(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
3. Snuff-Boxes And Trinkets
Under these conditions it was possible for the middle classes to possess all the various trinkets suggested by fashion.
Smoking, by now, was out of fashion. It was considered distinctly vulgar, but tobacco in another form, namely snuff, was among the imperative elegances of the times. Both ladies and gentlemen took snuff. The social ritual of offering a pinch of snuff to a friend, delicately sniffing another pinch one’s self, dusting off one’s face furbelows with a flourishing flip of the fingers (lest the brown powder deface the whiteness of ruffles), and finally snapping shut the lid of the jeweled snuff-box—all this ceremony, one suspects, may have been carefully practised before a mirror to ensure grace. At any rate, the chief factor in the performance was the snuff-box. Every richness of decoration conceivably to the jeweler and the artist was bestowed on the snuff box.
One box was not enough for the gallant; he carried numbers of them in his capacious coat-tail pockets.
Although a lady too had her snuff-box, it was her fan that furnished an accessory for graceful flourishing of dainty hands. It has always been one of the most effective implements of coquetry, and during the middle of the eighteenth century every lady carried a fan. Naturally it must be a work of art. Whatever the material—paper, silk, or chicken-skin parchment—the artist painted it, and the jeweler often set glittering gems in its handle or framework.
By now, the chatelaine was a contrivance usually consisting of a stout hook covered by a shield from which, hanging chains, were a miscellaneous assortment of small objects in elaborately wrought metal cases, often enriched with enamel. Thimble, scissors, needle-case, scent-case, seals, patch-box, toothpick-case and what not hung in a tinkling company along with a watch and its key. By 1785 there was no more popular wedding present than a chatelaine with its varied ‘equipage’ for the bride.
Buckles were an important item of dress both for men and women. Buckles to fasten laces, stock-buckles, knee-buckles, girdle-buckles, but most of all shoe-buckles, were essential and worn by everyone, including children.
When first introduced, shoe-buckles had been small, but soon they grew both in size and prominence. They were made in greatest variety of design and material, from the most inexpensive metals to gold set with gems or pinchbeck set with paste. The industry flourished until the latter part of the century when the shoestring began usurping the rights of the shoe-buckle. Then great was the outcry of the buckle-makers who tried to boycott the shoestring by methods even more curious than those of our modern placarded picket-line. On tickets to public entertainment one might find the notice, ‘Gentlemen cannot be admitted with shoestrings.’ But it was no use; shoestrings won.
Once cheap jewelry had proved its popularity, experimenters in the making of glass gems became more numerous than ever. Among them was a German, Strass by name, living in Paris, who succeeded in producing a particularly clear glass, rich in lead, and so sparkling that under the name of ‘Strass paste’ it was widely used for imitation diamonds or, when colored, for other stones.
Even the rich did not disdain to wear counterfeit jewelry upon occasion, and so flourishing became the trade that in 1767 it was incorporated as the joaillers-faussetiers of Paris.
The inexpensive products of the European jeweler were not, however, confined to local markets, for cheap jewelry, along with the ever popular bead, was an indispensable part of every exploring trader’s pack. With a handful of glass ‘pearls’, a few colored beads and some cheap trinkets, the crafty trader could create a boom in elephant hunting; and the delighted native hunter would eagerly exchange a magnificent ivory tusk for a pinchbeck bauble or for five big glass beads.
For the business man it was a deal worthy of large scale expansion. The English had great storehouses along the Thames to hold the heaped beads and gewgaws intended for bartering with any wide-eyed savage who didn’t know any better.
Even aside from the savage, beads were and are the favorite article of jewelry among almost all peoples. Both France and England exported beads by the ton; they were so cheaply made and so easily packed.
The last mentioned advantage holds good for real jewels, and has been recognized by all civilized countries in all times. A hoard of jewels is the most portable form for a large fortune and the most easily convertible into cash at short notice. It would seem as if the chief function of most crown jewels was to raise money to pay for wars. If not sold outright jewels could always be pawned.
At the close of the seventeenth century there was a marked change in the cut of man’s coat. It was now double-breasted, cut short in front with long tails behind. The closely buttoned coat made waistcoat pockets inaccessible, therefore the watch was carried in a small pocket, or fob, made at the waist band of the breeches.
Here was another opportunity for the industrious jeweler. Watches and their dangling bunches of seals were elaborated into bejeweled and enameled materpieces. The watch-case was often mounted with gems, the dial-plate intricately decorated, and even the tiny hands were shaped with an eye to beauty. The watch-key likewise was carefully designed and set with a stone. And Fashion helped the goldsmith further by suggesting that since a man had two of these little pockets, one on each side, it looked well-preserved a balance of ornament—to carry two watches, one in each pocket. It was not necessary that both should be timekeepers, one could be what was called a fausse montre - false watch—but in appearance the false was as decorative as th real watch.
The ladies, although not possessed of fob pockets, must not be outdone. They also carried two watches. A feminine touch was given to the fausse montre when its front ws a pincushion. If she chose, the lady wore her watch dangling among the many nicknacks that hung from her chatelaine.
In 1777, Paris established a loan center known as Mont-de-Piété (fund of pity); and when depression, caused by political difficulties, gripped the rich man’s pocketbook the Mont-de-Piété was glutted with jewelry. It is said that at one time the gold watches alone occupied forty casks!
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
Monday, February 25, 2008
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
4
The Norwich School owes its fame to two stars of the first magnitude, Crome and Cotman, and to a host of lesser luminaries. John Sell Cotman was fourteen years younger than Crome, and though also born at Norwich, on June 11, 1782, he did not, like Crome, acquire his art education in his native city. Cotman from the first was in a very different position. He was the son of well-to-do draper, received a good education at the Norwich Grammar Schook, and was intended to enter his father’s shop; but when his bent for art clearly declared itself his father was sensible enough to allow his son to make it his vocation and sent him to London.
Cotman remained in London from 1800 to 1806, and probably the most fruitful part of the education he received there was his association with the group of artists who frequented the house of Dr Thoman Monro, who has already been mentioned in this Outline as the friend of Turner adn Girtin. In Dr Monro’s house at 8 Adelphi Terrace, Cotman made the acquaintance of and worked with all the most brilliant young artists of the day, and in addition to the studies he made there under these stimulating circumstances he joined a sketching club which Girtin had founded.
To Girtin, who was not only an inspiring genius but also a most generous and affectionate friend, Cotman probably owed most at this stage of his career, and it must have been a great shock to him when Girtin died at the early age of twenty seven. After Girtin’s death in November 1802 London was not the same place to Cotman, and though as a young struggling artist he could hardly complain of want of success—for he had exhibited no fewer than thirty paintings at the Royal Academy between 1800 and 1806—he made up his mind to return to his native city.
In London Cotman had applied himself especially to architectural subjects, and it is possible that even in these early days he was influenced in this direction by the gifted West Country artist, Samuel Prout (1783-1852), who excelled in water colors of these subjects, and was living in London from 1802 to 1804; but when he returned to Norwich in 1806 or 1807, Cotman at first set himself up as a portrait painter. Gradually, however, under the influence of Crome—who was thirty nine when Cotman was twenty five—he devoted himself more and more to landscape. He became a member of the Norwich Society of Artists and was for a time its secretary.
Cotman was a prolific worker at this time, and to the Society’s exhibition in 1808 he contributed no fewer than sixty seven works. In 1809 he married, and soon afterwards removed to Yarmouth, where he added to his means by teaching and drawing as well as painting in oils and water colors and also etching. In 1811 he commenced a publication by subscription of his ‘Architectural Etchings’ and having made a number of topographical tours throughout the country, he published in 1816, his ‘Specimens of Norman and Gothic Architecture, Norfolk Churches,’ etc. He formed a useful association with Dawson Turner, the Norfolk antiquary, for whose antiquarian publications Cotman drew and etched the illustrations, and during the next three years (1817-19) he made annual expeditions into Normandy with this writer, whose Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, illustrated by Cotman, was published in 1822. All the time that he was engaged on drawings for these and other publications Cotman was exhibiting oil paintings and water colors both in Norwich and in London, but though several of these found purchasers the prices were so low that, notwithstanding his immense industry, Cotman could not have supported his wife and family if, in addition to all his other activities, he had not continued to give drawing lessons.
Natural Landscape (continued)
4
The Norwich School owes its fame to two stars of the first magnitude, Crome and Cotman, and to a host of lesser luminaries. John Sell Cotman was fourteen years younger than Crome, and though also born at Norwich, on June 11, 1782, he did not, like Crome, acquire his art education in his native city. Cotman from the first was in a very different position. He was the son of well-to-do draper, received a good education at the Norwich Grammar Schook, and was intended to enter his father’s shop; but when his bent for art clearly declared itself his father was sensible enough to allow his son to make it his vocation and sent him to London.
Cotman remained in London from 1800 to 1806, and probably the most fruitful part of the education he received there was his association with the group of artists who frequented the house of Dr Thoman Monro, who has already been mentioned in this Outline as the friend of Turner adn Girtin. In Dr Monro’s house at 8 Adelphi Terrace, Cotman made the acquaintance of and worked with all the most brilliant young artists of the day, and in addition to the studies he made there under these stimulating circumstances he joined a sketching club which Girtin had founded.
To Girtin, who was not only an inspiring genius but also a most generous and affectionate friend, Cotman probably owed most at this stage of his career, and it must have been a great shock to him when Girtin died at the early age of twenty seven. After Girtin’s death in November 1802 London was not the same place to Cotman, and though as a young struggling artist he could hardly complain of want of success—for he had exhibited no fewer than thirty paintings at the Royal Academy between 1800 and 1806—he made up his mind to return to his native city.
