there was, more or less accidentally, an ample supply) but the cutters gradually developed satisfactory angles and proportions which were commercially profitable because they could be achieved with a smaller loss of weight than a low Point Cut. Besides retaining size they were more attractive in appearance. The cutters then discovered the proportions that would give the best light effects for each shape. The style of cut which featured one square within another became particularly popular, following the vogue for similar shapes in architecture and fashion.
Table Cuts (continued)
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
As Rome grew in military power her ‘illustrious expeditions’ penetrated farther and farther into other countries, converting them into Roman provinces under Roman control; and as plunder from foreign lands piled high, her ruling classes grew fabulously rich. In the new provinces Roman governors performed their duties with utmost thoroughness, leaving no plum unsqueezed. One Italian governor in Spain, however, sought to maintain a reputation for taking nothing from the public treasury. Cicero tells the following story concerning this governor:
He was going through the military exercises when the gold ring which he wore was, by some accident, broken and crushed. Wishing to have another ring made, he ordered a goldsmith to be summoned to the forum at Cardova, in front of his own judgment seat, and weighed out the gold to him in public. He ordered the man to set down his bench on the forum and make the ring for him in the presence of all, to prove that he had not employed the gold of the public treasury, not even half an ounce, but had merely given his old broken ring to be worked anew.
A ring that could be crushed on a man’s finger without involving also the crushing of the finger is accounted for by the type of rings popular in that day. They were large and impressive, but by no means as heavy as they appeared because, like the rings long since known to the Greeks, they were hollow. It was amazing how the goldsmith, by dint of much hammering and some welding together of thin plates could turn a very little ingot of gold into a big and important-looking ring. Of course the hollow ring of soft metal was easily crushed.
During the later days of the republic the gorgeous gems of the Orient were fairly pouring into Rome. There were iridescent opals, moonstones, tawny yellow topazes, sky-blue sapphires, olive-green peridots, the latter brought from an island in the Red Sea. Also from the warm waters of the Red Sea came lustrous pearls. Their round or pear-shaped form made them most desirable as pendants, and these pendant pearls were often of such price that a lady might dangle a fortune from each ear. Emeralds, the most prized of all stones, came from the famous mines of Cleopatra in upper Egypt; and lapis lazuli traveled by caravan from Afghanistan.
By this time gemstones were moving outside their original sphere as charms or articles of personal adornment and becoming items of collections. It is said that Scaurus, son-in-law of Sulla, was the first Roman to become a collector of gems. Once the pace was set, other wealthy men rushed headlong in pursuit of the fascinating new hobby.
Little garnets, aquamarines, topazes and peridots, all exquisitely engraved, would be sufficiently prized by the avid collector to wring from him enormous sums of money. And even, on occasion, something more precious than money.
The story is told of a senator, Nonius by name, who possessed an opal set in a ring. The opal was the size of hazel-nut, and of such surpassing beauty that at sight of it Mark Antony was overwhelmed by so inordinate a desire to own it that no sense of justice could restrain him. His heart was set—the story goes—on giving that gem to Cleopatra. He decreed that Nonius must either hand it over to him, Mark Antony, or suffer banishment from Rome. Now to be exiled from his beloved city was a peculiarly bitter fate for any Roman, but it was a choice of Rome or the opal. Nonius was forced to choose between them and he did. The gem won. Nonius took his opal and left Roman forever.
Imperial Caesar himself was not immune to the prevailing craze for collecting gems. In fact, he outranked the other enthusiasts and founded no less than six different collections of rare gems, which were kept on display in the temple of Venus Genetrix in Caesar’s Forum.
Although a man might with dignity collect gems to his heart’s content it was by now considered effeminate for him to wear any ring except that which bore his signet. On days of mourning, even signet-rings of gold would be laid aside and an iron one substituted as an indication of grief. On the day of Caesar’s funeral the only rings in evidence were bands of dull iron, the Roman equivalent for a band of crêpe on a coat-sleeve.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
As Rome grew in military power her ‘illustrious expeditions’ penetrated farther and farther into other countries, converting them into Roman provinces under Roman control; and as plunder from foreign lands piled high, her ruling classes grew fabulously rich. In the new provinces Roman governors performed their duties with utmost thoroughness, leaving no plum unsqueezed. One Italian governor in Spain, however, sought to maintain a reputation for taking nothing from the public treasury. Cicero tells the following story concerning this governor:
He was going through the military exercises when the gold ring which he wore was, by some accident, broken and crushed. Wishing to have another ring made, he ordered a goldsmith to be summoned to the forum at Cardova, in front of his own judgment seat, and weighed out the gold to him in public. He ordered the man to set down his bench on the forum and make the ring for him in the presence of all, to prove that he had not employed the gold of the public treasury, not even half an ounce, but had merely given his old broken ring to be worked anew.
A ring that could be crushed on a man’s finger without involving also the crushing of the finger is accounted for by the type of rings popular in that day. They were large and impressive, but by no means as heavy as they appeared because, like the rings long since known to the Greeks, they were hollow. It was amazing how the goldsmith, by dint of much hammering and some welding together of thin plates could turn a very little ingot of gold into a big and important-looking ring. Of course the hollow ring of soft metal was easily crushed.
During the later days of the republic the gorgeous gems of the Orient were fairly pouring into Rome. There were iridescent opals, moonstones, tawny yellow topazes, sky-blue sapphires, olive-green peridots, the latter brought from an island in the Red Sea. Also from the warm waters of the Red Sea came lustrous pearls. Their round or pear-shaped form made them most desirable as pendants, and these pendant pearls were often of such price that a lady might dangle a fortune from each ear. Emeralds, the most prized of all stones, came from the famous mines of Cleopatra in upper Egypt; and lapis lazuli traveled by caravan from Afghanistan.
By this time gemstones were moving outside their original sphere as charms or articles of personal adornment and becoming items of collections. It is said that Scaurus, son-in-law of Sulla, was the first Roman to become a collector of gems. Once the pace was set, other wealthy men rushed headlong in pursuit of the fascinating new hobby.
Little garnets, aquamarines, topazes and peridots, all exquisitely engraved, would be sufficiently prized by the avid collector to wring from him enormous sums of money. And even, on occasion, something more precious than money.
The story is told of a senator, Nonius by name, who possessed an opal set in a ring. The opal was the size of hazel-nut, and of such surpassing beauty that at sight of it Mark Antony was overwhelmed by so inordinate a desire to own it that no sense of justice could restrain him. His heart was set—the story goes—on giving that gem to Cleopatra. He decreed that Nonius must either hand it over to him, Mark Antony, or suffer banishment from Rome. Now to be exiled from his beloved city was a peculiarly bitter fate for any Roman, but it was a choice of Rome or the opal. Nonius was forced to choose between them and he did. The gem won. Nonius took his opal and left Roman forever.
Imperial Caesar himself was not immune to the prevailing craze for collecting gems. In fact, he outranked the other enthusiasts and founded no less than six different collections of rare gems, which were kept on display in the temple of Venus Genetrix in Caesar’s Forum.
Although a man might with dignity collect gems to his heart’s content it was by now considered effeminate for him to wear any ring except that which bore his signet. On days of mourning, even signet-rings of gold would be laid aside and an iron one substituted as an indication of grief. On the day of Caesar’s funeral the only rings in evidence were bands of dull iron, the Roman equivalent for a band of crêpe on a coat-sleeve.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
Side by side with these aristocratic painters whose art reflected the temper of the French Court, we find now and then an artist of genius who expresses the life and feelings of the people. The greatest of these was Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (1699-1779), who was also born in Paris. Though he worked for a time under the Court painter Van Loo at Fontaineblueau, and was elected a member of the Academy in 1728, Chardin was never a favorite with the nobles of France, nor did he make any effort to pander to their taste. His pictures, like those of his predecessors the brothers Le Nain, were ‘tainted with democracy,’ and the intense humanity of Chardin links him to his great contemporary on the other side of the Channel, William Hogarth.
Though Chardin, as Lady Dilke once said, ‘treated subjects of the humblest and most unpretentious class, he brought to their rendering, not only deep feeling and a penetration which divines the innermost truths of the simplest forms of life, but a perfection of workmanship by which everything he handled was clothed with beauty.’
Like the Persian poet, Chardin could compose a song about a loaf of bread and a glass of red wine—as his beautiful still-life in the National Gallery, London, proved—while ‘The Pancake Maker’ shows what beauty and tenderness he could find in the kitchen.
Amid all the artificiality of the gaudy Court of Versailles, Chardin stands out as the supreme interpreter of the sweetness and sane beauty of domesticity. He was a poet with the unspoilt heart of a child who could reveal to us the loveliness in the common things of life.
How strong a character Chardin must have been to resist the current of the time and adhere unswervingly to his simple democratic ideals we realize when we contemplate the talent and career of Jean Honoré Fragnonard (1732-1806), who was for a time his pupil. We have only to look at Fragonard’s charming domestic scene, ‘The Happy Mother,’ in the National Gallery, London, to see that this artist also might have been a painter of the people. He shows us here the home of a blacksmith, whose forge is seen in the background, while in the center the young mother with her three children sits at a table, and beyond another woman rocks a cradle.
For good or ill Fragonard chose another path, and after he had gained from Chardin a knowledge of sound craftsmanship which he never afterwards lost, he chose a more fashionable master and became the pupil of Boucher. In 1752, at the age of twenty, he won the Prix de Rome, and in 1756 he went for four years to Italy, where he made a particular study of the decorative paintings of ‘The Last of the Venetian,’ namely, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1769). He returned to Paris in 1761 and almost immediately became a favorite with the French nobility.
In Fragonard, wrote Lady Dilke, ‘Boucher found his true heir. The style of Court fashions and customs, highly artificial even in the affectation of nature and simplicity, the temper of society, purely sensual in spite of pretensions to sentiment, gave birth to innumerable fictions which took their place in the commerce of ordinary life. Eternal youth, perpetual pleasure, and all the wanton graces, their insincere airs masked by a voluptuous charm, came into seeming—a bright deceitful vision which cheated and allured all eyes....The hours float by in waves of laughter, and the scent of flowers which breathe of endless summer fills the air. Existence in the gardens of Fragonard is pleasure; its penalties and pains are ignored, just as sickness and sorrow were then ignored in actual life.’
Highly typical of the period and of the manner in which Fragonard catered for the taste of his patrons is his picture ‘The Swing’, painted to order and exhibiting all the characteristics which Lady Dilke has so brilliantly analyzed in the passage quoted. The workmanship is beautiful, the drawing and color are alike charming, but these displays of so-called ‘gallantry’ are detestable to many people, and through it all we are conscious of the insincerity of a clever and highly gifted painter.
Pictures which Fragonard painted purely to please himself, like ‘The Happy Mother’ and the ‘The Lady Carving her Name,’ a tiny canvas which cost Lord Hertford £1400 in 1865, are less typical of Fragonard, but often pleasanter to gaze upon than his commissions and elaborate decorations. But even in these subjects Fragonard is always frolicsome and playful where Chardin was serious and earnest, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that Fragonard’s was essentially a shallow nature. For all his cleverness he paid the penalty of his insincerity; he outlived his popularity and ultimately died in dire poverty. In 1806 the times had changed; Napoleon and the French Revolution had swept away the frivolities of Versailles.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
3
Side by side with these aristocratic painters whose art reflected the temper of the French Court, we find now and then an artist of genius who expresses the life and feelings of the people. The greatest of these was Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (1699-1779), who was also born in Paris. Though he worked for a time under the Court painter Van Loo at Fontaineblueau, and was elected a member of the Academy in 1728, Chardin was never a favorite with the nobles of France, nor did he make any effort to pander to their taste. His pictures, like those of his predecessors the brothers Le Nain, were ‘tainted with democracy,’ and the intense humanity of Chardin links him to his great contemporary on the other side of the Channel, William Hogarth.