In London Cotman had applied himself especially to architectural subjects, and it is possible that even in these early days he was influenced in this direction by the gifted West Country artist, Samuel Prout (1783-1852), who excelled in water colors of these subjects, and was living in London from 1802 to 1804; but when he returned to Norwich in 1806 or 1807, Cotman at first set himself up as a portrait painter. Gradually, however, under the influence of Crome—who was thirty nine when Cotman was twenty five—he devoted himself more and more to landscape. He became a member of the Norwich Society of Artists and was for a time its secretary.
Cotman was a prolific worker at this time, and to the Society’s exhibition in 1808 he contributed no fewer than sixty seven works. In 1809 he married, and soon afterwards removed to Yarmouth, where he added to his means by teaching and drawing as well as painting in oils and water colors and also etching. In 1811 he commenced a publication by subscription of his ‘Architectural Etchings’ and having made a number of topographical tours throughout the country, he published in 1816, his ‘Specimens of Norman and Gothic Architecture, Norfolk Churches,’ etc. He formed a useful association with Dawson Turner, the Norfolk antiquary, for whose antiquarian publications Cotman drew and etched the illustrations, and during the next three years (1817-19) he made annual expeditions into Normandy with this writer, whose Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, illustrated by Cotman, was published in 1822. All the time that he was engaged on drawings for these and other publications Cotman was exhibiting oil paintings and water colors both in Norwich and in London, but though several of these found purchasers the prices were so low that, notwithstanding his immense industry, Cotman could not have supported his wife and family if, in addition to all his other activities, he had not continued to give drawing lessons.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Gold Theft
We are seeing an increase in robberies of valuables, especially gold and artifacts from ancient temples in Asia, and few stolen goods are ever retrieved + the thieves resort to mundane tactics, such as replacing ancient artifacts with cheap objects (just like switching gemstones from natural to synthetic or imitation + you need a good eye to know the difference) + they are also using special chemicals to remove gold from statues + I think the theft could stem from rising gold prices + rising demand in the amulet market (s).
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Dumortierite + Sapphirine
Madagascar + Tanzania are well-known for a number of uncommon + rare minerals, but lately we are seeing more uncommon gem materials from Tunduru, Tanzania; Dumortierite, when transparent, is violetish gray/brownish pink + they are usually found in mine-run parcels (mixed lots); Sapphirine, when transparent, is gray/violet/red + they are commonly found in mine-run parcels (mixed lots) + both Dumortierite and Sapphirine, if found in alluvial sources look like water-worn pebbles and are often confused with mainstream colored stones + standard gemological tests may identify both specimens, if you have master-stone specimens for quick comparison, but if doubtful always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Norwich School prospered exceedingly, more so than any other body of provincial artists has ever done in England, and their success was due not only to the excellence of their own work but also to the fact that they labored in a field well prepared to receive art. It will have been observed how many of the great English landscape painters belonged to the Eastern Countries—Gainsborough and Constable were both Suffolk men—and the extent to which the art of all them was influenced by the art of Holland. The explanation is to be found in the intimate trade relations which had existed for centuries between East Anglia and the Netherlands. Owing to this commercial intercourse numbers of Dutch and Flemish pictures found their way into East Anglia homes, and while London during the eighteenth century worshipped Italian art almost to the exclusion of all other, well-to-do people in Norfolk and Suffolk took a keener delight in thte homelier art of the Dutch and Flemish Schools. Thus at the very time that Constable was being neglected in London, John Crome was enjoying esteem and wide popularity in Norfolk.
It is true the Crome never made a fortune; to the end his lessons brought him in more money than his paintings, for any of which fifty pounds was a long and rarely attained price; but Crome did sell his pictures and in time became quite comfortably off. In 1801 he moved into a big house in Gildengate Street, he kept two horses, and managed before his death to acquire many good pictures and to form a library. Norwich was proud of her distinguished painter, and a special seat was always reserved for him in the parlor of the old inn in the market-place, where in his later years he was treated as an oracle, revered by all.
Under these circumstances we can understand why Crome continued to reside in his native Norwich and was never tempted to settle in London. In 1806 he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy, but between then and 1818 he only sent thirteen pictures in all to be exhibited there. He visited London occasionally, twice he went to Cumberland, in 1802 and 1806, once to Weymouth, and in 1814 he made a tour in France and Belgium, but his chief subjects were almost exclusively local. He was perfectly satisfied with the lanes, heaths, and river-banks surrounding Norwich, without wishing to journey further afield. In his great tree picture, ‘The Poringland Oak,’ he rivalled his own idol Hobbema; in ‘Moon Rise on the Yare,’ he surpassed the moonlight paintings of Van der Neer, by whom it was inspired; while masterpiece, ‘Mousehold Health,’ at the National Gallery, will always rank Crome amongst the grandest of landscape painters. Asked by his son why he had painted this last subject, Crome made the memorable reply: ‘For air and space.’
In addition to his oil paintings Crome executed a few water-colors and also a number of etchings. In 1834 a series of thirty-one of his etchings was published under the title of ‘Norfolk Picturesque Scenery.’
While out sketching in his fifty third year he caught a chill, and after a few days illness died on April 22, 1821. On the day before he died he addressed to his son the words so often quoted: ‘John, my boy, paint, but paint only for fame; and if your subject is only a pigsty, dignify it.’ The art of Old Crome is indeed a perpetual reminder that a masterpiece of painting is due far more to the treatment than to the subject, and nobody knew better than the Norwich master how to give dignity to the humblest subject by its stately presentation in a well-balanced composition.
Though his landscape art is limited in comparison with that of Turner and Constable, within his own self-imposed limits Crome is second to none. He did not set out, like Turner, to mirror the blazing glories of dawn and sunset, nor did he, like Constable, hold himself ready to paint Nature and weather in every aspect: Crome waited for the quieter moods of Nature in his own homeland, and he painted these to perfection.
Natural Landscape (continued)
The Norwich School prospered exceedingly, more so than any other body of provincial artists has ever done in England, and their success was due not only to the excellence of their own work but also to the fact that they labored in a field well prepared to receive art. It will have been observed how many of the great English landscape painters belonged to the Eastern Countries—Gainsborough and Constable were both Suffolk men—and the extent to which the art of all them was influenced by the art of Holland. The explanation is to be found in the intimate trade relations which had existed for centuries between East Anglia and the Netherlands. Owing to this commercial intercourse numbers of Dutch and Flemish pictures found their way into East Anglia homes, and while London during the eighteenth century worshipped Italian art almost to the exclusion of all other, well-to-do people in Norfolk and Suffolk took a keener delight in thte homelier art of the Dutch and Flemish Schools. Thus at the very time that Constable was being neglected in London, John Crome was enjoying esteem and wide popularity in Norfolk.
It is true the Crome never made a fortune; to the end his lessons brought him in more money than his paintings, for any of which fifty pounds was a long and rarely attained price; but Crome did sell his pictures and in time became quite comfortably off. In 1801 he moved into a big house in Gildengate Street, he kept two horses, and managed before his death to acquire many good pictures and to form a library. Norwich was proud of her distinguished painter, and a special seat was always reserved for him in the parlor of the old inn in the market-place, where in his later years he was treated as an oracle, revered by all.
Under these circumstances we can understand why Crome continued to reside in his native Norwich and was never tempted to settle in London. In 1806 he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy, but between then and 1818 he only sent thirteen pictures in all to be exhibited there. He visited London occasionally, twice he went to Cumberland, in 1802 and 1806, once to Weymouth, and in 1814 he made a tour in France and Belgium, but his chief subjects were almost exclusively local. He was perfectly satisfied with the lanes, heaths, and river-banks surrounding Norwich, without wishing to journey further afield. In his great tree picture, ‘The Poringland Oak,’ he rivalled his own idol Hobbema; in ‘Moon Rise on the Yare,’ he surpassed the moonlight paintings of Van der Neer, by whom it was inspired; while masterpiece, ‘Mousehold Health,’ at the National Gallery, will always rank Crome amongst the grandest of landscape painters. Asked by his son why he had painted this last subject, Crome made the memorable reply: ‘For air and space.’
In addition to his oil paintings Crome executed a few water-colors and also a number of etchings. In 1834 a series of thirty-one of his etchings was published under the title of ‘Norfolk Picturesque Scenery.’
While out sketching in his fifty third year he caught a chill, and after a few days illness died on April 22, 1821. On the day before he died he addressed to his son the words so often quoted: ‘John, my boy, paint, but paint only for fame; and if your subject is only a pigsty, dignify it.’ The art of Old Crome is indeed a perpetual reminder that a masterpiece of painting is due far more to the treatment than to the subject, and nobody knew better than the Norwich master how to give dignity to the humblest subject by its stately presentation in a well-balanced composition.
Though his landscape art is limited in comparison with that of Turner and Constable, within his own self-imposed limits Crome is second to none. He did not set out, like Turner, to mirror the blazing glories of dawn and sunset, nor did he, like Constable, hold himself ready to paint Nature and weather in every aspect: Crome waited for the quieter moods of Nature in his own homeland, and he painted these to perfection.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Keen Observation
To the best of my knowledge no one has highlighted the importance of education vs work experience in the diamond industry for a long time. I think Mordy Rapaport was spot on. It was educational + insightful.