Though Chardin, as Lady Dilke once said, ‘treated subjects of the humblest and most unpretentious class, he brought to their rendering, not only deep feeling and a penetration which divines the innermost truths of the simplest forms of life, but a perfection of workmanship by which everything he handled was clothed with beauty.’
Like the Persian poet, Chardin could compose a song about a loaf of bread and a glass of red wine—as his beautiful still-life in the National Gallery, London, proved—while ‘The Pancake Maker’ shows what beauty and tenderness he could find in the kitchen.
Amid all the artificiality of the gaudy Court of Versailles, Chardin stands out as the supreme interpreter of the sweetness and sane beauty of domesticity. He was a poet with the unspoilt heart of a child who could reveal to us the loveliness in the common things of life.
How strong a character Chardin must have been to resist the current of the time and adhere unswervingly to his simple democratic ideals we realize when we contemplate the talent and career of Jean Honoré Fragnonard (1732-1806), who was for a time his pupil. We have only to look at Fragonard’s charming domestic scene, ‘The Happy Mother,’ in the National Gallery, London, to see that this artist also might have been a painter of the people. He shows us here the home of a blacksmith, whose forge is seen in the background, while in the center the young mother with her three children sits at a table, and beyond another woman rocks a cradle.
For good or ill Fragonard chose another path, and after he had gained from Chardin a knowledge of sound craftsmanship which he never afterwards lost, he chose a more fashionable master and became the pupil of Boucher. In 1752, at the age of twenty, he won the Prix de Rome, and in 1756 he went for four years to Italy, where he made a particular study of the decorative paintings of ‘The Last of the Venetian,’ namely, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1769). He returned to Paris in 1761 and almost immediately became a favorite with the French nobility.
In Fragonard, wrote Lady Dilke, ‘Boucher found his true heir. The style of Court fashions and customs, highly artificial even in the affectation of nature and simplicity, the temper of society, purely sensual in spite of pretensions to sentiment, gave birth to innumerable fictions which took their place in the commerce of ordinary life. Eternal youth, perpetual pleasure, and all the wanton graces, their insincere airs masked by a voluptuous charm, came into seeming—a bright deceitful vision which cheated and allured all eyes....The hours float by in waves of laughter, and the scent of flowers which breathe of endless summer fills the air. Existence in the gardens of Fragonard is pleasure; its penalties and pains are ignored, just as sickness and sorrow were then ignored in actual life.’
Highly typical of the period and of the manner in which Fragonard catered for the taste of his patrons is his picture ‘The Swing’, painted to order and exhibiting all the characteristics which Lady Dilke has so brilliantly analyzed in the passage quoted. The workmanship is beautiful, the drawing and color are alike charming, but these displays of so-called ‘gallantry’ are detestable to many people, and through it all we are conscious of the insincerity of a clever and highly gifted painter.
Pictures which Fragonard painted purely to please himself, like ‘The Happy Mother’ and the ‘The Lady Carving her Name,’ a tiny canvas which cost Lord Hertford £1400 in 1865, are less typical of Fragonard, but often pleasanter to gaze upon than his commissions and elaborate decorations. But even in these subjects Fragonard is always frolicsome and playful where Chardin was serious and earnest, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that Fragonard’s was essentially a shallow nature. For all his cleverness he paid the penalty of his insincerity; he outlived his popularity and ultimately died in dire poverty. In 1806 the times had changed; Napoleon and the French Revolution had swept away the frivolities of Versailles.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
Friday, January 18, 2008
Play Poker
In Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs may use whatever tools they've got to get ahead, but for Zach Coelius, CEO of Triggit, a new web service that helps bloggers easily add pictures, video and ads, an appetite for risk and fine-tuned poker skills helped him secure funding and get his startup off the ground + there is a good chance that the company might become a role model for other startups.
In a cutthroat gem/jewelry/art business environment, I think poker habit might help aspiring entrepreneurs to think/act differently. You may never know!
In a cutthroat gem/jewelry/art business environment, I think poker habit might help aspiring entrepreneurs to think/act differently. You may never know!
The World Database Of Happiness
THE World Database of Happiness, in Rotterdam, collects all the available information about what makes people happy and why @ http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl
Here is an interesting observation by Eric Hoffer, an American social philosopher:
'The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.'
Here is an interesting observation by Eric Hoffer, an American social philosopher:
'The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.'
Darren Almond
Adrian Searle writes about Darren Almond's art work + his newest work in Fire Under Snow, opening this week at London's Parasol Unit @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2242109,00.html
Useful links:
http://www.whitecube.com/artists/almond
http://www.artnet.com/artist/1411/darren-almond.html
Useful links:
http://www.whitecube.com/artists/almond
http://www.artnet.com/artist/1411/darren-almond.html
Indian Gold Market
Commodityonline writes about the overheated Indian gold market + the global currency fluctuations + the rupee swing + other viewpoints @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/specials/newsdetails.php?id=4914
Gemory
A silicon-valley company claims it can nano-inscribe high-resolution photographs on girdles and tables, on diamonds as small as one pointers + it's forever.
Useful link:
www.gemory.com
Useful link:
www.gemory.com
The Billionaire That Wasn't
Here is the amazing story of entrepreneur/philanthropist Chuck Feeney + Economist's review + The Billionaire That Wasn't + he was an Andrew Carnegie fan + he created a foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies, based in Bermuda + two years later he signed over his fortune to the foundation, except for sums set aside for his wife and children + his net worth fell below $5m + when he broke the news to his children, he gave them each a copy of Andrew Carnegie's essay on wealth, written in 1889.
Useful link:
http://atlanticphilanthropies.org
Useful link:
http://atlanticphilanthropies.org
Burma Update
It has been reported that 24th Gems and Jade Sales 2008 organized by the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings will be held at Myanmar Gems Emporium Hall, from 15th January - 19th January 2008 + according to New Light of Myanmar the 45th Myanma Gems Emporium 2008 is scheduled to be held in March, 2008.
Useful links:
www.myawaddytrade.com
www.myanmar.com
Useful links:
www.myawaddytrade.com
www.myanmar.com
Sweet Smell Of Success
Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
Directed by: Alexander Mackendrick
Screenplay: Ernest Lehman (novelette); Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison
(via YouTube): Sweet Smell of Success - 'In The Bag'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TorT-kVOqP8
Sweet Smell of Success - 'Greedy Murmur of Little Men'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N77uqGZPUPw
It's a great film + the dialogues are superb + the characters are memorable + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Alexander Mackendrick
Screenplay: Ernest Lehman (novelette); Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison
(via YouTube): Sweet Smell of Success - 'In The Bag'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TorT-kVOqP8
Sweet Smell of Success - 'Greedy Murmur of Little Men'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N77uqGZPUPw
It's a great film + the dialogues are superb + the characters are memorable + I enjoyed it.
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
2. Greco-Roman Goldsmiths
While the successors of Alexander were disputing among themselves, Rome was growing into a power which ultimately dominated territory as wide as the United States; and Greece was among the nations that succumbed to her rule.
The Romans were more practical than artistic. Their houses and their clothes, in the early days, were simple and austere, lacking ornament and luxury. Nevertheless, it would seem that their simplicity of living was founded on paucity of invention rather than severity of taste. Their conquests gave them power over many countries, and also a golden opportunity for looting; and no Roman army disdained the chance to carry home the luxuries created in other lands. From Macedonia alone they brought more than two hundred wagonloads of paintings and statuary. Mosaics, rich hangings and carpets, horse-trappings set with gems, and golden jewelry sparkling with precious stones from Alexandria were conveyed over land and sea to Rome. Not only did a conquering army seize objects of art but is brought back, among its prisoners of war, artists and craftsmen, thereby insuring a further supply of the fine arts to be created at the demand of the Roman citizen.
Luxuries hitherto unknown to the Roman found a warm welcome. Greek sculptors were set to making statues of Roman gods, with the result that many of the stone deities were but idealized versions of the Greek youths who posed for the sculptors, and many of these statues later appeared in miniature designs engraved on gems. The Greek goldsmith who fashioned jewelry for his Roman patrons did so according to his native designs. The art of a conquered people continued long to dominate the art of its conquerors.
And so the once drab and bare interior of the Roman house became colorful and rich with foreign plunder and erstwhile simplicity of dress gave place to more ostentatious garb. Jewelry and ever more jewelry decked the rich Roman lady of fashion. It is curious to note how the ancient Roman jewelry reflects the spirit of the times and proclaims, like a blast of trumpets, the arrogant pride of riches. The heavy, opulent necklaces, bracelets, and rings fairly wallow in wealth of gold and suggest that the people who wore them were somewhat larger than life.
Those who disapproved of the growing trend toward finery and frivolity arose to plead for a return to the good old fashions of frugal severity in dress and austerity of behavior. They hurled thunders of condemnation at the amount of jewelry worn and especially at the great numbers of rings that loaded the fingers. And as for the frivolous fashion, to mention one, of sending Roman boys to Greek dancing classes......what was the younger generation coming to?
Long before the year 1 A.D. the censor was with us, and at that particular time he was present in the person of Cato. Cato seems to have disapproved quite comprehensively of Roman fashions, and as he had power to shape the law, he dictated law after law prohibiting the things he did not like. Jewelry in particular came under the ban of his displeasure, therefore he rather specialized in laws concerning it. He specified the number of jewels a citizen might wear and what kind of metal a man’s ring should be made of—whether gold, silver or iron—depending on the wearer’s station in life. Even senators might not wear their gold rings in private life. These rings were kept in the treasury and handed out only to those who were sent as embassies to foreign lands, in which case the ring was not merely an ornament but a badge of office.
The signet-ring of iron, being a humble thing of use and not of ostentation, appears to have escaped the censor’s ban. For a time these laws of prohibition checked and held down the love of luxury and display, but only for a while.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
2. Greco-Roman Goldsmiths
While the successors of Alexander were disputing among themselves, Rome was growing into a power which ultimately dominated territory as wide as the United States; and Greece was among the nations that succumbed to her rule.
The Romans were more practical than artistic. Their houses and their clothes, in the early days, were simple and austere, lacking ornament and luxury. Nevertheless, it would seem that their simplicity of living was founded on paucity of invention rather than severity of taste. Their conquests gave them power over many countries, and also a golden opportunity for looting; and no Roman army disdained the chance to carry home the luxuries created in other lands. From Macedonia alone they brought more than two hundred wagonloads of paintings and statuary. Mosaics, rich hangings and carpets, horse-trappings set with gems, and golden jewelry sparkling with precious stones from Alexandria were conveyed over land and sea to Rome. Not only did a conquering army seize objects of art but is brought back, among its prisoners of war, artists and craftsmen, thereby insuring a further supply of the fine arts to be created at the demand of the Roman citizen.
Luxuries hitherto unknown to the Roman found a warm welcome. Greek sculptors were set to making statues of Roman gods, with the result that many of the stone deities were but idealized versions of the Greek youths who posed for the sculptors, and many of these statues later appeared in miniature designs engraved on gems. The Greek goldsmith who fashioned jewelry for his Roman patrons did so according to his native designs. The art of a conquered people continued long to dominate the art of its conquerors.
And so the once drab and bare interior of the Roman house became colorful and rich with foreign plunder and erstwhile simplicity of dress gave place to more ostentatious garb. Jewelry and ever more jewelry decked the rich Roman lady of fashion. It is curious to note how the ancient Roman jewelry reflects the spirit of the times and proclaims, like a blast of trumpets, the arrogant pride of riches. The heavy, opulent necklaces, bracelets, and rings fairly wallow in wealth of gold and suggest that the people who wore them were somewhat larger than life.
Those who disapproved of the growing trend toward finery and frivolity arose to plead for a return to the good old fashions of frugal severity in dress and austerity of behavior. They hurled thunders of condemnation at the amount of jewelry worn and especially at the great numbers of rings that loaded the fingers. And as for the frivolous fashion, to mention one, of sending Roman boys to Greek dancing classes......what was the younger generation coming to?
Long before the year 1 A.D. the censor was with us, and at that particular time he was present in the person of Cato. Cato seems to have disapproved quite comprehensively of Roman fashions, and as he had power to shape the law, he dictated law after law prohibiting the things he did not like. Jewelry in particular came under the ban of his displeasure, therefore he rather specialized in laws concerning it. He specified the number of jewels a citizen might wear and what kind of metal a man’s ring should be made of—whether gold, silver or iron—depending on the wearer’s station in life. Even senators might not wear their gold rings in private life. These rings were kept in the treasury and handed out only to those who were sent as embassies to foreign lands, in which case the ring was not merely an ornament but a badge of office.
The signet-ring of iron, being a humble thing of use and not of ostentation, appears to have escaped the censor’s ban. For a time these laws of prohibition checked and held down the love of luxury and display, but only for a while.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
While Watteau was laying the foundations for the romantic and impressionist painting of modern France, another group of French figure-painters were evolving a national ‘grand style’ for French portraiture. This new style first made its appearance when Largilliére began painting Louis XIV and his family, and a typical example of it may be found in the Wallace Collection.
Nicholas Largilliére (1656-1746), who was nearly thirty years older than Watteau, was born in Paris, but worked for many years in London, where he was an assistant to Sir Peter Lely and a great favorite with King Charles II. But unlike his master Lely—who rivalled the Vicar of Bray in keeping in with both sides—Largilliére was a Royalist through and through, and like the faller Stuarts he returned to France and made Paris his home during the latter part of his life. His drawing is accurate but rather hard, his color harmonious and lighter in hue than that of his predecessors Mignard and Le Brun, and his great canvas at the Wallace Collection of Louis XIV with the Dauphin, the Duc de Bourgogne, the infant Du ďAnjou (afterwards Louis XV), and Madame de Maintenon, shows how magnificently he could stage and present a royal group.
Among his contemporaries were Hyacinth Rigaud (1659-1743), and his pupil Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755), who won much fame as superintendent of the royal tapestry manufactories of the Gobelins and Beauvais; but his most famous successor was Jean Marc Nattier (1685-1766), a Parisian-born, who became one of the favorite portrait-painters at the Court of Louis XV. Nattier commented his career as a historical painter, and only took up portraiture in 1720 after he had lost all his savings through the speculation of John Law, the Scottish financier and adventurer. His paintings are also little hard, but they are light and gay in color and remarkably stately in their grouping and arrangement.
Another Paris-born artist acquired still wider fame. This was Francois Boucher (1703-70), who gained the first prize at the Academy when he was only twenty years old and afterwards studied in Rome. ‘No one,’ wrote the late Lady Dilke of this artist, ‘ever attacked a greater variety of styles; his drawings—often extremely good—are to be met with in every important collection. Innumerable were his easel pictures, his mural decorations, his designs for tapestries at Beauvais or the Gobelins, his scene paintings for Versailles and the Opera.’
No artist more completely illustrates and represents French taste in the eighteenth century than Francois Boucher, who was indeed the leader of fashion in this direction, and by his creative genius brought a new note into European painting. He introduced a lighter and gayer scheme of color into tapestries and decorative paintings, pale blues and pinks being dominant in his color schemes. He designed many paintings and decorations for the famous Madame de Pompadour, and the sweet color now generally known as rose du Barry was invented by Boucher and was originally called Rose Pompadour.
To do justice to the French portraiture of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, we must remember the ornate gilt furniture of the period with which they were surrounded. Portraits like Nattier’s ‘Mademoiselle de Clermont’ and Boucher’s ‘Marquise de Pompadour’—both of which are in the Wallace Collection—must not be judged as easel paintings, but as items in an elaborate scheme of interior decoration. There is nothing like them in the history of portraiture, just as there never was a Court exactly like that of the ‘Grand Monarch’ or of his immediate successors. These portraits reconvey to us all the splendors of Versailles, its luxury and its heartlessness. They are the quintessence of aristocratic feeling, so full of culture that there is little room for humanity. The pride they express ends by alienating our sympathy, for they are the most pompous pictures the world has ever seen.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
2
While Watteau was laying the foundations for the romantic and impressionist painting of modern France, another group of French figure-painters were evolving a national ‘grand style’ for French portraiture. This new style first made its appearance when Largilliére began painting Louis XIV and his family, and a typical example of it may be found in the Wallace Collection.
Nicholas Largilliére (1656-1746), who was nearly thirty years older than Watteau, was born in Paris, but worked for many years in London, where he was an assistant to Sir Peter Lely and a great favorite with King Charles II. But unlike his master Lely—who rivalled the Vicar of Bray in keeping in with both sides—Largilliére was a Royalist through and through, and like the faller Stuarts he returned to France and made Paris his home during the latter part of his life. His drawing is accurate but rather hard, his color harmonious and lighter in hue than that of his predecessors Mignard and Le Brun, and his great canvas at the Wallace Collection of Louis XIV with the Dauphin, the Duc de Bourgogne, the infant Du ďAnjou (afterwards Louis XV), and Madame de Maintenon, shows how magnificently he could stage and present a royal group.
Among his contemporaries were Hyacinth Rigaud (1659-1743), and his pupil Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755), who won much fame as superintendent of the royal tapestry manufactories of the Gobelins and Beauvais; but his most famous successor was Jean Marc Nattier (1685-1766), a Parisian-born, who became one of the favorite portrait-painters at the Court of Louis XV. Nattier commented his career as a historical painter, and only took up portraiture in 1720 after he had lost all his savings through the speculation of John Law, the Scottish financier and adventurer. His paintings are also little hard, but they are light and gay in color and remarkably stately in their grouping and arrangement.
Another Paris-born artist acquired still wider fame. This was Francois Boucher (1703-70), who gained the first prize at the Academy when he was only twenty years old and afterwards studied in Rome. ‘No one,’ wrote the late Lady Dilke of this artist, ‘ever attacked a greater variety of styles; his drawings—often extremely good—are to be met with in every important collection. Innumerable were his easel pictures, his mural decorations, his designs for tapestries at Beauvais or the Gobelins, his scene paintings for Versailles and the Opera.’
No artist more completely illustrates and represents French taste in the eighteenth century than Francois Boucher, who was indeed the leader of fashion in this direction, and by his creative genius brought a new note into European painting. He introduced a lighter and gayer scheme of color into tapestries and decorative paintings, pale blues and pinks being dominant in his color schemes. He designed many paintings and decorations for the famous Madame de Pompadour, and the sweet color now generally known as rose du Barry was invented by Boucher and was originally called Rose Pompadour.
To do justice to the French portraiture of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, we must remember the ornate gilt furniture of the period with which they were surrounded. Portraits like Nattier’s ‘Mademoiselle de Clermont’ and Boucher’s ‘Marquise de Pompadour’—both of which are in the Wallace Collection—must not be judged as easel paintings, but as items in an elaborate scheme of interior decoration. There is nothing like them in the history of portraiture, just as there never was a Court exactly like that of the ‘Grand Monarch’ or of his immediate successors. These portraits reconvey to us all the splendors of Versailles, its luxury and its heartlessness. They are the quintessence of aristocratic feeling, so full of culture that there is little room for humanity. The pride they express ends by alienating our sympathy, for they are the most pompous pictures the world has ever seen.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
Tahitian Pearls
Tahitian cultured pearls, due to their exotic beauty + strong promotion by Perles de Tahiti, have become the best-selling pearls on the Chinese Mainland + Chinese Mainland consumers often cannot differentiate white South Sea pearls from white Chinese freshwater pearls + I think price-competitiveness + color uniqueness could also be a factor for Tahitian pearls' popularity.
Useful link:
www.perlesdetahiti.net
Useful link:
www.perlesdetahiti.net
Glittering Gold, Dazzling Diamond
Commodityonline writes about the status of gold and diamond in India + year-over-year growth in value + other viewpoints @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4892
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Heard On The Street
Some food for thought:
- Avoid the so-called inside information.
- Never buy gemstones/jewelry/art on excitement.
- Use your own judgment.
- Don't put too much reliance on advertisements.
- Don't lose confidence.
- Avoid the so-called inside information.
- Never buy gemstones/jewelry/art on excitement.
- Use your own judgment.
- Don't put too much reliance on advertisements.
- Don't lose confidence.
Diamdel Auctions Rough Diamonds
Diamdel has launched a new website @ www.diamdel.com where registered companies will be able to participate and bid for rough + it's a subsidiary of De Beers that supplies the secondary market.
Rolling Stones
You Can't Always Get What You Want is a song by the Rolling Stones released on their 1969 album Let It Bleed + written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was named as the 100th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone in its 2004 list of '500 Greatest Songs of All Time.'
Useful link:
www.rollingstones.com
Useful link:
www.rollingstones.com
White Heat
White Heat (1949)
Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Screenplay: Virginia Kellogg (story); Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts
Cast: James Cagney, Margaret Wycherly, Virginia Mayo
(via YouTube): White Heat Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx8Eq0GbZ2o
A wonderfully vicious movie + breathless gangster genre. I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Screenplay: Virginia Kellogg (story); Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts
Cast: James Cagney, Margaret Wycherly, Virginia Mayo
(via YouTube): White Heat Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx8Eq0GbZ2o
A wonderfully vicious movie + breathless gangster genre. I enjoyed it.
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
1. Etruscan Craftsmen
The early history of the jewelry-makers of Italy is not unlike the early history of the goldsmiths of Greece.
Something less than three thousand years ago there lived in Italy, north of the Tiber, an olive-skinned people known as Etruscans. They were sea-roving race with a keen taste for plunder-pirates rather than merchants. Raiding, however, was a dangerous method of acquiring goods and not always profitable; so the Phoenician traders with their colorful jewelry and other products of the Orient were welcomed by the Etruscans, who had raw materials and metals to exchange for manufactured articles. One may suppose that if a merchant ship of the East was booked to market her wares at Etruria she carried an extra large stock of bright beads, scarabs, precious stones and metal ornaments, for the people of Etruria seem to have had a very passion for glittering jewelry.
Etruria, like other foreign markets touched by Oriental influence, did in time learn the craft of the goldsmith for herself; and although she always continued to borrow designs, first from the East and then from Greece, she nevertheless carried their execution to a point ‘never since’, says one authority, ‘equaled in the jeweler’s art.’ Cellini, in his Memoirs, tells of an Etruscan necklace of exquisite workmanship which had just been unearthed. Said he, ‘Alas, it is better not to imitate these Etruscans, for we should be nothing but their humble servants. Let us rather strike out a new path which will, at least, have the merit of originality.’
Both men and women of Etruria wore quantities of rings. Many of these rings were set with copies of the little sacred beetle of the Nile elaborately mounted on swivels. Dull red carnelian from their won river beds was the stone most commonly used for the scarabs, but they were also expertly carved with amazing realism in fine sard, sardonyx and even such precious stones as the emerald, imported from Egypt.
The women wore elaborate head ornaments, fillets and diadems, or wreaths of leaves, all made of gold, with long gold hairpins topped with acorns or balls. They loved amber, which was set in silver, gold, or that moonlight-tinted gold called ‘electrum,’ an alloy of gold and silver.
The wearing of amulets was universal, and a conspicuous part of the Etruscan necklace was the hollow pendant in which the magic token was carried. The pendant, or bulla, was often made of two or more gold plates thin enough to take on a pattern when pressed against a stone mold into which the pattern had been cut. Sometimes several pieces of the molded gold were soldered together to form tiny vases, little heads of gods or goddesses, or small apes, or lions.