Perspectives
(via Rapaport, Vol.31, No.5, February 1, 2008) Mordy Rapaport writes:
Education has always played an important role in business. Individuals’ job placement and overall success are many times based upon not only their workplace history but also their academic achievements. While I was signing up for business classes recently, I reflected on the study habits of my younger colleagues in the diamond industry.
The debate of education versus actual work experience has become prevalent in today’s fast-paced business environment. There seems to be a desire by individuals entering the workforce to obtain an increasingly higher level of education. Many younger individuals pursue multiple degrees, including MBAs and even PhDs, forgoing real work experience, and entering the business arena at an increasingly later stage of their lives.
The diamond business, however, differs from other industries in that there is a need for industry stakeholders to obtain the necessary knowledge of the product we continuously deal with. While business skills are direly needed, perhaps even more so than in other industries, they come second to an understanding of the product’s physical properties and the industry’s uniquely competitive environment. As a result, many very capable individuals opt out of pursuing a formal education and instead focus on the ongoing demands of their existing business and job priorities.
While both scenarios are understandable, I question whether either is the ideal route to be taken. Working in a vibrant environment with a hectic travel schedule and a large array of opportunities has forced me to consider the pros and cons of education and to prioritize my time accordingly. While gaining the general knowledge derived from the curriculum of today’s business schools is beneficial, I do not believe it to be the determining factor in whether to choose studies over hand-on-experience. Vast knowledge can be obtained from first hand experience in certain fields of work, more than can be relayed by a professor sitting in a classroom. On the other hand, limiting one’s expertise to a single commodity—which in the case of the diamond industry has immense volatility in terms of supply and demand—can be equally shortsighted. While the diamond industry provides a source of revenue for many, the ability to venture out into alternative business propositions should not be discarded.
What is needed is a middle ground. Many Indian acquaintances of mine have been able to capture the positive aspects of both worlds. Beginning work in the diamond trade at a young age, many leave India to pursue studies in some of the finest European and North American institutions. Their decision to step outside of their social circles and attend universities abroad adds immensely to their business sense and capabilities.
So while many younger individuals in our industry have previously not pursued studies in the broad range of business topics available, I believe it is crucial to obtain knowledge that will enable us to position ourselves for success. Many avenues, such as the GIA School of Business, are now available. Previously forced to choose between studies and work, today those within our trade interested in combining the two can select from multiple opportunities. While earning a bachelor’s degree does not determines one’s capabilities, it is certainly something beneficial to possess. Many outside factors not within our control affect the diamond trade today. A person’s ability to understand and counter any such effects will ultimately determine long term success.
Perspectives
(via Rapaport, Vol.31, No.5, February 1, 2008) Mordy Rapaport writes:
Education has always played an important role in business. Individuals’ job placement and overall success are many times based upon not only their workplace history but also their academic achievements. While I was signing up for business classes recently, I reflected on the study habits of my younger colleagues in the diamond industry.
The debate of education versus actual work experience has become prevalent in today’s fast-paced business environment. There seems to be a desire by individuals entering the workforce to obtain an increasingly higher level of education. Many younger individuals pursue multiple degrees, including MBAs and even PhDs, forgoing real work experience, and entering the business arena at an increasingly later stage of their lives.
The diamond business, however, differs from other industries in that there is a need for industry stakeholders to obtain the necessary knowledge of the product we continuously deal with. While business skills are direly needed, perhaps even more so than in other industries, they come second to an understanding of the product’s physical properties and the industry’s uniquely competitive environment. As a result, many very capable individuals opt out of pursuing a formal education and instead focus on the ongoing demands of their existing business and job priorities.
While both scenarios are understandable, I question whether either is the ideal route to be taken. Working in a vibrant environment with a hectic travel schedule and a large array of opportunities has forced me to consider the pros and cons of education and to prioritize my time accordingly. While gaining the general knowledge derived from the curriculum of today’s business schools is beneficial, I do not believe it to be the determining factor in whether to choose studies over hand-on-experience. Vast knowledge can be obtained from first hand experience in certain fields of work, more than can be relayed by a professor sitting in a classroom. On the other hand, limiting one’s expertise to a single commodity—which in the case of the diamond industry has immense volatility in terms of supply and demand—can be equally shortsighted. While the diamond industry provides a source of revenue for many, the ability to venture out into alternative business propositions should not be discarded.
What is needed is a middle ground. Many Indian acquaintances of mine have been able to capture the positive aspects of both worlds. Beginning work in the diamond trade at a young age, many leave India to pursue studies in some of the finest European and North American institutions. Their decision to step outside of their social circles and attend universities abroad adds immensely to their business sense and capabilities.
So while many younger individuals in our industry have previously not pursued studies in the broad range of business topics available, I believe it is crucial to obtain knowledge that will enable us to position ourselves for success. Many avenues, such as the GIA School of Business, are now available. Previously forced to choose between studies and work, today those within our trade interested in combining the two can select from multiple opportunities. While earning a bachelor’s degree does not determines one’s capabilities, it is certainly something beneficial to possess. Many outside factors not within our control affect the diamond trade today. A person’s ability to understand and counter any such effects will ultimately determine long term success.
Fragrance Ingredient Research
'There are no new colors to see and very few new sounds, but we are actually creating new, unique smells no one has ever smelled before.'
- Ned Polan
Vice President
Fragrance Ingredient Research
International Flavors & Fragrances
www.iff.com
- Ned Polan
Vice President
Fragrance Ingredient Research
International Flavors & Fragrances
www.iff.com
The Shield Cut
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Inventories of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries describe triangular diamonds in different ways—for instance, as en demies losanges, plats à 3 quarrés, plats aux 2 costez fais à 3 quarrés, and couchiés. Most descriptions, however, include the word écu (French, from the Latin scutum, meaning a shield)—‘en guise ďun escu’, ‘en façon ďescusson’, etc. I have included all historical triangular cuts under this one heading (even those entries which represent triangular Table Cuts and Mirror Cuts), because for centuries the shield played such an important role in warfare and heraldry, and the shape of the stone took precedence over the cut. Modern triangular diamonds are described, according to the cut, as Brilliants or Step Cuts, and only as Shields if the sides are rounded.
A cleavage of an octahedral crystal (a ‘was’) displays one side with a dominating triangular face (one of the octahedral faces). It looks like a Pyramidal Point Cut, deeply buried, with only one of its faces, and small areas of the surrounding faces, exposed. This is described in French as couchié and in German as liegender.
The most important known historical jewel containing large Shield Cuts was owned by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. On his ‘Feather’, in addition to five large spinels, a Burgundian Point Cut and a Table Cut diamond weighing 7-8 ct, there were two Shields, each about 12 mm in diameter and weighing about 6 ct. They were described in 1504 as ‘zwen demant schilt mit dryen anhangenden eggkenden falsetten, gutt wasser, wigt yeglicher ungeverlich kratj sechse’. Perhaps the oldest surviving examples of Table and Table Cut Shields are to be found on the Burgundian Court Goblet, dating from the middle of the fifteenth century.
Inventories of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries describe triangular diamonds in different ways—for instance, as en demies losanges, plats à 3 quarrés, plats aux 2 costez fais à 3 quarrés, and couchiés. Most descriptions, however, include the word écu (French, from the Latin scutum, meaning a shield)—‘en guise ďun escu’, ‘en façon ďescusson’, etc. I have included all historical triangular cuts under this one heading (even those entries which represent triangular Table Cuts and Mirror Cuts), because for centuries the shield played such an important role in warfare and heraldry, and the shape of the stone took precedence over the cut. Modern triangular diamonds are described, according to the cut, as Brilliants or Step Cuts, and only as Shields if the sides are rounded.
A cleavage of an octahedral crystal (a ‘was’) displays one side with a dominating triangular face (one of the octahedral faces). It looks like a Pyramidal Point Cut, deeply buried, with only one of its faces, and small areas of the surrounding faces, exposed. This is described in French as couchié and in German as liegender.
The most important known historical jewel containing large Shield Cuts was owned by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. On his ‘Feather’, in addition to five large spinels, a Burgundian Point Cut and a Table Cut diamond weighing 7-8 ct, there were two Shields, each about 12 mm in diameter and weighing about 6 ct. They were described in 1504 as ‘zwen demant schilt mit dryen anhangenden eggkenden falsetten, gutt wasser, wigt yeglicher ungeverlich kratj sechse’. Perhaps the oldest surviving examples of Table and Table Cut Shields are to be found on the Burgundian Court Goblet, dating from the middle of the fifteenth century.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
2. Pinchbeck Settings
As the century advanced, England prospered and the general standard of living rose. Those who could not afford the luxury of fine gems could at least ape the fashions of the upper classes by wearing cheap jewelry. There were good imitation pearls; and in place of diamonds there was rock crystal, rose-cut or brilliant. ‘Bristol diamonds’ and ‘Cornish diamonds’ were rock crystal named respectively for the places where they were found. If you did not possess the desired number of jewels (genuine or counterfeit) to wear on some festive occasion, you hired them.
Inexpensive stones needed inexpensive settings, and this demand was met by a number of substitutes for gold. The most popular was an alloy of copper and zinc called ‘pinchbeck,’ after its inventor, Christopher Pinchbeck, a clock and watch maker of London.
Neither he nor his son Edward, who continued the business after his father’s death in 1732, appear to have offered their metal alloy as real gold; yet in the course of time the word ‘pinchbeck’ has come to be used in a derogatory sense to denote any cheap and fraudulent sham.