The Phoenicians method of decorating the surface of gold ornaments with fine grains was developed by the Etruscans to a point never equaled even by the Greeks. The tiny globules of gold were soldered, grain by grain, onto the metal surface, thus producing a rich and intricate design built with individual dots almost too small to distinguish with the naked eye. It is for this marvelous granular work, so frost-like in appearance, that the jewelry of Etruria is particularly famous. But in the course of the next few centuries her craftsmen, no longer conspicuously skillful, were producing work that was both coarse and poor.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
1. Etruscan Craftsmen
The early history of the jewelry-makers of Italy is not unlike the early history of the goldsmiths of Greece.
Something less than three thousand years ago there lived in Italy, north of the Tiber, an olive-skinned people known as Etruscans. They were sea-roving race with a keen taste for plunder-pirates rather than merchants. Raiding, however, was a dangerous method of acquiring goods and not always profitable; so the Phoenician traders with their colorful jewelry and other products of the Orient were welcomed by the Etruscans, who had raw materials and metals to exchange for manufactured articles. One may suppose that if a merchant ship of the East was booked to market her wares at Etruria she carried an extra large stock of bright beads, scarabs, precious stones and metal ornaments, for the people of Etruria seem to have had a very passion for glittering jewelry.
Etruria, like other foreign markets touched by Oriental influence, did in time learn the craft of the goldsmith for herself; and although she always continued to borrow designs, first from the East and then from Greece, she nevertheless carried their execution to a point ‘never since’, says one authority, ‘equaled in the jeweler’s art.’ Cellini, in his Memoirs, tells of an Etruscan necklace of exquisite workmanship which had just been unearthed. Said he, ‘Alas, it is better not to imitate these Etruscans, for we should be nothing but their humble servants. Let us rather strike out a new path which will, at least, have the merit of originality.’
Both men and women of Etruria wore quantities of rings. Many of these rings were set with copies of the little sacred beetle of the Nile elaborately mounted on swivels. Dull red carnelian from their won river beds was the stone most commonly used for the scarabs, but they were also expertly carved with amazing realism in fine sard, sardonyx and even such precious stones as the emerald, imported from Egypt.
The women wore elaborate head ornaments, fillets and diadems, or wreaths of leaves, all made of gold, with long gold hairpins topped with acorns or balls. They loved amber, which was set in silver, gold, or that moonlight-tinted gold called ‘electrum,’ an alloy of gold and silver.
The wearing of amulets was universal, and a conspicuous part of the Etruscan necklace was the hollow pendant in which the magic token was carried. The pendant, or bulla, was often made of two or more gold plates thin enough to take on a pattern when pressed against a stone mold into which the pattern had been cut. Sometimes several pieces of the molded gold were soldered together to form tiny vases, little heads of gods or goddesses, or small apes, or lions.
The Phoenicians method of decorating the surface of gold ornaments with fine grains was developed by the Etruscans to a point never equaled even by the Greeks. The tiny globules of gold were soldered, grain by grain, onto the metal surface, thus producing a rich and intricate design built with individual dots almost too small to distinguish with the naked eye. It is for this marvelous granular work, so frost-like in appearance, that the jewelry of Etruria is particularly famous. But in the course of the next few centuries her craftsmen, no longer conspicuously skillful, were producing work that was both coarse and poor.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
Fancy Rosettes
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Other types of diamond Rosette seem to have existed but since they are known only from paintings (some of which have been listed and discussed by Fritz Falk) it is impossible to give accurate descriptions of the gems used in their composition. I have come to believe that the Rosettes Falk lists and those which I have examined myself in paintings were all exceptional designs resulting from deliberate experiments or from attempts to emulate top quality Rosettes produced by well-established cutters.
On a small domestic altar dating from the early seventeenth century, made in the Imperial Court Workshop in Prague, there is a nine-petalled Double Rosette—the only one of its kind I have ever come across. It is about 22cm in diameter, with components of a standard type, but each stone is individually set. The usual ‘pistil’ in the center of the ‘flower’ is replaced by a group of thin wires terminating in small enamel globes. The composition is apparently made up of stones from an ordinary Rosette which was broken up, and the diamonds are badly soiled. The stones are colorless but appear quite yellow because of the heavy mounting.
Other types of diamond Rosette seem to have existed but since they are known only from paintings (some of which have been listed and discussed by Fritz Falk) it is impossible to give accurate descriptions of the gems used in their composition. I have come to believe that the Rosettes Falk lists and those which I have examined myself in paintings were all exceptional designs resulting from deliberate experiments or from attempts to emulate top quality Rosettes produced by well-established cutters.
On a small domestic altar dating from the early seventeenth century, made in the Imperial Court Workshop in Prague, there is a nine-petalled Double Rosette—the only one of its kind I have ever come across. It is about 22cm in diameter, with components of a standard type, but each stone is individually set. The usual ‘pistil’ in the center of the ‘flower’ is replaced by a group of thin wires terminating in small enamel globes. The composition is apparently made up of stones from an ordinary Rosette which was broken up, and the diamonds are badly soiled. The stones are colorless but appear quite yellow because of the heavy mounting.
Concerning Gems
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
Few things that man has made use of in his evolution from barbarity to civilization have so much of romance, superstition and fascination woven about them as have precious stones. It is probable that the same subtle lure of a beautiful gem, which even the most matter-of-fact man or woman knows, led Adam and Eve, when the world was young, while they inhabited the Garden of Eden, when not busy with its fruits, to gather certain bright pebbles, which saved and prized, became the first precious stones of history.
As far back toward this date as written accounts take us, we find jewels playing an important part in the history of the world. There were the twelve stones, each the symbol of a tribe of Israel; also the twelve stones of the High Priest’s breast-plate. In Ezekiel, the covering of the King of Tyre was described as containing nine precious stones. Each of the Apostles was associated with a precious stone. In Revelation, John describes twelve precious stones in connection with the Heavenly City. The histories of Egypt. Greece, and Rome, and more modern countries, often refer to some important crown jewel, or otherwise famous gem.
Few things that man has made use of in his evolution from barbarity to civilization have so much of romance, superstition and fascination woven about them as have precious stones. It is probable that the same subtle lure of a beautiful gem, which even the most matter-of-fact man or woman knows, led Adam and Eve, when the world was young, while they inhabited the Garden of Eden, when not busy with its fruits, to gather certain bright pebbles, which saved and prized, became the first precious stones of history.
As far back toward this date as written accounts take us, we find jewels playing an important part in the history of the world. There were the twelve stones, each the symbol of a tribe of Israel; also the twelve stones of the High Priest’s breast-plate. In Ezekiel, the covering of the King of Tyre was described as containing nine precious stones. Each of the Apostles was associated with a precious stone. In Revelation, John describes twelve precious stones in connection with the Heavenly City. The histories of Egypt. Greece, and Rome, and more modern countries, often refer to some important crown jewel, or otherwise famous gem.
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Lancret, who lived on till 1743, continued Watteau’s Italian comedy manner, and had considerable success with his theatrical portraits, two of which are in the Wallace Collections. He is seen at his best in the portrait of an actress known as ‘La Belle Grecque’, which has a vivacious charm of its own and is full of life. The pose of the figure is particularly happy and conveys admirably a sense of movement. But while they could imitate more or less cleverly the superficial appearance of Watteau’s pictures, neither Lancret nor Pater were able to give their paintings that undercurrent of pathos which lifts Watteau’s work high above the trivial.
Only a very superficial observer of Watteau’s pictures would accuse him of being a painter of frivolities, a chronicler of picnics. Watteau lived in an artificial age, and being a true artist he could not help reflecting something of its artificiality. The French Court life of his day had the splendor of autumn leaves about to fall. Watteau, himself a dainty rose with canker in the bud, shows us the hectic charm of a civilization already being consumed by mortal malady; but his honesty and intellectual insight prevented him from pretending that the happiness of his puppets was anything more than a passing moment of self-deception. His pictures haunt us, not because of their gaiety, but by reason of their gentle, uncomplaining melancholy; and the late Sir Frederick Wedmore penetrated to the secret of Watteau when he laid stress on ‘the reflective pathos, the poignant melancholy, which are among the most appealing gifts of him who was accounted the master of the frivolous, of the monotonously gay.’
Watteau is unique in his qualities of drawing and color. There have been many painters who were great draughtsmen, and a number of painters who have been great colorists; but those who were supreme both in drawing and color we can count on the fingers of one hand. Watteau is among them. If we look at the little figures in a typical Watteau like ‘The Conversation’, we perceive that the drawing rivals that of Raphael in its perfection of form and that of Rembrandt in its expressiveness. Watteau’s powers of drawing many be studied still further in his chalk drawings in the British Museum Print Room.
As for his paint, hardly among his predecessors will you find anything so exquisite in color and so jewel-like in quality. The brightness of his palette, and the little touches with which he laid on his color, make his pictures vibrate and sing as those of no other artist had done before. Watteau was not only a great master; he was one of those pioneer artists whose original research and brilliant achievements have given a new impetus to the art of painting.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
Lancret, who lived on till 1743, continued Watteau’s Italian comedy manner, and had considerable success with his theatrical portraits, two of which are in the Wallace Collections. He is seen at his best in the portrait of an actress known as ‘La Belle Grecque’, which has a vivacious charm of its own and is full of life. The pose of the figure is particularly happy and conveys admirably a sense of movement. But while they could imitate more or less cleverly the superficial appearance of Watteau’s pictures, neither Lancret nor Pater were able to give their paintings that undercurrent of pathos which lifts Watteau’s work high above the trivial.
Only a very superficial observer of Watteau’s pictures would accuse him of being a painter of frivolities, a chronicler of picnics. Watteau lived in an artificial age, and being a true artist he could not help reflecting something of its artificiality. The French Court life of his day had the splendor of autumn leaves about to fall. Watteau, himself a dainty rose with canker in the bud, shows us the hectic charm of a civilization already being consumed by mortal malady; but his honesty and intellectual insight prevented him from pretending that the happiness of his puppets was anything more than a passing moment of self-deception. His pictures haunt us, not because of their gaiety, but by reason of their gentle, uncomplaining melancholy; and the late Sir Frederick Wedmore penetrated to the secret of Watteau when he laid stress on ‘the reflective pathos, the poignant melancholy, which are among the most appealing gifts of him who was accounted the master of the frivolous, of the monotonously gay.’
Watteau is unique in his qualities of drawing and color. There have been many painters who were great draughtsmen, and a number of painters who have been great colorists; but those who were supreme both in drawing and color we can count on the fingers of one hand. Watteau is among them. If we look at the little figures in a typical Watteau like ‘The Conversation’, we perceive that the drawing rivals that of Raphael in its perfection of form and that of Rembrandt in its expressiveness. Watteau’s powers of drawing many be studied still further in his chalk drawings in the British Museum Print Room.
As for his paint, hardly among his predecessors will you find anything so exquisite in color and so jewel-like in quality. The brightness of his palette, and the little touches with which he laid on his color, make his pictures vibrate and sing as those of no other artist had done before. Watteau was not only a great master; he was one of those pioneer artists whose original research and brilliant achievements have given a new impetus to the art of painting.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
A Diamond-based Computer
Physicists at Harvard University have shown that diamonds can be used to create stable quantum computing building blocks at room temperature + the goal is a quantum supercomputer that could be much faster and more powerful than anything available with conventional electronics. Here is a link to the abstract.
Tavalite Enhanced Gemstones
Here is what Tavalite’s site @ http://www.tavalite.com/category_s/17.htm says about treated stones.
Sevan Bicakci
Turkish designer Sevan Bicakci rose to fame when he won Town & Country Couture Design awards in 2006 and 2007 + he is renowned for creating difficult to replicate unique designs that represent the beauty of Turkey + he describes his jewelery: 'Byzantine emperor or the Ottoman sultan meets Alice in Wonderland.'