Pinchbeck gold was used for all sorts of jewelry, and for a time it would retain its yellow color without tarnishing. Frequently, however, it was given a wash of gold to prolong its brightness.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
2. Pinchbeck Settings
As the century advanced, England prospered and the general standard of living rose. Those who could not afford the luxury of fine gems could at least ape the fashions of the upper classes by wearing cheap jewelry. There were good imitation pearls; and in place of diamonds there was rock crystal, rose-cut or brilliant. ‘Bristol diamonds’ and ‘Cornish diamonds’ were rock crystal named respectively for the places where they were found. If you did not possess the desired number of jewels (genuine or counterfeit) to wear on some festive occasion, you hired them.
Inexpensive stones needed inexpensive settings, and this demand was met by a number of substitutes for gold. The most popular was an alloy of copper and zinc called ‘pinchbeck,’ after its inventor, Christopher Pinchbeck, a clock and watch maker of London.
Neither he nor his son Edward, who continued the business after his father’s death in 1732, appear to have offered their metal alloy as real gold; yet in the course of time the word ‘pinchbeck’ has come to be used in a derogatory sense to denote any cheap and fraudulent sham.
Pinchbeck gold was used for all sorts of jewelry, and for a time it would retain its yellow color without tarnishing. Frequently, however, it was given a wash of gold to prolong its brightness.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Cai Guo-Qiang
If you are in New York, you should visit Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum where 80 works by Cai Guo-Qiang, known for his pyrotechnic displays and gunpowder drawings will be exhibited from February 22 through May 28, 2008 + they are stunning!
Useful links:
www.caiguoqiang.com
www.guggenheim.org
Useful links:
www.caiguoqiang.com
www.guggenheim.org
'Tanusorn'-type Blue Sapphire Treatment
Thailand is perceived as one of the important gemstone refineries of the world + and now comes a new type of blue sapphire treatment, 'Tanusorn' type blue sapphires: 'Tanusorn' is named after Tanusorn Lethaisong, the gem 'chef', where semi-translucent pale colored sapphires consisting of many cracks are exposed to high temperature heating technique (s) involving cobalt and lead containing flux + the resultant blue coloration is due to the inclusions of blue cobalt-bearing solid residues left along healed fractures + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
The Mind Of A Trader
The Mind Of A Trader by Alpesh Patel contains useful guidelines for beginners + many insights from the master of the market + I liked it.
Commodities Market
Edward de Bono, wrote in his book 'I am right, you are wrong': 'The stock market is meant to reflect the values of a corporation listed. But a more direct influence on the market price is the tendency of people to buy and sell. So if you attend to and anticipate the tendency of your colleagues you will successfully play the market. After a while it becomes a game in itself and the underlying corporate values fade into the background, even though they are periodically brought forward to rationalize behavior that has really been based on other factors.' He calls such kind of behaviour as ludecy from Latin 'ludo' meaning 'I play'.
Useful link:
www.edwarddebono.com
In my view without speculation traders don't stand to gain at all + if it's seen as a game commodities market is similar to stock markets + valuable lessons for the gem/jewelry/art traders.
Useful link:
www.edwarddebono.com
In my view without speculation traders don't stand to gain at all + if it's seen as a game commodities market is similar to stock markets + valuable lessons for the gem/jewelry/art traders.
Rent-A-Jewelry Concept
There's a huge trend globally where you can rent yachts and villas, high-end vacations + and now companies are renting out Rolex/Chopard watches and brand jewelry for a modest fee so that their clients are able to attend special/charity events and look good/famous + analysts say women always fall in love with jewelry and the concept may become the wave of the future + what a spinoff!
Useful links:
www.blingyourself.com
www.borrowedbling.com
Useful links:
www.blingyourself.com
www.borrowedbling.com
DDC On Arbitration And Term Limits
Chaim Even Zohar writes about The Diamond Dealers Club (DDC) leadership issues + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
The French Cut
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Pavilion-based French Cuts were square multi-faceted diamonds. They date back to the early fifteenth century, and seem to have been favored by royalty and members of the nobility—Francis I of France, Elizabeth of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham among them—but they did not become fashionable until the seventeenth century, when brilliance was first of all merely accepted and finally became a requisite of all diamonds. The Taille en Seize and the Scissor Cut also came into fashion at this time.
The French Cut followed the existing fashion for square-shaped diamonds but did not derive from octahedral rough as did the High Table Cut. Although French Cuts were produced from other types of rough if this proved suitable or if the jeweler particularly requested it, the original design apparently came from a crystal form which combined cubic and dodecahedral faces. At least the early French Cuts derived from crystals of spheroid shape.
To fashion this type of rough, first the apex had to be ground down to make a square table with its sides set diagonally to the sides of the diamond. Then the main crystal faces were remodelled into facets and the outline squared. Finally, the pavilion was adjusted to a proper depth and given a plain faceting, often in the form of a narrow cross. Although the original reason for fashioning pavilion-based French Cuts was to transform obsolete cuts into something more fashionable, the faceting design has survived to the present day.
The origin of the term French Cut is not known; most probably it was so called because it was more popular in France than anywhere else. In old inventories it is simply described as ‘a Table Cut with a lozenge on top’. For instance, an inventory of 1570 describes a diamond on the border of a headdress belonging to Elizabeth of Austria as ‘ung dyaman taillé en lozange pardessus.’ Small French Cut diamonds have survived in unimportant jewels and trinkets.
Most Flat-Bottomed French Cuts appear to have been recuts of trihedrally faceted Gothic Roses, but the result was a misshapen gem with very poor light effects. Recutting was restricted to rather small diamonds, as we can see from the French Crown inventory of 1791. The apexes of the old, low relief Rose Cuts were ground down slightly, leaving small tri-angular table facets.
Early authors seem to have been unaware of the existence of the French Cut, nor is it discussed in modern literature, where it is frequently referred to simply as ‘a historical single cut.’
Pavilion-based French Cuts were square multi-faceted diamonds. They date back to the early fifteenth century, and seem to have been favored by royalty and members of the nobility—Francis I of France, Elizabeth of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham among them—but they did not become fashionable until the seventeenth century, when brilliance was first of all merely accepted and finally became a requisite of all diamonds. The Taille en Seize and the Scissor Cut also came into fashion at this time.
The French Cut followed the existing fashion for square-shaped diamonds but did not derive from octahedral rough as did the High Table Cut. Although French Cuts were produced from other types of rough if this proved suitable or if the jeweler particularly requested it, the original design apparently came from a crystal form which combined cubic and dodecahedral faces. At least the early French Cuts derived from crystals of spheroid shape.
To fashion this type of rough, first the apex had to be ground down to make a square table with its sides set diagonally to the sides of the diamond. Then the main crystal faces were remodelled into facets and the outline squared. Finally, the pavilion was adjusted to a proper depth and given a plain faceting, often in the form of a narrow cross. Although the original reason for fashioning pavilion-based French Cuts was to transform obsolete cuts into something more fashionable, the faceting design has survived to the present day.
The origin of the term French Cut is not known; most probably it was so called because it was more popular in France than anywhere else. In old inventories it is simply described as ‘a Table Cut with a lozenge on top’. For instance, an inventory of 1570 describes a diamond on the border of a headdress belonging to Elizabeth of Austria as ‘ung dyaman taillé en lozange pardessus.’ Small French Cut diamonds have survived in unimportant jewels and trinkets.
Most Flat-Bottomed French Cuts appear to have been recuts of trihedrally faceted Gothic Roses, but the result was a misshapen gem with very poor light effects. Recutting was restricted to rather small diamonds, as we can see from the French Crown inventory of 1791. The apexes of the old, low relief Rose Cuts were ground down slightly, leaving small tri-angular table facets.
Early authors seem to have been unaware of the existence of the French Cut, nor is it discussed in modern literature, where it is frequently referred to simply as ‘a historical single cut.’
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
1. Rococo
Long after the death of Louis XIV the ‘Grand Monarque style’ continued to influence the world of fashion, spreading into many other lands besides France.
Now there had been certain rules of proportion and composition of design drawn up by the purists of the Renaissance; nevertheless, when the jeweler broke a few of these mandates and introduced a carefree twirl of golden ribbons or a forbidden scallop there was undoubted charm in the result. But as time went on the propensity to ignore all fundamental rules of design increased, in some instances, to the point of absurdity. Scrolls, curlicues, ill-proportioned masses and gimcrack detail invaded many fields of art and craft besides that of jewelry. This fantastic style of design is known as rococo, and it lasted well into the eighteenth century, with reverberations in the nineteenth century.
Since the new method of faceting diamonds had centered interest in this gem, quantities of diamonds had reached England; these and other large stones were mounted by the goldsmith in rococo settings, while the artist in fine metalwork played only second fiddle.
Reversing the fable of the ugly duckling, the once charming fledgling known as rococo, grew into a lumpish and ungainly maturity during the next half century.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
1. Rococo
Long after the death of Louis XIV the ‘Grand Monarque style’ continued to influence the world of fashion, spreading into many other lands besides France.
Now there had been certain rules of proportion and composition of design drawn up by the purists of the Renaissance; nevertheless, when the jeweler broke a few of these mandates and introduced a carefree twirl of golden ribbons or a forbidden scallop there was undoubted charm in the result. But as time went on the propensity to ignore all fundamental rules of design increased, in some instances, to the point of absurdity. Scrolls, curlicues, ill-proportioned masses and gimcrack detail invaded many fields of art and craft besides that of jewelry. This fantastic style of design is known as rococo, and it lasted well into the eighteenth century, with reverberations in the nineteenth century.
Since the new method of faceting diamonds had centered interest in this gem, quantities of diamonds had reached England; these and other large stones were mounted by the goldsmith in rococo settings, while the artist in fine metalwork played only second fiddle.
Reversing the fable of the ugly duckling, the once charming fledgling known as rococo, grew into a lumpish and ungainly maturity during the next half century.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
Another great landscape painter who during his lifetime never took the place in the world that his genius warranted was John Crome, frequently called ‘Old Crome,’ to distinguish him from his son, who also became a painter. Crome, who was born at Norwich on December 21, 1769, was the son of a poor weaver and began life as an errand boy, carrying bottles of medicine for a doctor, but when he was about fourteen or fifteen his love of art led him to apprentice himself to a house and sign painter. While following his trade during his apprenticeship, Crome took every opportunity of sketching the picturesque scenery which surrounds his native city. He was very, very poor, but he persevered and his perseverance gained him friends.
Chief among these friends was Mr Thomas Harvey, of Catton in Norfolk, who possessed a fine picture gallery and encouraged Crome to study and make copies of the pictures he had collected. Mr Harvey’s collection included landscapes by Richard Wilson—by whom Crome was greatly influenced—Gainsborough’s ‘Cottage Door,’ and many fine examples of the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, notably Hobbema, for whose art Crome then conceived a passionate admiration which lasted all his life. Mr Harvey not only introduced Crome to other Norwich amateurs, but also obtained him some pupils to whom he taught drawing, though at this time the artist was only an awkward, uninformed country lad, whose deficiencies of education were to some extent compensated for by his great gifts and his natural shrewdness.
Meanwhile Crome had formed an intimate friendship with a lad of his own class, Robert Ladbrooke (1770-1842), then a printer’s apprentice, but also ambitious to become an artist. After living together for some two years, Crome and Ladbrooke married sisters, and abandoning their original trades they established themselves in partnership as artists, Ladbrooke painting portraits at five shillings apiece, and Crome selling his landscapes for what they would fetch—which was not always as much as five shillings! But for Crome’s practice as a drawing-master he could hardly have kept himself, let alone a family, in these early years, but gradually he acquired a local reputation and his landscapes found occasional purchasers, though at pitifully low prices.
In February 1803 Crome gathered round him the artists of his native city for their mutual improvement, and from this beginning arose the Norwich Society of Artists, founded in 1805. The Society held annual exhibitions to which Crome was a large contributor, for he rarely sent his pictures to London for exhibition and consequently was little known there. Crome’s pupils and associates, among whom the most distinguished were John Sell Cotman, James Stark (1794-1859), George Vincent, and his eldest son John Bernay Crome, formed what is known as the ‘Norwich School.’ The inspiration of this school was derived chiefly from Crome, but also from the Dutch painters by whom he was influenced.
Natural Landscape (continued)
3
Another great landscape painter who during his lifetime never took the place in the world that his genius warranted was John Crome, frequently called ‘Old Crome,’ to distinguish him from his son, who also became a painter. Crome, who was born at Norwich on December 21, 1769, was the son of a poor weaver and began life as an errand boy, carrying bottles of medicine for a doctor, but when he was about fourteen or fifteen his love of art led him to apprentice himself to a house and sign painter. While following his trade during his apprenticeship, Crome took every opportunity of sketching the picturesque scenery which surrounds his native city. He was very, very poor, but he persevered and his perseverance gained him friends.
Chief among these friends was Mr Thomas Harvey, of Catton in Norfolk, who possessed a fine picture gallery and encouraged Crome to study and make copies of the pictures he had collected. Mr Harvey’s collection included landscapes by Richard Wilson—by whom Crome was greatly influenced—Gainsborough’s ‘Cottage Door,’ and many fine examples of the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, notably Hobbema, for whose art Crome then conceived a passionate admiration which lasted all his life. Mr Harvey not only introduced Crome to other Norwich amateurs, but also obtained him some pupils to whom he taught drawing, though at this time the artist was only an awkward, uninformed country lad, whose deficiencies of education were to some extent compensated for by his great gifts and his natural shrewdness.
Meanwhile Crome had formed an intimate friendship with a lad of his own class, Robert Ladbrooke (1770-1842), then a printer’s apprentice, but also ambitious to become an artist. After living together for some two years, Crome and Ladbrooke married sisters, and abandoning their original trades they established themselves in partnership as artists, Ladbrooke painting portraits at five shillings apiece, and Crome selling his landscapes for what they would fetch—which was not always as much as five shillings! But for Crome’s practice as a drawing-master he could hardly have kept himself, let alone a family, in these early years, but gradually he acquired a local reputation and his landscapes found occasional purchasers, though at pitifully low prices.
In February 1803 Crome gathered round him the artists of his native city for their mutual improvement, and from this beginning arose the Norwich Society of Artists, founded in 1805. The Society held annual exhibitions to which Crome was a large contributor, for he rarely sent his pictures to London for exhibition and consequently was little known there. Crome’s pupils and associates, among whom the most distinguished were John Sell Cotman, James Stark (1794-1859), George Vincent, and his eldest son John Bernay Crome, formed what is known as the ‘Norwich School.’ The inspiration of this school was derived chiefly from Crome, but also from the Dutch painters by whom he was influenced.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Perspective
Watches and jewelry are categories that you can hold back on. It's really a luxury in the sense of it's not a necessity whatsoever. And that's its vulnerability in more challenging times.
- Milton Pedraza, CEO, The Luxury Institute
www.luxuryinstitute.com
I think he is right + we are living in interesting times.
- Milton Pedraza, CEO, The Luxury Institute
www.luxuryinstitute.com
I think he is right + we are living in interesting times.
Philanthropy Movement
According to Giving USA, U.S charitable giving in 2006 totaled $295 billion, up from $183 billion in 2003 + the total non-profit sector has grown faster than the business sector in terms of dollars and the number of organizations + as they say the best teachers are practitioners + talk to people you know.
Useful links:
www.aafrc.org
www.bridgespangroup.org
www.gatesfoundation.org
www.hewlett.org
www.clarkfoundation.org
www.robinhood.org
www.tigerfoundation.org
www.philanthropyroundtable.org
www.foundationstrategy.com
www.givingforum.org
Useful links:
www.aafrc.org
www.bridgespangroup.org
www.gatesfoundation.org
www.hewlett.org
www.clarkfoundation.org
www.robinhood.org
www.tigerfoundation.org
www.philanthropyroundtable.org
www.foundationstrategy.com
www.givingforum.org
Saffront Art Online Auction
The Saffronart spring online auction of modern Indian art works will take place March 12-13, 2008 and feature 140 works by 55 artists + paintings of Surendran Nair/Atul Dodiya /A Balasubramaniam/Subodh Gupta ++++
Useful link:
www.saffronart.com
Useful link:
www.saffronart.com
Contemporary Art In The Mekong Region
Kamol Sukin writes about a historic contemporary-art event in Bangkok, a two-year process to introduce the art-curator profession into Mekong countries + the process of selecting artists and art pieces in their home towns and discussing each piece with the others, both online and in person + other viewpoints @ http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/02/10/headlines/headlines_30064932.php
Friday, February 22, 2008
Gold Market
According to World Gold Council + Shanghai Gold Exchange, China has overtaken the United States to become the second biggest market in the world for gold and gold jewelry + the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) report shows sales of gold and gold products on the Chinese mainland, a record high in 2007 at 316.49 trillion yuan (£22.68 trillion) + it's the world's top gold producer, ending South Africa's 102-year reign.
Useful links:
www.gold.org
www.sge.sh
www.gfms.co.uk
Useful links:
www.gold.org
www.sge.sh
www.gfms.co.uk
The Three Gorges Dam
Find out more about The Three Gorges Dam @ www.ctgpc.com + it's one of the great official modernisation projects in China, for the sake of energy +++++
The Power Laws
The Power Laws by Richard Koch is simply brilliant + I think that his solutions are not only for businesses, but also for life in general + I liked it.
Random Thoughts
It is clear the future holds opportunities—it also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to seize the opportunities, avoid the pitfalls and get back home by 6 o'clock.
- Woody Allen
I liked this one.
- Woody Allen
I liked this one.
The Scissor Cut
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
It is not always easy to choose the best name for a particular cut from the variety of names given to it in diamond literature. The term Cross Cut has been quite widely used for design which I prefer to call the Scissor Cut. Cross Cut is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because it does not look like a cross, and secondly because the term ‘cross work’ is used today to describe the placing of the table, culet and first four main facets on the crown and pavilion. This preparatory operation produces what used to be called a Table Cut but is now termed a ‘four square’ or ‘cross’. More elaborately faceted Scissor Cuts have sometimes been given fancy names such as Maltese Cross (there is a variety in which the cross can actually be seen). To avoid confusion, I hope that the term Scissor Cut will eventually be accepted everywhere and for all gems.
In the case of diamonds, this cut dates back to the early sixteenth century; it gradually vanished in favor of the Brilliant Cut into which most Scissors had been fashioned by 1700 or so. It is logical to assume that the Scissor Cut originally developed from Pyramidal Cuts with trihedral faceting; the apexes of these obsolete Gothic cuts were replaced by table facets, very much in the way in which French Cuts were created from spheroid crystals.
No significant references to the Scissor Cut have so far been found, either in inventories (in which they appear to have been described simply as Table Cuts or ‘faceted diamonds’), or in diamond literature or old pattern books. The low-relief faceting of the Scissor Cut could not improve on the light effects of a Table Cut, so the design was soon abandoned. But it was gradually adopted for colored gems such as beryls, quartzes, etc., whose lower refracting power favored such faceting. Caire recommeded the Scissor Cut for purple and violet sapphires.