Useful link:
www.sevanbicakci.com
Useful link:
www.sevanbicakci.com
First Books
Economist writes about the auction trade’s busiest bookseller: Bloomsbury Auctions + collector’s dedication + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10518600
Useful link:
www.bloomsburyauctions.com
Useful link:
www.bloomsburyauctions.com
Unique Gifts For George Bush
Here is an interesting story from the Middle East: In Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed presented George Bush with a necklace consisting of a number of increasingly large solid gold stars encrusted with scores of diamonds + rubies + emeralds + Saudi Arabia went even further with a jewel-laden gold medallion dangling from a chain encrusted with rubies + emeralds + other viewpoints @ http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1703515,00.html
Swing Time
Swing Time (1936)
Directed by: George Stevens
Screenplay: Erwin S. Gelsey, Howard Lindsay, Allan Scott
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers
(via YouTube): Swing Time - Rogers and Astaire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxPgplMujzQ
Swing Time Trailer (1936)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNOMw2W-o8o
The musical + those dances + Astaire's grace + that otherness makes the film so natural.
Directed by: George Stevens
Screenplay: Erwin S. Gelsey, Howard Lindsay, Allan Scott
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers
(via YouTube): Swing Time - Rogers and Astaire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxPgplMujzQ
Swing Time Trailer (1936)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNOMw2W-o8o
The musical + those dances + Astaire's grace + that otherness makes the film so natural.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
A Modern Double Rosette
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Few Diamond Rosettes have been preserved, but I have managed to examine most of the surviving examples in great detail. The one in the pendant kept in the Grϋnes Gewölbe in Dresden was exhibited in Helsinki in the late 1960s, and inspired a large reproduction—12cm in diameter—in acrylic plastic. This reproduction was symmetrized according to what seemed, from a study of most of the surviving Double Rosettes, to be ideal proportions. It was then sent to a skilled cutter of fancy shapes, who was asked to produce the necessary components in high grade, precision cut diamonds.
Various problems faced the cutter. The first was to find enough flawless fine white rough in the right sizes and shapes. The cutter then had to find the grain in each little piece, and if the grain turned out to be unsuitable, the piece had to be rejected and a new piece found. It took six months for the job to be completed. The finished diamonds, together with a large bill, were accompanied by a firm refusal ever to repeat the task. To avoid tarnishing the metal and to enable the diamonds to be kept clean with a small brush and suitable fluid, it was decided to make the mounting of platinum and the setting open. The work of setting the stone proved to be immensely difficult and took a highly skilled and experienced master setter a whole week. How much simpler it must have been when the diamonds were first set in a bed of pitch!
The light effects of this diamond Rosette are spectacular, because the gems are clean. It seems that the reason that the slightest soiling ruins the extraordinary and subtle beauty of a diamond Rosette is because the crown and pavilion angles are so near the critical angles for reflection and refraction. When the experiment was made of soiling the stones of this jewel with grease and dirt, the magnificent light effects were almost completely lost.
From the models in acrylic plastic it can be seen how the narrow central facets of the lozenge-shaped components could be mistaken for fissures between the stones. Mielich and other artists may have been misled in this way into depicting Double Rosettes with one shape of stone only. They also often confused light and shadow. In fact, they not infrequently depicted cuts which, for one reason or another, could not possibly have existed. In his book, Gregorietti reproduces a detail of Lucrezia Panciatichi’s pendant containing a ten-petalled Rosette. The artist, Agnolo Bronzino, has made the same mistake as Mielich, since this must have been a Double Rosette with twenty stones—ten each of two different cuts.
Few Diamond Rosettes have been preserved, but I have managed to examine most of the surviving examples in great detail. The one in the pendant kept in the Grϋnes Gewölbe in Dresden was exhibited in Helsinki in the late 1960s, and inspired a large reproduction—12cm in diameter—in acrylic plastic. This reproduction was symmetrized according to what seemed, from a study of most of the surviving Double Rosettes, to be ideal proportions. It was then sent to a skilled cutter of fancy shapes, who was asked to produce the necessary components in high grade, precision cut diamonds.
Various problems faced the cutter. The first was to find enough flawless fine white rough in the right sizes and shapes. The cutter then had to find the grain in each little piece, and if the grain turned out to be unsuitable, the piece had to be rejected and a new piece found. It took six months for the job to be completed. The finished diamonds, together with a large bill, were accompanied by a firm refusal ever to repeat the task. To avoid tarnishing the metal and to enable the diamonds to be kept clean with a small brush and suitable fluid, it was decided to make the mounting of platinum and the setting open. The work of setting the stone proved to be immensely difficult and took a highly skilled and experienced master setter a whole week. How much simpler it must have been when the diamonds were first set in a bed of pitch!
The light effects of this diamond Rosette are spectacular, because the gems are clean. It seems that the reason that the slightest soiling ruins the extraordinary and subtle beauty of a diamond Rosette is because the crown and pavilion angles are so near the critical angles for reflection and refraction. When the experiment was made of soiling the stones of this jewel with grease and dirt, the magnificent light effects were almost completely lost.
From the models in acrylic plastic it can be seen how the narrow central facets of the lozenge-shaped components could be mistaken for fissures between the stones. Mielich and other artists may have been misled in this way into depicting Double Rosettes with one shape of stone only. They also often confused light and shadow. In fact, they not infrequently depicted cuts which, for one reason or another, could not possibly have existed. In his book, Gregorietti reproduces a detail of Lucrezia Panciatichi’s pendant containing a ten-petalled Rosette. The artist, Agnolo Bronzino, has made the same mistake as Mielich, since this must have been a Double Rosette with twenty stones—ten each of two different cuts.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
3. Cameo Portraits
In Alexander’s reign there appeared the first true cameo, but not until later, during the supremacy of Rome, did this type of gem cutting gain the popularity which at various periods it has held since then, sometimes rising to prominence in the world of fashion, sometimes almost forgotten by it.
The cameo, which has been called a great technical innovation, is the reverse of an intaglio. The design, instead of being hollowed out so that it lies below the surface of the stone, is carved in relief—that is, it rounds above its background like a miniature bas-relief. It could not be used as a seal but was purely ornamental. Cameos were cut not only in sardonyx—the design carved in the upper white layer of the stone with its underlying red-brown layer serving as a background—but they were frequently cut in stones of a single color, such as sard, and even the transparent garnet, peridot, ruby and, more rarely, emerald.
Portraiture, in ancient Egypt, had been carried to a high point, but it was the sculptor not the lapidary who was called upon to make likeness in stone. In Greece, the engraver of gems at first depicted gods and goddesses, often full-length figures, but never portraits of real people. During the reign of Alexander, however, the engraver of gems ventured into the field of portraiture. Trained to portray the surpassing beauty of the gods, he perhaps found it difficult, in the beginning, to relinquish the ideals of proportion and contour required in deities. At any rate, his first efforts at human portraiture were rather too godlike to be good likeness. One looks upon those all too perfect Greek profiles with some doubt as to their truth. It took many years and the fall of Greece to bring gem portraiture down to the hard facts of realism.
The young Alexander was a beautiful youth—a fact fully appreciated by himself. And when, in due course, his beard began to grown he refused to allow the classic contours of cheek and chin to be thus hidden from view, so he shaved, and thereby set a fashion in Greece and Italy which lasted hundreds of years. Although he lived to the age of thirty-three his portraits on coins and gems always show him as an ageless, beardless youth.
His ‘engraver in ordinary’ was Pyrgoyteles—he alone was permitted to cut the royal likeness. ‘If any other artist should be discovered to have cut the most sacred image of the sovereign, the same punishment should be inflicted upon him as was appointed for sacrilege.’
After the death of Alexander, the gem cutter, no longer forbidden to ‘cut the most sacred image of the sovereign,’ engraved many stones with the divine profile. They were for the most part deep cut intaglios. In spite of the fact that cameo cutting was especially suited to portraiture, intaglios long continued to outnumber cameos. The great popularity of the little gems bearing the portrait of Alexander is believed to have originated in the idea that since he had been such a favorite of fortune his likeness on a precious stone must bring good luck to its owner.
In the period between the death of Alexander and the conquest of the East by Rome, the work of the Greek goldsmith underwent great changes. Gems from far places were now at the disposal of the jewelry maker. Precious stones traveled in company with ginger, pepper, and Chinese cinnamon up the Persian Gulf in galleys and then across the Arabian desert on camel back to the many Mediterranean ports which were a part of the Hellenistic world. Now, for the first time, was introduced the true topaz, the color clear, yellow wine; also the amethyst, long known in Egypt but new to the Greeks; and there was a new stone so exactly the color of sea water that it was said to become invisible if submerged in it, so transparent was the gem—hence its name, ‘aquamarine’. Another new stone was the Syrian garnet, deep red purple in color; and since it was a soft stone it was very popular with the engraver. He gave it a flat base and a strongly convex top, and on this arched surface he engraved figures and portraits.
In its new form the ring stone retained only a trace of the original scarab shape. Any transparent red stone cut in this manner was known as ‘carbuncle.’ Today, only one stone is referred to as a carbuncle and that is a fine garnet cut, as the French say, en cabochon. Large carbuncles were mounted in large rings which were hollow shells, not solid bands of gold.
Rings, necklaces, bracelets and other products of the jewelry shop were an important item of Greek export trade, and Italy was one of the chief trade centers. But all too soon, from the standpoint of Greece, Italy’s position shifted from that of customer to that of master. The Greek craftsman became the Roman slave. Fortunately, however, he was still permitted to make fine jewelry.
3. Cameo Portraits
In Alexander’s reign there appeared the first true cameo, but not until later, during the supremacy of Rome, did this type of gem cutting gain the popularity which at various periods it has held since then, sometimes rising to prominence in the world of fashion, sometimes almost forgotten by it.
The cameo, which has been called a great technical innovation, is the reverse of an intaglio. The design, instead of being hollowed out so that it lies below the surface of the stone, is carved in relief—that is, it rounds above its background like a miniature bas-relief. It could not be used as a seal but was purely ornamental. Cameos were cut not only in sardonyx—the design carved in the upper white layer of the stone with its underlying red-brown layer serving as a background—but they were frequently cut in stones of a single color, such as sard, and even the transparent garnet, peridot, ruby and, more rarely, emerald.
Portraiture, in ancient Egypt, had been carried to a high point, but it was the sculptor not the lapidary who was called upon to make likeness in stone. In Greece, the engraver of gems at first depicted gods and goddesses, often full-length figures, but never portraits of real people. During the reign of Alexander, however, the engraver of gems ventured into the field of portraiture. Trained to portray the surpassing beauty of the gods, he perhaps found it difficult, in the beginning, to relinquish the ideals of proportion and contour required in deities. At any rate, his first efforts at human portraiture were rather too godlike to be good likeness. One looks upon those all too perfect Greek profiles with some doubt as to their truth. It took many years and the fall of Greece to bring gem portraiture down to the hard facts of realism.
The young Alexander was a beautiful youth—a fact fully appreciated by himself. And when, in due course, his beard began to grown he refused to allow the classic contours of cheek and chin to be thus hidden from view, so he shaved, and thereby set a fashion in Greece and Italy which lasted hundreds of years. Although he lived to the age of thirty-three his portraits on coins and gems always show him as an ageless, beardless youth.
His ‘engraver in ordinary’ was Pyrgoyteles—he alone was permitted to cut the royal likeness. ‘If any other artist should be discovered to have cut the most sacred image of the sovereign, the same punishment should be inflicted upon him as was appointed for sacrilege.’
After the death of Alexander, the gem cutter, no longer forbidden to ‘cut the most sacred image of the sovereign,’ engraved many stones with the divine profile. They were for the most part deep cut intaglios. In spite of the fact that cameo cutting was especially suited to portraiture, intaglios long continued to outnumber cameos. The great popularity of the little gems bearing the portrait of Alexander is believed to have originated in the idea that since he had been such a favorite of fortune his likeness on a precious stone must bring good luck to its owner.