All the Scissor Cuts in designs by, for example, Morison, Albini and Dinglinger were large, and none is believed to have been a diamond. Fortunately there are a number of Scissor Cut diamonds in authentic jewels in the Schatzkammer der Residenz in Munich. They are quite small and therefore insignificant as jewels, but are interesting from a historical point of view. There are almost one hundred Scissor Cut Hogbacks (some of them flat-bottomed) on the heraldic double crowned eagle in Anne of Austria’s collection, dating from about 1550. On the splendid necklace acquired by Duke Albrecht V in about 1575 there are two tiny square Scissors. There is also one on hand seal made around 1690 and later owned by the Empress Amalie, daughter of Joseph I. She married Charles Albert, who became Emperor of Germany in 1742.
In the Cheapside Hoard (found in 1913 under a house in London) is a 3ct Scissor Cut. The cut, with two distinctly blunt corners, is rather poorly proportioned. Most disturbing is the incongruity of both the table and the culet. The stone measures about 8.4 x 8mm. It is set in an enamelled finger ring and apparently dates from the sixteenth century. The ‘scissors’ are in very low relief and not easily discerned.
It is not always easy to choose the best name for a particular cut from the variety of names given to it in diamond literature. The term Cross Cut has been quite widely used for design which I prefer to call the Scissor Cut. Cross Cut is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because it does not look like a cross, and secondly because the term ‘cross work’ is used today to describe the placing of the table, culet and first four main facets on the crown and pavilion. This preparatory operation produces what used to be called a Table Cut but is now termed a ‘four square’ or ‘cross’. More elaborately faceted Scissor Cuts have sometimes been given fancy names such as Maltese Cross (there is a variety in which the cross can actually be seen). To avoid confusion, I hope that the term Scissor Cut will eventually be accepted everywhere and for all gems.
In the case of diamonds, this cut dates back to the early sixteenth century; it gradually vanished in favor of the Brilliant Cut into which most Scissors had been fashioned by 1700 or so. It is logical to assume that the Scissor Cut originally developed from Pyramidal Cuts with trihedral faceting; the apexes of these obsolete Gothic cuts were replaced by table facets, very much in the way in which French Cuts were created from spheroid crystals.
No significant references to the Scissor Cut have so far been found, either in inventories (in which they appear to have been described simply as Table Cuts or ‘faceted diamonds’), or in diamond literature or old pattern books. The low-relief faceting of the Scissor Cut could not improve on the light effects of a Table Cut, so the design was soon abandoned. But it was gradually adopted for colored gems such as beryls, quartzes, etc., whose lower refracting power favored such faceting. Caire recommeded the Scissor Cut for purple and violet sapphires.
All the Scissor Cuts in designs by, for example, Morison, Albini and Dinglinger were large, and none is believed to have been a diamond. Fortunately there are a number of Scissor Cut diamonds in authentic jewels in the Schatzkammer der Residenz in Munich. They are quite small and therefore insignificant as jewels, but are interesting from a historical point of view. There are almost one hundred Scissor Cut Hogbacks (some of them flat-bottomed) on the heraldic double crowned eagle in Anne of Austria’s collection, dating from about 1550. On the splendid necklace acquired by Duke Albrecht V in about 1575 there are two tiny square Scissors. There is also one on hand seal made around 1690 and later owned by the Empress Amalie, daughter of Joseph I. She married Charles Albert, who became Emperor of Germany in 1742.
In the Cheapside Hoard (found in 1913 under a house in London) is a 3ct Scissor Cut. The cut, with two distinctly blunt corners, is rather poorly proportioned. Most disturbing is the incongruity of both the table and the culet. The stone measures about 8.4 x 8mm. It is set in an enamelled finger ring and apparently dates from the sixteenth century. The ‘scissors’ are in very low relief and not easily discerned.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
5. The Flower Motive
Although the glitter and sparkle of the diamond gave it first place as a jewel in the French Court, enamel had by no means lost its vogue. It was employed in graceful designs, carried out in silhouettes of white on a black ground; or the enamel might by polychrome; or again, a surface of monochrome enamel was painted with fusible colors.
French jewelers had turned for inspiration to the vegetable kingdom. Leaves and flowers were made of gold and gems, or painted on enamel, crowded the market. One design in particular, based on the pea-pod (genre cosse de pois), was especially characteristic of the times.
Tulips also held a prominent place in design. Then, even as now, current events influenced fashion, and it was during the first half of the seventeenth century that Holland went mad over tulips. At this time occured one of the most curious epidemic crazes of history. A single tulip bulb brought $5200. Men bought and sold bulbs not yet existing or divided the value of individual bulbs into shares. Of course with such a trumpheting of publicity the tulip was bound to be featured in the fashions.
Painted enamel was especially adapted to the naturalistic representation of flowers. Not only tulips, but roses, lilies, hyacinths and other flowers conventionally woven into garlands and festoons were exquisitely pictured on background of uniform color. One scarcely knows whether the craftsmen should be called a painter or a jeweler.
As the flower motive was developed in England the very setting of a gem was composed of massed flowers wrought in gold or gold and enamel.
5. The Flower Motive
Although the glitter and sparkle of the diamond gave it first place as a jewel in the French Court, enamel had by no means lost its vogue. It was employed in graceful designs, carried out in silhouettes of white on a black ground; or the enamel might by polychrome; or again, a surface of monochrome enamel was painted with fusible colors.
French jewelers had turned for inspiration to the vegetable kingdom. Leaves and flowers were made of gold and gems, or painted on enamel, crowded the market. One design in particular, based on the pea-pod (genre cosse de pois), was especially characteristic of the times.
Tulips also held a prominent place in design. Then, even as now, current events influenced fashion, and it was during the first half of the seventeenth century that Holland went mad over tulips. At this time occured one of the most curious epidemic crazes of history. A single tulip bulb brought $5200. Men bought and sold bulbs not yet existing or divided the value of individual bulbs into shares. Of course with such a trumpheting of publicity the tulip was bound to be featured in the fashions.
Painted enamel was especially adapted to the naturalistic representation of flowers. Not only tulips, but roses, lilies, hyacinths and other flowers conventionally woven into garlands and festoons were exquisitely pictured on background of uniform color. One scarcely knows whether the craftsmen should be called a painter or a jeweler.
As the flower motive was developed in England the very setting of a gem was composed of massed flowers wrought in gold or gold and enamel.
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
Constable was not the first nor was he the last English painter whose art was appreciated in France long before his talent was duly recognized in his own country, and it may be argued that his triumph at Paris in 1824 was to some extent anticipated by the warm welcome which he Parisians had already given to his young compatriot Richard Parkes Bonington. The father of Bonington was an extraordinary man who had originally succeeded his father as governor of the Nottingham county gaol, but he lost this appointment through his irregularities and then set up as the real mainstay of the family. His son Richard was born at Arnold, a village near Nottingham, on October 25, 1801, and at an early age showed a talent for drawing which made him another infant prodigy, like Lawrence.
Meanwhile his father’s love of low company, intemperate habits, and violent political opinions had broken up his wife’s school, and about the time of the fall of Napoleon the family fled to France, first to Calais and then to Paris. Henceforward Richard Parkes Bonington, though still a boy, was the chief breadwinner for the family. In 1816 he obtained permission to copy pictures at the Louvre, where he was said to be the youngest student on record, and he also worked in the studio of Baron Gros, where his improvement was so rapid that his master soon told him he had nothing more to learn from him, and advised him to go out into the world and paint from Nature on his own account. This advice Bonington took, traveling extensively in France and also visiting Italy in 1822. His oil paintings and water colors, which were exceedingly rich in color and full of vitality, were quickly appreciated and the reputation of Bonington rapidly increased in Paris. In 1824, when Constable received his gold medal, another gold medal was also awarded to Bonington for the two coast scenes which he had sent to the Salon.
Though he had visited England now and again, Bonington was quite unknown here till 1826, when he exhibited at the British Institution two views on the French coast which surprised the English painters and at once gave him a name among his own countrymen. In the following year he exhibited another marine subject at the Academy, and in 1828—though still residing in Paris—he sent to the Academy a view on the Grand Canal, Venice, and a small historical painting of ‘Henri III of France.’ Though but twenty seven years of age, Bonington for some time had been greatly esteemed in France, and now commissions flowed upon him from England also. Anxious to fulfil them, the artist worked feverishly during the hot summer, and after a long day sketching under a scorching sun in Paris he was attacked by brain fever, followed by a severe illness. When his health had slightly improved he came over to London for medial advice, but it was too late. He had fallen into galloping consumption, and the brilliant promise of his career was cut short by his death on September 23, 1828. He was buried in the vaults of St Jame’s Church, Pentonville.
The early deaths of Girtin and Bonington were the two greatest blows British art had received, and had they lived it seems probable that Bonington might have gone even further than Girtin. His range for his years was remarkably wide, and he was as skillful in painting figures as he was in landscapes and marine subjects. His art was picturesque, romantic, and often dramatic, while he had an opulent sense of color and was able to imbue his figure paintings with a wonderful sense of life. In the Louvre, Paris, where the artist studied as a boy, the examples of Bonington’s art are more numerous and important than those at the National Gallery, London, which possesses two only, a Normandy landscape, bequeathed by Mr George Salting, and ‘The Column of St Mark, Venice.’ Happily Bonington’s work is well represented in the Wallace Collection, where there are ten of his paintings and twenty four water colors, among the former being the picture of ‘Henri IV and the Spanish Ambassador,’ which so long as 1870 fetched the considerable price of £3320 in a sale at Paris.
Natural Landscape (continued)
2
Constable was not the first nor was he the last English painter whose art was appreciated in France long before his talent was duly recognized in his own country, and it may be argued that his triumph at Paris in 1824 was to some extent anticipated by the warm welcome which he Parisians had already given to his young compatriot Richard Parkes Bonington. The father of Bonington was an extraordinary man who had originally succeeded his father as governor of the Nottingham county gaol, but he lost this appointment through his irregularities and then set up as the real mainstay of the family. His son Richard was born at Arnold, a village near Nottingham, on October 25, 1801, and at an early age showed a talent for drawing which made him another infant prodigy, like Lawrence.
Meanwhile his father’s love of low company, intemperate habits, and violent political opinions had broken up his wife’s school, and about the time of the fall of Napoleon the family fled to France, first to Calais and then to Paris. Henceforward Richard Parkes Bonington, though still a boy, was the chief breadwinner for the family. In 1816 he obtained permission to copy pictures at the Louvre, where he was said to be the youngest student on record, and he also worked in the studio of Baron Gros, where his improvement was so rapid that his master soon told him he had nothing more to learn from him, and advised him to go out into the world and paint from Nature on his own account. This advice Bonington took, traveling extensively in France and also visiting Italy in 1822. His oil paintings and water colors, which were exceedingly rich in color and full of vitality, were quickly appreciated and the reputation of Bonington rapidly increased in Paris. In 1824, when Constable received his gold medal, another gold medal was also awarded to Bonington for the two coast scenes which he had sent to the Salon.
Though he had visited England now and again, Bonington was quite unknown here till 1826, when he exhibited at the British Institution two views on the French coast which surprised the English painters and at once gave him a name among his own countrymen. In the following year he exhibited another marine subject at the Academy, and in 1828—though still residing in Paris—he sent to the Academy a view on the Grand Canal, Venice, and a small historical painting of ‘Henri III of France.’ Though but twenty seven years of age, Bonington for some time had been greatly esteemed in France, and now commissions flowed upon him from England also. Anxious to fulfil them, the artist worked feverishly during the hot summer, and after a long day sketching under a scorching sun in Paris he was attacked by brain fever, followed by a severe illness. When his health had slightly improved he came over to London for medial advice, but it was too late. He had fallen into galloping consumption, and the brilliant promise of his career was cut short by his death on September 23, 1828. He was buried in the vaults of St Jame’s Church, Pentonville.
The early deaths of Girtin and Bonington were the two greatest blows British art had received, and had they lived it seems probable that Bonington might have gone even further than Girtin. His range for his years was remarkably wide, and he was as skillful in painting figures as he was in landscapes and marine subjects. His art was picturesque, romantic, and often dramatic, while he had an opulent sense of color and was able to imbue his figure paintings with a wonderful sense of life. In the Louvre, Paris, where the artist studied as a boy, the examples of Bonington’s art are more numerous and important than those at the National Gallery, London, which possesses two only, a Normandy landscape, bequeathed by Mr George Salting, and ‘The Column of St Mark, Venice.’ Happily Bonington’s work is well represented in the Wallace Collection, where there are ten of his paintings and twenty four water colors, among the former being the picture of ‘Henri IV and the Spanish Ambassador,’ which so long as 1870 fetched the considerable price of £3320 in a sale at Paris.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Forbes Greatest Investing Stories
Forbes Greatest Investment Stories by Richard Phalon tracks the stories of some of the most successful investors in the history of Wall Street + fundamental lessons + anecdotes + contains valuable lessons + a great read + I liked it.
The Scissor Cut
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
It is not always easy to choose the best name for a particular cut from the variety of names given to it in diamond literature. The term Cross Cut has been quite widely used for design which I prefer to call the Scissor Cut. Cross Cut is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because it does not look like a cross, and secondly because the term ‘cross work’ is used today to describe the placing of the table, culet and first four main facets on the crown and pavilion. This preparatory operation produces what used to be called a Table Cut but is now termed a ‘four square’ or ‘cross’. More elaborately faceted Scissor Cuts have sometimes been given fancy names such as Maltese Cross (there is a variety in which the cross can actually be seen). To avoid confusion, I hope that the term Scissor Cut will eventually be accepted everywhere and for all gems.
In the case of diamonds, this cut dates back to the early sixteenth century; it gradually vanished in favor of the Brilliant Cut into which most Scissors had been fashioned by 1700 or so. It is logical to assume that the Scissor Cut originally developed from Pyramidal Cuts with trihedral faceting; the apexes of these obsolete Gothic cuts were replaced by table facets, very much in the way in which French Cuts were created from spheroid crystals.
No significant references to the Scissor Cut have so far been found, either in inventories (in which they appear to have been described simply as Table Cuts or ‘faceted diamonds’), or in diamond literature or old pattern books. The low-relief faceting of the Scissor Cut could not improve on the light effects of a Table Cut, so the design was soon abandoned. But it was gradually adopted for colored gems such as beryls, quartzes, etc., whose lower refracting power favored such faceting. Caire recommeded the Scissor Cut for purple and violet sapphires.
All the Scissor Cuts in designs by, for example, Morison, Albini and Dinglinger were large, and none is believed to have been a diamond. Fortunately there are a number of Scissor Cut diamonds in authentic jewels in the Schatzkammer der Residenz in Munich. They are quite small and therefore insignificant as jewels, but are interesting from a historical point of view. There are almost one hundred Scissor Cut Hogbacks (some of them flat-bottomed) on the heraldic double crowned eagle in Anne of Austria’s collection, dating from about 1550. On the splendid necklace acquired by Duke Albrecht V in about 1575 there are two tiny square Scissors. There is also one on hand seal made around 1690 and later owned by the Empress Amalie, daughter of Joseph I. She married Charles Albert, who became Emperor of Germany in 1742.
In the Cheapside Hoard (found in 1913 under a house in London) is a 3ct Scissor Cut. The cut, with two distinctly blunt corners, is rather poorly proportioned. Most disturbing is the incongruity of both the table and the culet. The stone measures about 8.4 x 8mm. It is set in an enamelled finger ring and apparently dates from the sixteenth century. The ‘scissors’ are in very low relief and not easily discerned.
It is not always easy to choose the best name for a particular cut from the variety of names given to it in diamond literature. The term Cross Cut has been quite widely used for design which I prefer to call the Scissor Cut. Cross Cut is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because it does not look like a cross, and secondly because the term ‘cross work’ is used today to describe the placing of the table, culet and first four main facets on the crown and pavilion. This preparatory operation produces what used to be called a Table Cut but is now termed a ‘four square’ or ‘cross’. More elaborately faceted Scissor Cuts have sometimes been given fancy names such as Maltese Cross (there is a variety in which the cross can actually be seen). To avoid confusion, I hope that the term Scissor Cut will eventually be accepted everywhere and for all gems.
In the case of diamonds, this cut dates back to the early sixteenth century; it gradually vanished in favor of the Brilliant Cut into which most Scissors had been fashioned by 1700 or so. It is logical to assume that the Scissor Cut originally developed from Pyramidal Cuts with trihedral faceting; the apexes of these obsolete Gothic cuts were replaced by table facets, very much in the way in which French Cuts were created from spheroid crystals.
No significant references to the Scissor Cut have so far been found, either in inventories (in which they appear to have been described simply as Table Cuts or ‘faceted diamonds’), or in diamond literature or old pattern books. The low-relief faceting of the Scissor Cut could not improve on the light effects of a Table Cut, so the design was soon abandoned. But it was gradually adopted for colored gems such as beryls, quartzes, etc., whose lower refracting power favored such faceting. Caire recommeded the Scissor Cut for purple and violet sapphires.
All the Scissor Cuts in designs by, for example, Morison, Albini and Dinglinger were large, and none is believed to have been a diamond. Fortunately there are a number of Scissor Cut diamonds in authentic jewels in the Schatzkammer der Residenz in Munich. They are quite small and therefore insignificant as jewels, but are interesting from a historical point of view. There are almost one hundred Scissor Cut Hogbacks (some of them flat-bottomed) on the heraldic double crowned eagle in Anne of Austria’s collection, dating from about 1550. On the splendid necklace acquired by Duke Albrecht V in about 1575 there are two tiny square Scissors. There is also one on hand seal made around 1690 and later owned by the Empress Amalie, daughter of Joseph I. She married Charles Albert, who became Emperor of Germany in 1742.
In the Cheapside Hoard (found in 1913 under a house in London) is a 3ct Scissor Cut. The cut, with two distinctly blunt corners, is rather poorly proportioned. Most disturbing is the incongruity of both the table and the culet. The stone measures about 8.4 x 8mm. It is set in an enamelled finger ring and apparently dates from the sixteenth century. The ‘scissors’ are in very low relief and not easily discerned.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Otolith Jewelry
Fish ear bones, called otoliths are complex polycrystalline structures composed of calcium carbonate and organic material + the native people in North Amercia have a history of using the material in a variety of designs for jewelry + they are unique.
Useful links:
www.artfulenergy.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otolith
Useful links:
www.artfulenergy.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otolith
Uranium Find In China
According to an official statement from China’s Mineral Ministry, Chinese geologists have discovered 10,000-ton level leaching sandstone-type uranium deposit at Yili basin, which is in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region + the deposit would produce more than $40 billion worth of uranium, coal and associated minerals, with coal resources totaling more than 4 billion tons.