In the period between the death of Alexander and the conquest of the East by Rome, the work of the Greek goldsmith underwent great changes. Gems from far places were now at the disposal of the jewelry maker. Precious stones traveled in company with ginger, pepper, and Chinese cinnamon up the Persian Gulf in galleys and then across the Arabian desert on camel back to the many Mediterranean ports which were a part of the Hellenistic world. Now, for the first time, was introduced the true topaz, the color clear, yellow wine; also the amethyst, long known in Egypt but new to the Greeks; and there was a new stone so exactly the color of sea water that it was said to become invisible if submerged in it, so transparent was the gem—hence its name, ‘aquamarine’. Another new stone was the Syrian garnet, deep red purple in color; and since it was a soft stone it was very popular with the engraver. He gave it a flat base and a strongly convex top, and on this arched surface he engraved figures and portraits.
In its new form the ring stone retained only a trace of the original scarab shape. Any transparent red stone cut in this manner was known as ‘carbuncle.’ Today, only one stone is referred to as a carbuncle and that is a fine garnet cut, as the French say, en cabochon. Large carbuncles were mounted in large rings which were hollow shells, not solid bands of gold.
Rings, necklaces, bracelets and other products of the jewelry shop were an important item of Greek export trade, and Italy was one of the chief trade centers. But all too soon, from the standpoint of Greece, Italy’s position shifted from that of customer to that of master. The Greek craftsman became the Roman slave. Fortunately, however, he was still permitted to make fine jewelry.
The Cutting And Polishing Of Gems
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
The art of cutting precious stones can be traced back through the centuries. In 1285 a guild of gem cutters existed in Paris; about a century later there were lapidaries at work in Nuremburg and it is likely that the craft was followed long before this time. To Ludwig Van Berguen, of Bruges, is given the credit of first cutting diamonds with a symmetrical arrangement of facets. This was about 1460.
It is difficult to get precise information concerning the tools of the early gem cutters, but inasmuch as those of modern lapidaries are so very simple, it is probable that there has been little change in the instruments used in the trade. But while few changes mark the equipment of the modern lapidary, yet great strides have been taken toward greater skill and finesse on the part of the workers in the craft and the display of judgment that makes for getting the utmost in beauty and value from the rough gems.
In no other craft is the mental quality of judgment as important as in that of the lapidary. In the cutting of a valuable gem from the rough stone the slightest error in judgment may mean a vast difference in the beauty of the finished gem and a difference of many dollars in its value. Next to judgment the qualities that are of value in a lapidary are experience and skill and a trained delicacy of touch.
It will be interesting to the buyer of gems to know the routine of carrying the rough stone through the various processes that finally produce the finished polished gem as it is found at the jewelers. It may be well to explain here that the cutting and polishing of diamonds is a special craft—the lapidary who works in diamonds seldom concerns himself with other gems. It is also interesting to know that with the diamond to obtain brilliancy is the prime requisite, while with most other gems the matter of color is given precedence and brilliancy is a subservient quality.
The cutting and polishing of the diamond is very largely a mechanical, mathematical application of pressure and friction, while most other gems are manipulated with a human delicacy of touch and a perfection of technique which constitute the whole secret of success in gem cutting. The cutter of gems other than the diamond has a license for following his own ideas and he may alter or modify the cutting to bring out the peculiarities of any stone and depart as far as he wishes from the conventional. I shall describe here the various processes through which a rough gem stone passes.
The best judgment of the lapidary is called into play in his first consideration of the rough stone, for it is here that his experience and wisdom provides for getting the greatest measure of beauty and value from the uncut gem, and for minimizing waste and loss of weight. After passing upon the characteristic of a rough stone and deciding upon the method of getting the most from it, the lapidary, if the gem requires it, then puts it through the process known as ‘slitting,’ should this be required.
This process of dividing the rough stone is accomplished by holding it against the edge of a thin metal circular revolving plate. The biting edge of this plate is due to the diamond dust which it contains. The delicate operation of ‘slitting’ provides pieces of the stone in suitable sizes for further working. If the gem is to be faceted it is then further fashioned toward the shape it is destined to assume on a flat, horizontal or vertical revolving wheel. In order to facilitate handling each individual gem is then mounted with cement on the end of a tiny holder of wood. This holder looks very much like the ordinary pen holder. In this operation the extreme of judgment is required and considerable latitude is given the operator that he may bring out the individual characteristics and beauty of each gem.
After the faceting is complete the gem is still dull, colorless and uninteresting, and is now passed on to the polisher, whose work is to bring the utmost in brilliance and color to the surface of the gem. The polisher is usually a man who has no other connection with the gem than in polishing the work of the cutter. The work of the polisher is more mechanical than that of the cutter, but it is work of great delicacy nevertheless. The polisher must brighten and polish the facets, but in no way must he enlarge the tables or change the angles of the gem as designed by the cutter. The gem in the hands of the polisher may bring to light a number of faults—a tiny flaw may grow larger, an edge or angle may chip or a vein prove troublesome, and it requires a real craftsman, an operator with an exquisite nicety of touch, a man of infinite patience to carry the work of the cutter to completion and to do it with the least investment of time.
The discs used in polishing are similar to those used in cutting, except that instead of using an abrasive substance on the surface a variety of polishing materials, such as Tripoli or Rotten Stone is used. The discs used in both cutting and polishing are made of various materials, depending upon the peculiarities and hardness of the gem being handled. They are made of iron, brass, copper, lead, gun metal, bell metal, tin, pewter, etc. For polishing cabochon gems vertical wheels of copper, iron, wood, leather and felt are also used.
The art of cutting precious stones can be traced back through the centuries. In 1285 a guild of gem cutters existed in Paris; about a century later there were lapidaries at work in Nuremburg and it is likely that the craft was followed long before this time. To Ludwig Van Berguen, of Bruges, is given the credit of first cutting diamonds with a symmetrical arrangement of facets. This was about 1460.
It is difficult to get precise information concerning the tools of the early gem cutters, but inasmuch as those of modern lapidaries are so very simple, it is probable that there has been little change in the instruments used in the trade. But while few changes mark the equipment of the modern lapidary, yet great strides have been taken toward greater skill and finesse on the part of the workers in the craft and the display of judgment that makes for getting the utmost in beauty and value from the rough gems.
In no other craft is the mental quality of judgment as important as in that of the lapidary. In the cutting of a valuable gem from the rough stone the slightest error in judgment may mean a vast difference in the beauty of the finished gem and a difference of many dollars in its value. Next to judgment the qualities that are of value in a lapidary are experience and skill and a trained delicacy of touch.
It will be interesting to the buyer of gems to know the routine of carrying the rough stone through the various processes that finally produce the finished polished gem as it is found at the jewelers. It may be well to explain here that the cutting and polishing of diamonds is a special craft—the lapidary who works in diamonds seldom concerns himself with other gems. It is also interesting to know that with the diamond to obtain brilliancy is the prime requisite, while with most other gems the matter of color is given precedence and brilliancy is a subservient quality.
The cutting and polishing of the diamond is very largely a mechanical, mathematical application of pressure and friction, while most other gems are manipulated with a human delicacy of touch and a perfection of technique which constitute the whole secret of success in gem cutting. The cutter of gems other than the diamond has a license for following his own ideas and he may alter or modify the cutting to bring out the peculiarities of any stone and depart as far as he wishes from the conventional. I shall describe here the various processes through which a rough gem stone passes.
The best judgment of the lapidary is called into play in his first consideration of the rough stone, for it is here that his experience and wisdom provides for getting the greatest measure of beauty and value from the uncut gem, and for minimizing waste and loss of weight. After passing upon the characteristic of a rough stone and deciding upon the method of getting the most from it, the lapidary, if the gem requires it, then puts it through the process known as ‘slitting,’ should this be required.
This process of dividing the rough stone is accomplished by holding it against the edge of a thin metal circular revolving plate. The biting edge of this plate is due to the diamond dust which it contains. The delicate operation of ‘slitting’ provides pieces of the stone in suitable sizes for further working. If the gem is to be faceted it is then further fashioned toward the shape it is destined to assume on a flat, horizontal or vertical revolving wheel. In order to facilitate handling each individual gem is then mounted with cement on the end of a tiny holder of wood. This holder looks very much like the ordinary pen holder. In this operation the extreme of judgment is required and considerable latitude is given the operator that he may bring out the individual characteristics and beauty of each gem.
After the faceting is complete the gem is still dull, colorless and uninteresting, and is now passed on to the polisher, whose work is to bring the utmost in brilliance and color to the surface of the gem. The polisher is usually a man who has no other connection with the gem than in polishing the work of the cutter. The work of the polisher is more mechanical than that of the cutter, but it is work of great delicacy nevertheless. The polisher must brighten and polish the facets, but in no way must he enlarge the tables or change the angles of the gem as designed by the cutter. The gem in the hands of the polisher may bring to light a number of faults—a tiny flaw may grow larger, an edge or angle may chip or a vein prove troublesome, and it requires a real craftsman, an operator with an exquisite nicety of touch, a man of infinite patience to carry the work of the cutter to completion and to do it with the least investment of time.
The discs used in polishing are similar to those used in cutting, except that instead of using an abrasive substance on the surface a variety of polishing materials, such as Tripoli or Rotten Stone is used. The discs used in both cutting and polishing are made of various materials, depending upon the peculiarities and hardness of the gem being handled. They are made of iron, brass, copper, lead, gun metal, bell metal, tin, pewter, etc. For polishing cabochon gems vertical wheels of copper, iron, wood, leather and felt are also used.
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
It was on August 28, 1717, that Watteau was definitely admitted to the Academy. All successful candidates are required to deposit a diploma work after their election, and it was for this purpose that Watteau eventually painted his famous masterpiece, ‘L’Embarquement pour Cynthére,’ which is now in the Louvre. In this poetically conceived picture, which shows a crowd of gallant youths and fair maidens about to embark for the legendary isle of perfect love, Watteau revealed a science of color harmony which was one hundred and fifty years ahead of his day. He had already excited the admiration of his contemporaries by a method of painting which was as successful as it was original. He would cover his canvas copiously and, to all appearance, vaguely with a thick layer of pigment, and on this he would proceed, so to speak, to chisel out his detail. Figures, sky, and landscape background were then built up by a series of minute touches, which gave his pictures a peculiarly vibrating and scintillating effect. His division of tone and his wonderful orchestration of complementary colors make Watteau a forerunner of the prismatic coloring of the more scientific painters of the nineteenth century.
Unfortunately he was not destined to enjoy long the fame and fortune which now awaited him. The privation and hardship of his early manhood had undermined his always frail constitution and left him a prey to phthisis.
As if he knew the end was approaching, he worked feverishly during his last years. For a time he lived with a wealthy collector named Crozat, for whose dining room he painted a set of ‘The Four Seasons.’ Though very comfortable at M Crozat’s house, which was filled with precious things and with paintings and drawings by old masters he admired, a desire for more complete independence led Watteau to leave it and live with his friend Vleughels, who afterwards became Principal of the Academy at Rome. In 1718 he left Vleughels, and shut himself up in a small apartment alone with his dreams and his illness, displaying then that craving for solitude which is said to be one of the symptoms of phthisis. Later somebody having spoken well of England, he suddenly had an almost morbid longing to cross the Channel.
In 1719 he came to London, where he painted and had some success, till the climate made him ill and unable to work. He returned to France more exhausted and weaker in health than he had ever been before, but slightly recovered during a six month’s stay with his friend, the art dealer Gersaint, for whom he painted a sign, an exquisitely finished interior with figures, in the short space of eight mornings—he was still so weak that he could only paint half the day. Then, hoping that he might recover his strength in the country, a house at Nogent was lent to him, but there his health rapidly declined and he gave himself up to religion, his last picture being a Crucifixion for the curate of the parish. Still pathetically hopeful that change of air might do him good, he begged his friend Gersaint to make arrangements for him to journey to Valenciennes. But while waiting for strength to move to his native town the end came, and on July 18, 1721, he died suddenly in Gersaint’s arms. He was only thirty seven years old.
The real sweetness and generosity of Watteau’s nature is well illustrated by a touching incident during the last months of his life.His pupil Jean Pater (1696-1736) had offended him, as Lancret had also done, by imitating his own style and subjects too closely, and in a fit of ill-temper he dismissed him from his studio. But during his last illness Watteau remembered how he had suffered in his youth from the jealousy of his seniors, and he reproached himself with having been unjust as well as unkind to Pater. He besought his friend Gersaint to persuade Pater to return to him, and when the latter arrived the dying man spent a month giving Pater all the help and guidance that he could in order to atone for his former injustice.
Pater, though possessed of less individuality than Lancret, was in many respects the best of Watteau’s followers, and, like his master, he also died young. He was haunted by a fear that he would become old and helpless before he had saved enough to live upon, and he worked so incessantly and feverishly to gain his independence that eventually his health broke down and he died in harness at forty.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
It was on August 28, 1717, that Watteau was definitely admitted to the Academy. All successful candidates are required to deposit a diploma work after their election, and it was for this purpose that Watteau eventually painted his famous masterpiece, ‘L’Embarquement pour Cynthére,’ which is now in the Louvre. In this poetically conceived picture, which shows a crowd of gallant youths and fair maidens about to embark for the legendary isle of perfect love, Watteau revealed a science of color harmony which was one hundred and fifty years ahead of his day. He had already excited the admiration of his contemporaries by a method of painting which was as successful as it was original. He would cover his canvas copiously and, to all appearance, vaguely with a thick layer of pigment, and on this he would proceed, so to speak, to chisel out his detail. Figures, sky, and landscape background were then built up by a series of minute touches, which gave his pictures a peculiarly vibrating and scintillating effect. His division of tone and his wonderful orchestration of complementary colors make Watteau a forerunner of the prismatic coloring of the more scientific painters of the nineteenth century.
Unfortunately he was not destined to enjoy long the fame and fortune which now awaited him. The privation and hardship of his early manhood had undermined his always frail constitution and left him a prey to phthisis.
As if he knew the end was approaching, he worked feverishly during his last years. For a time he lived with a wealthy collector named Crozat, for whose dining room he painted a set of ‘The Four Seasons.’ Though very comfortable at M Crozat’s house, which was filled with precious things and with paintings and drawings by old masters he admired, a desire for more complete independence led Watteau to leave it and live with his friend Vleughels, who afterwards became Principal of the Academy at Rome. In 1718 he left Vleughels, and shut himself up in a small apartment alone with his dreams and his illness, displaying then that craving for solitude which is said to be one of the symptoms of phthisis. Later somebody having spoken well of England, he suddenly had an almost morbid longing to cross the Channel.
In 1719 he came to London, where he painted and had some success, till the climate made him ill and unable to work. He returned to France more exhausted and weaker in health than he had ever been before, but slightly recovered during a six month’s stay with his friend, the art dealer Gersaint, for whom he painted a sign, an exquisitely finished interior with figures, in the short space of eight mornings—he was still so weak that he could only paint half the day. Then, hoping that he might recover his strength in the country, a house at Nogent was lent to him, but there his health rapidly declined and he gave himself up to religion, his last picture being a Crucifixion for the curate of the parish. Still pathetically hopeful that change of air might do him good, he begged his friend Gersaint to make arrangements for him to journey to Valenciennes. But while waiting for strength to move to his native town the end came, and on July 18, 1721, he died suddenly in Gersaint’s arms. He was only thirty seven years old.
The real sweetness and generosity of Watteau’s nature is well illustrated by a touching incident during the last months of his life.His pupil Jean Pater (1696-1736) had offended him, as Lancret had also done, by imitating his own style and subjects too closely, and in a fit of ill-temper he dismissed him from his studio. But during his last illness Watteau remembered how he had suffered in his youth from the jealousy of his seniors, and he reproached himself with having been unjust as well as unkind to Pater. He besought his friend Gersaint to persuade Pater to return to him, and when the latter arrived the dying man spent a month giving Pater all the help and guidance that he could in order to atone for his former injustice.
Pater, though possessed of less individuality than Lancret, was in many respects the best of Watteau’s followers, and, like his master, he also died young. He was haunted by a fear that he would become old and helpless before he had saved enough to live upon, and he worked so incessantly and feverishly to gain his independence that eventually his health broke down and he died in harness at forty.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
Gamble
The American Heritage Dictionary lists the following four options for the definition of the word gamble:
1. To bet on an uncertain outcome, as of a contest.
2. To play a game of chance for stakes.
3. To take a risk in the hope of gaining an advantage or a benefit.
4. To engage in reckless or hazardous behavior: You are gambling with your health by continuing to smoke.
Can gambling only be done in a casino, online or otherwise? Why is it that no one considers entrepreneurs gamblers? I think there is a big gray area + gamblers could be perceived as willing losers who occasionally win.
I think the concept could be applicable to gem business. I know many who are engaged in the pursuit of speculative profits who, by their own lack of skill are really gambling + they are knowingly trading gemstones without an identifiable edge.
1. To bet on an uncertain outcome, as of a contest.
2. To play a game of chance for stakes.
3. To take a risk in the hope of gaining an advantage or a benefit.
4. To engage in reckless or hazardous behavior: You are gambling with your health by continuing to smoke.
Can gambling only be done in a casino, online or otherwise? Why is it that no one considers entrepreneurs gamblers? I think there is a big gray area + gamblers could be perceived as willing losers who occasionally win.
I think the concept could be applicable to gem business. I know many who are engaged in the pursuit of speculative profits who, by their own lack of skill are really gambling + they are knowingly trading gemstones without an identifiable edge.
Wine Appreciation
(via BBC) Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have shown that a person's enjoyment of wine can be heightened if they are simply told that it is an expensive one + researchers also managed to pass off a $90 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon as a $10 bottle and presented a $5 as one worth $45 + the volunteers' brains were scanned to monitor the neural activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex - the area of the brain associated with decision-making and pleasure in terms of flavour + higher ratings were given to the more 'expensive' wines + according to Oliver Johnson, CEO of the UK-based Wine Society, the volunteers appeared to have been associating the price of the wine with prestige + they were expecting it to be a good vintage, with a good label, even though they didn't have that information + Johnson says this response was common with certain prestige products such as clothing, cars and, nowadays, handbags + other viewpoints @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7187577.stm
It's amazing + I think it could be applicable to the gem and jewelry sector.
It's amazing + I think it could be applicable to the gem and jewelry sector.
Serpentine From Liaoning Province, China
Chinese serpentine (s) have been appearing on the jewelry markets of Russia and the Far East for some time + they are convincing simulants (imitations) for nephrite or jadeite.
Chinese serpentines are found in the provinces of Sichuan, Quinghai, Shenxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Liaoning + China has the world’s largest chrysotile-asbestos deposit in Shimian, Ya’an prefecture, in Sichuan province + popular serpentine varieties include retinolite + williamsite + bowenite + green marble + they are used for interior decoration + sculpture + cabochons + beads + gemstones.
Standard gemological tests should easily identify the specimens, but if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Chinese serpentines are found in the provinces of Sichuan, Quinghai, Shenxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Liaoning + China has the world’s largest chrysotile-asbestos deposit in Shimian, Ya’an prefecture, in Sichuan province + popular serpentine varieties include retinolite + williamsite + bowenite + green marble + they are used for interior decoration + sculpture + cabochons + beads + gemstones.
Standard gemological tests should easily identify the specimens, but if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Mona Lisa Smile
Dr. Armin Schlechter, a manuscript expert believes the centuries-old mystery behind the identity of the ‘Mona Lisa’ in Leonardo da Vinci's famous portrait is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo + the experts at the Heidelberg University library say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that Lisa del Giocondo was indeed the model for one of the most famous portraits in the world.
More info @ http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080114/wl_nm/germany_mona_lisa_dc
Theft Of The Mona Lisa
http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/mona_lisa/mmain.html
More info @ http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080114/wl_nm/germany_mona_lisa_dc
Theft Of The Mona Lisa
http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/mona_lisa/mmain.html
Green Quartz
Some amethysts from certain localities change the color to green when heat-treated under the right conditions. They are known as Prasiolite or Greened-Amethyst. They are inexpensive + frequently encountered in the gem market in all shapes and sizes. There are irradiation+ heat treated green amethysts in the market.
Synthetic green quartz are also available. Synthetic green quartz was reported in the United States in 1954. Its commercial production started in 1960, mostly in Russia. Bi-colored stones in yellow + green, and multi-color in purple + yellow + green were synthesized in 1955 + 1997 respectively. Today visual identification of green quartz is difficult. If in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Synthetic green quartz are also available. Synthetic green quartz was reported in the United States in 1954. Its commercial production started in 1960, mostly in Russia. Bi-colored stones in yellow + green, and multi-color in purple + yellow + green were synthesized in 1955 + 1997 respectively. Today visual identification of green quartz is difficult. If in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
The Birth Of Plenty
The Birth Of Plenty : How The Prosperity Of The Modern World Was Created by William Bernstein is an interesting book that examines the nature, causes, and consequences of economic growth + other viewpoints.
Here is what the description of The Birth Of Plenty says (via Amazon):
In the breakthrough spirit of Against the Gods, William Bernstein's The Birth of Plenty has the topical uniqueness and storytelling panache to literally create its own category and reader. Based upon the premise that mankind experienced virtually zero economic growth from the dawn of time until 1820, this provocative, bigpicture book identifies the four conditions necessary for sustained economic progress--property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets, and communications and transportation technology-- and then analyzes their gradual appearance and impact throughout every corner of the globe. Filled with bestselling author William Bernstein's trademark meticulous research and page-turning writing style, The Birth of Plenty explores:
- Where the world economy could be headed next
- Implications of the book's thesis for today's society
- How the absence of one or more of the conditions continues to threaten beleaguered regions
Rare is the book that proposes an entirely new premise, validates that premise with inarguable research and analysis, and then explains beyond question both the relevance and the implications of its premise to the reader and the world at large.
The Birth of Plenty is just such a book. From its unique, topical subject matter to its tremendous review potential, this insightful book will be one of the most talked-about volumes of the publishing season.
1st chapter free here
Here is what the description of The Birth Of Plenty says (via Amazon):
In the breakthrough spirit of Against the Gods, William Bernstein's The Birth of Plenty has the topical uniqueness and storytelling panache to literally create its own category and reader. Based upon the premise that mankind experienced virtually zero economic growth from the dawn of time until 1820, this provocative, bigpicture book identifies the four conditions necessary for sustained economic progress--property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets, and communications and transportation technology-- and then analyzes their gradual appearance and impact throughout every corner of the globe. Filled with bestselling author William Bernstein's trademark meticulous research and page-turning writing style, The Birth of Plenty explores:
- Where the world economy could be headed next
- Implications of the book's thesis for today's society
- How the absence of one or more of the conditions continues to threaten beleaguered regions
Rare is the book that proposes an entirely new premise, validates that premise with inarguable research and analysis, and then explains beyond question both the relevance and the implications of its premise to the reader and the world at large.
The Birth of Plenty is just such a book. From its unique, topical subject matter to its tremendous review potential, this insightful book will be one of the most talked-about volumes of the publishing season.
1st chapter free here
Talk To Her
Talk To Her (2002)
Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar
Screenplay: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores
(via YouTube): ALMODOVAR – Talk To Her – Hable Con Ella
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNdzcTZUW54
I think Almodóvar fashions a wondrous tale + it's a unique film.
Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar
Screenplay: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores
(via YouTube): ALMODOVAR – Talk To Her – Hable Con Ella
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNdzcTZUW54
I think Almodóvar fashions a wondrous tale + it's a unique film.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
In the meantime Greece had been forging ahead toward that high pinnacle of excellence in the arts which has made her achievements a standard for all time.
Little portrayal of jewelry is found in Greek statuary; the Greek sculptor loved too well the beauty of the human body unadorned by trinkets to break the pure line of arm or hand with a clutter of jewelry. But the flesh-and-blood ladies of Greece were not so austere in their taste; they wore crowns, diadems, earrings, bracelets, rings, pins for the hair, brooches and necklaces, whose elaborate workmanship can scarcely be described as denoting a love of simplicity.
Gold was wrought with the delicacy of fine lace and minute embroidery; and occasionally a gemstone, perhaps an emerald or garnet, or a touch of bright enamel, was introduced by way of color. The rich lady of that day did not, like her modern prototype, wear quantities of brilliant gems whose settings were subordinate to the stones. Her jewelry depended for its superb beauty on the artistry of the craftsman.
Particularly characteristic was the use of pendants; the Grecian lady was all ajangle with them. Her necklace might be composed of seventy-five or more tiny dangling vases, each ornamented with filigree and held to a band of woven chain by finer chains masked at the top by rosettes. Little vases of gold were typical of Greek jewelry; sometimes they were interspersed with golden flowers, or heads of animals. As for earrings, the jeweler outdid himself in fertile invention. He did not stop at earrings recognizable to us as such, but enlarged and embellished them with tiny images of the gods and series of ornamental pendants suspended by delicate chains until the weight of metal involved was too great to be supported by the ear. It is thought that these super earrings were fastened to the diadem and hung down over the ears, giving to the face the appearance of being set in gold like an exquisite cameo. With gold tassels at the ends of her girdle, gold ball-shaped buttons to fasten her dress at shoulder or neck and a row of thin gold plates to border her draperies, the lady of fashion could indeed be resplendent; but possibly she did not carry all this wealth of metal at one and the same time. However, her varied demands on the goldsmith kept him busy.
Athens was humming with the activities of the craftsmen—leather workers, potters, jewelers, and their assistants. Small workshops were enlarged, and guilds of skilled workers (forerunners of our present labor unions) were formed. This did not mean that the craft of jewelry making was divided into separate branches as it is today. An apprentice was still expected to learn from start to finish how to shape gold and engrave stones. In fact, a new task had by now been added to those already practised by the engraver of gems. In the seventh century B.C., when the more convenient custom of purchasing with money instead of by barter was introduced, it was the jeweler, already an adept in the cutting of intaglios, who cut the dies for stamping coins.
In the meantime Greece had been forging ahead toward that high pinnacle of excellence in the arts which has made her achievements a standard for all time.
Little portrayal of jewelry is found in Greek statuary; the Greek sculptor loved too well the beauty of the human body unadorned by trinkets to break the pure line of arm or hand with a clutter of jewelry. But the flesh-and-blood ladies of Greece were not so austere in their taste; they wore crowns, diadems, earrings, bracelets, rings, pins for the hair, brooches and necklaces, whose elaborate workmanship can scarcely be described as denoting a love of simplicity.
Gold was wrought with the delicacy of fine lace and minute embroidery; and occasionally a gemstone, perhaps an emerald or garnet, or a touch of bright enamel, was introduced by way of color. The rich lady of that day did not, like her modern prototype, wear quantities of brilliant gems whose settings were subordinate to the stones. Her jewelry depended for its superb beauty on the artistry of the craftsman.
Particularly characteristic was the use of pendants; the Grecian lady was all ajangle with them. Her necklace might be composed of seventy-five or more tiny dangling vases, each ornamented with filigree and held to a band of woven chain by finer chains masked at the top by rosettes. Little vases of gold were typical of Greek jewelry; sometimes they were interspersed with golden flowers, or heads of animals. As for earrings, the jeweler outdid himself in fertile invention. He did not stop at earrings recognizable to us as such, but enlarged and embellished them with tiny images of the gods and series of ornamental pendants suspended by delicate chains until the weight of metal involved was too great to be supported by the ear. It is thought that these super earrings were fastened to the diadem and hung down over the ears, giving to the face the appearance of being set in gold like an exquisite cameo. With gold tassels at the ends of her girdle, gold ball-shaped buttons to fasten her dress at shoulder or neck and a row of thin gold plates to border her draperies, the lady of fashion could indeed be resplendent; but possibly she did not carry all this wealth of metal at one and the same time. However, her varied demands on the goldsmith kept him busy.
Athens was humming with the activities of the craftsmen—leather workers, potters, jewelers, and their assistants. Small workshops were enlarged, and guilds of skilled workers (forerunners of our present labor unions) were formed. This did not mean that the craft of jewelry making was divided into separate branches as it is today. An apprentice was still expected to learn from start to finish how to shape gold and engrave stones. In fact, a new task had by now been added to those already practised by the engraver of gems. In the seventh century B.C., when the more convenient custom of purchasing with money instead of by barter was introduced, it was the jeweler, already an adept in the cutting of intaglios, who cut the dies for stamping coins.
The Double Rosette
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Because Rosettes were always in a closed setting with the stones fixed in a bed of black pitch, it was impossible to keep the stone clean, even though a sheet of foil protected them from the pitch. Moisture entered through the tiny gaps between the petals, causing the foil to tarnish and eventually decompose, and thus allow the pitch to soil the undersides of the diamonds. This is probably the main reason why the design was discarded after such a relatively short time. Open settings, which make it possible for the gems to be kept clean from underneath, might perhaps have saved these exquisite compositions.
In 1027 the Emperor Conrad II set a nobleman of Werd (now Donauwörth, in Bavaria) on a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine Emperor. On his return the nobleman brought with him relics of the Holy Cross which had been presented to him, and founded a small convent where they could be preserved. This convent later became the Benedictine Abbey zum Heiligen Kreuz at Donauwörth.
When he visited the abbey in 1496, the Emperor Maximilian I decided to donate a work of art worthy of containing the relics, and commissioned the Antwerp-born master goldsmith Lucas to create a richly decorated monstrance. It took Lucas seventeen years to complete it, and it can still be admired both as a beautiful receptacle for the relics and as a magnificent work of art worthy of the Emperor. When the abbey was closed at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the monstrance became part of the Oettingen-Wallenstein Library and Art Collection now housed at Harburg Castle, near Donauwörth. We know that Master Lucas received from the Emperor not only the silver for the monstrance but also the gems, including the Rosettes already set and needing only to be fixed to the frame. So the four diamond Rosettes, as well as the ruby and fluorite Rosettes, must all have been fashioned before 1496, in a specialist workshop.
Among the liturgical objects in the cathedral of Augsburg, in Bavaria, is a gold and silver cross set with diamonds, pearls and colored gems. The front of the cross is made of gold, the back of chased silver, hinged at the top to form a box for holy relics. It is dated 1494 and was executed by the brothers Jörg and Nicolas Seld, members of a well-known Augsburg family of jewelers. The most important part of this cross lies at its center—a beautifully executed and well-preserved ten-petalled Double Rosette. On the four arms there are less attractive five-petalled Single Rosettes. This work clearly demonstrates how a diamond Rosette can take the place of a single gem of equal size without any loss of magnificence.
The central eight-petalled Double Rosette in the wedding ring of Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria, is one of the best known pieces of Rosette jewelry in existence. Sadly, however, its underlying foil has completely deteriorated, with the result that the diamonds have not only lost their original brilliance but now look like very ordinary, if translucent, black stones with only a faint surface luster.
A ten-petalled Rosette, the earliest documented, appears in a portrait of Princess Margaret, the three year old daughter of the Emperor Maximilian I, painted by the Master of Moulins in 1483 (now in the Musée de Versailles, Paris).
The small diamonds of the six-petalled Double Rosette in Duchess Anna’s pendant are all different, in outline as well as in faceting. The cutter had not worked with the precision normally required at the time, and this irregularity was probably the reason that the outer setting featured a series of additional prongs, placed against the blunt rounded ends of the fan-shaped outer diamonds, where the pitch was quite visible between the gems. The gems are at the lowest end of the scale in clarity, and have disturbing dark inclusions. The diamonds are not colorless, and one of them is distinctly brownish. It therefore seems that the pendant was never intended to display wealth, but was probably used as an amulet. In spite of all this, the original foils may have disguised many of these imperfections and achieved wonders of reflection.
Because Rosettes were always in a closed setting with the stones fixed in a bed of black pitch, it was impossible to keep the stone clean, even though a sheet of foil protected them from the pitch. Moisture entered through the tiny gaps between the petals, causing the foil to tarnish and eventually decompose, and thus allow the pitch to soil the undersides of the diamonds. This is probably the main reason why the design was discarded after such a relatively short time. Open settings, which make it possible for the gems to be kept clean from underneath, might perhaps have saved these exquisite compositions.
In 1027 the Emperor Conrad II set a nobleman of Werd (now Donauwörth, in Bavaria) on a diplomatic mission to the Byzantine Emperor. On his return the nobleman brought with him relics of the Holy Cross which had been presented to him, and founded a small convent where they could be preserved. This convent later became the Benedictine Abbey zum Heiligen Kreuz at Donauwörth.
When he visited the abbey in 1496, the Emperor Maximilian I decided to donate a work of art worthy of containing the relics, and commissioned the Antwerp-born master goldsmith Lucas to create a richly decorated monstrance. It took Lucas seventeen years to complete it, and it can still be admired both as a beautiful receptacle for the relics and as a magnificent work of art worthy of the Emperor. When the abbey was closed at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the monstrance became part of the Oettingen-Wallenstein Library and Art Collection now housed at Harburg Castle, near Donauwörth. We know that Master Lucas received from the Emperor not only the silver for the monstrance but also the gems, including the Rosettes already set and needing only to be fixed to the frame. So the four diamond Rosettes, as well as the ruby and fluorite Rosettes, must all have been fashioned before 1496, in a specialist workshop.
Among the liturgical objects in the cathedral of Augsburg, in Bavaria, is a gold and silver cross set with diamonds, pearls and colored gems. The front of the cross is made of gold, the back of chased silver, hinged at the top to form a box for holy relics. It is dated 1494 and was executed by the brothers Jörg and Nicolas Seld, members of a well-known Augsburg family of jewelers. The most important part of this cross lies at its center—a beautifully executed and well-preserved ten-petalled Double Rosette. On the four arms there are less attractive five-petalled Single Rosettes. This work clearly demonstrates how a diamond Rosette can take the place of a single gem of equal size without any loss of magnificence.
The central eight-petalled Double Rosette in the wedding ring of Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria, is one of the best known pieces of Rosette jewelry in existence. Sadly, however, its underlying foil has completely deteriorated, with the result that the diamonds have not only lost their original brilliance but now look like very ordinary, if translucent, black stones with only a faint surface luster.
A ten-petalled Rosette, the earliest documented, appears in a portrait of Princess Margaret, the three year old daughter of the Emperor Maximilian I, painted by the Master of Moulins in 1483 (now in the Musée de Versailles, Paris).
The small diamonds of the six-petalled Double Rosette in Duchess Anna’s pendant are all different, in outline as well as in faceting. The cutter had not worked with the precision normally required at the time, and this irregularity was probably the reason that the outer setting featured a series of additional prongs, placed against the blunt rounded ends of the fan-shaped outer diamonds, where the pitch was quite visible between the gems. The gems are at the lowest end of the scale in clarity, and have disturbing dark inclusions. The diamonds are not colorless, and one of them is distinctly brownish. It therefore seems that the pendant was never intended to display wealth, but was probably used as an amulet. In spite of all this, the original foils may have disguised many of these imperfections and achieved wonders of reflection.
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