Useful links:
www.mlr.gov.cn
www.chinamining.org
Useful links:
www.mlr.gov.cn
www.chinamining.org
Heard On The Street
No religion + no emotion + no ego + no rules + accept with open heart and mind that the only constant is change + the urge to learn is a journey, not a destination + do something you love.
Banksy Collections
I am a Banksy fan + his new collections will be shown at The Andipa Gallery @ www.andipamodern.com from Feb 29 - Mar 29, 2008
Zeng Fanzhi
I think Zeng Fanzhi is one of the major artists shaping Chinese culture of today + I liked his recent works which are more calligraphic and landscape-focussed with Chinese cultural color and character.
Useful links:
www.shanghartgallery.com
www.nhb.gov.sg
Useful links:
www.shanghartgallery.com
www.nhb.gov.sg
Walter Kistler + His Ideas
I found the Foundation for the Future + their works interesting because Walter Kistler’s idea of utilizing scientists and scholars from various fields of expertise + synthesizing their ideas for common good are delightfully stimulating and rewarding in the long term + I really liked it.
Useful link:
www.futurefoundation.org
Useful link:
www.futurefoundation.org
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
4. Precious Stones And Spices
Trading in diamonds was one of the most popular forms of investment. In his inimitable Diary, Samuel Pepys entered, under the date November 16, 1664, the following:
To Eriffe; where Madame Williams did give me information of Wm. How’s having brought eight bags of precious stones, taken from about the Dutch Vice Admiral’s neck; of which there were eight diamonds which cost him four thousand pounds sterling, in India; and hoped to have made twelve thousand pounds here for them. So, I on board; where Sir Edmund Pooly carried me down into the hold of the India ship, and there did show me the greatest wealth lie in confusion that a man can see in the world—pepper scattered through every chink, you trod upon it; and in cloves and nutmegs I walked above the knees; whole rooms full.
And so it was in Pepy’s time, even as in ancient times, precious stones and spices traveled side by side.
The last years of Louis’ reign brough misfortune to many, including the highly skilled craftsmen who were driven from France by religious persecution. Among the chief jewelers to leave Paris and settle in England was the celebrated Sir John Chardin. Like Tavernier, he had traveled extensively in the Orient, where he had collected many valuable gems.
The Court of Charles II welcomed Chardin and appointed him jeweler to the King. Charles could now be well supplied with jewelry in the ‘Grand Monarque style.’
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
4. Precious Stones And Spices
Trading in diamonds was one of the most popular forms of investment. In his inimitable Diary, Samuel Pepys entered, under the date November 16, 1664, the following:
To Eriffe; where Madame Williams did give me information of Wm. How’s having brought eight bags of precious stones, taken from about the Dutch Vice Admiral’s neck; of which there were eight diamonds which cost him four thousand pounds sterling, in India; and hoped to have made twelve thousand pounds here for them. So, I on board; where Sir Edmund Pooly carried me down into the hold of the India ship, and there did show me the greatest wealth lie in confusion that a man can see in the world—pepper scattered through every chink, you trod upon it; and in cloves and nutmegs I walked above the knees; whole rooms full.
And so it was in Pepy’s time, even as in ancient times, precious stones and spices traveled side by side.
The last years of Louis’ reign brough misfortune to many, including the highly skilled craftsmen who were driven from France by religious persecution. Among the chief jewelers to leave Paris and settle in England was the celebrated Sir John Chardin. Like Tavernier, he had traveled extensively in the Orient, where he had collected many valuable gems.
The Court of Charles II welcomed Chardin and appointed him jeweler to the King. Charles could now be well supplied with jewelry in the ‘Grand Monarque style.’
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
But few except other artists applied, and as he grew older his house became fuller and fuller of unsold pictures. After his sixtieth birthday, in 1836, his health became uncertain, and on March 30, 1837, he died suddenly in his house at Hampstead. Almost immediately after his death the world awoke to his genius, and in the same year a number of gentlemen who admired his work clubbed together and bought from the executors his picture ‘The Cornfield,’ which they presented to the nation. Strangely enough this artist, who was so little known during his own lifetime, has since his death become a familiar personality, thanks to the pious solicitude of his friend, the genre-painter C R Leslie (1794-1859, whose Memoirs of John Constable, R.A is one of the best biographies of a painter ever written. It is a classic which, for the intimate insight it gives us into the character of the man, may be compared wtih Boswell’s Johnson. All who met Constable were attracted by his simple, kindly, affectionate nature, and perhaps the most touching tribute to his memory was paid by a London cab-driver who, when he heard that he would never drive Constable again, told Leslie he was ‘as sorry as if he had been my own father—he was a nice man as that, sir.’
Leslie had always been a firm believer in the genius of Constable, and wrote of his works: ‘I cannot but think that they will attain for him, when his merits are fully acknowledged, the praise of having been the most genuine painter of English landscape that has yet lived.’ Subsequent generations have corroborated Leslie’s opinion, and another genre-painter, Sir J.D.Linton, who was born three years after Constable’s death, has testified to the genius of Constable and to the effect of his painting. ‘His art,’ wrote Linton, ‘ has had the widest and most lasting influence both at home and abroad....Although Turner is accepted as the greater master of landscape painting, and his work has not been without very great influence, Constable’s robust and massive manner has affected the modern schools more universally.’
While we admire Turner we love Constable the more dearly, perhaps because his art is so essentially English. Never did a landscape painter travel less than Constable in search of a subject. While Turner toured all over Europe, Constable opened his door and found beauty waiting to be painted. With exceptions so few that they do not bulk largely in his work, all Constable’s landscapes are drawn, either from his birthplace, that is to say the borders of Essex and Suffolk about the Stour, now known as ‘the Constable country,’ or at Hampstead, where his house yet stands. The hill with a clump of firs on it, close to the Spaniard’s, is to this day spoken of as ‘Constable’s Knoll.’ His only other sketching ground of real importance was Salisbury, whither he was doubtless drawn by his friendship with the Rev John Fisher. Of his many paintings of Salisbury Cathedral, one of the most beautiful is the painting in the South Kensington Museum, from which we see that had his bent been that way Constable could have painted architectural subjects as truly and beautifully as he did landscapes.
It was the supreme distinction of Constable to destroy Beaumont’s fallacy that a ‘brown’ landscape was a ‘good’ landscape, and to paint all the greenness in Nature. He loved to paint the glitter of light on trees after rain, and the little touches of white paint with which he achieved the effect of their sparkle were jocularly alluded to as ‘Constable’s Snow.’ No painter before him had painted with so much truth the actual color of Nature’s lighting, and since Constable the true color of Nature in light and shadow has increasingly become the preoccupation of the ‘natural’ landscape painter.
Natural Landscape (continued)
But few except other artists applied, and as he grew older his house became fuller and fuller of unsold pictures. After his sixtieth birthday, in 1836, his health became uncertain, and on March 30, 1837, he died suddenly in his house at Hampstead. Almost immediately after his death the world awoke to his genius, and in the same year a number of gentlemen who admired his work clubbed together and bought from the executors his picture ‘The Cornfield,’ which they presented to the nation. Strangely enough this artist, who was so little known during his own lifetime, has since his death become a familiar personality, thanks to the pious solicitude of his friend, the genre-painter C R Leslie (1794-1859, whose Memoirs of John Constable, R.A is one of the best biographies of a painter ever written. It is a classic which, for the intimate insight it gives us into the character of the man, may be compared wtih Boswell’s Johnson. All who met Constable were attracted by his simple, kindly, affectionate nature, and perhaps the most touching tribute to his memory was paid by a London cab-driver who, when he heard that he would never drive Constable again, told Leslie he was ‘as sorry as if he had been my own father—he was a nice man as that, sir.’
Leslie had always been a firm believer in the genius of Constable, and wrote of his works: ‘I cannot but think that they will attain for him, when his merits are fully acknowledged, the praise of having been the most genuine painter of English landscape that has yet lived.’ Subsequent generations have corroborated Leslie’s opinion, and another genre-painter, Sir J.D.Linton, who was born three years after Constable’s death, has testified to the genius of Constable and to the effect of his painting. ‘His art,’ wrote Linton, ‘ has had the widest and most lasting influence both at home and abroad....Although Turner is accepted as the greater master of landscape painting, and his work has not been without very great influence, Constable’s robust and massive manner has affected the modern schools more universally.’
While we admire Turner we love Constable the more dearly, perhaps because his art is so essentially English. Never did a landscape painter travel less than Constable in search of a subject. While Turner toured all over Europe, Constable opened his door and found beauty waiting to be painted. With exceptions so few that they do not bulk largely in his work, all Constable’s landscapes are drawn, either from his birthplace, that is to say the borders of Essex and Suffolk about the Stour, now known as ‘the Constable country,’ or at Hampstead, where his house yet stands. The hill with a clump of firs on it, close to the Spaniard’s, is to this day spoken of as ‘Constable’s Knoll.’ His only other sketching ground of real importance was Salisbury, whither he was doubtless drawn by his friendship with the Rev John Fisher. Of his many paintings of Salisbury Cathedral, one of the most beautiful is the painting in the South Kensington Museum, from which we see that had his bent been that way Constable could have painted architectural subjects as truly and beautifully as he did landscapes.
It was the supreme distinction of Constable to destroy Beaumont’s fallacy that a ‘brown’ landscape was a ‘good’ landscape, and to paint all the greenness in Nature. He loved to paint the glitter of light on trees after rain, and the little touches of white paint with which he achieved the effect of their sparkle were jocularly alluded to as ‘Constable’s Snow.’ No painter before him had painted with so much truth the actual color of Nature’s lighting, and since Constable the true color of Nature in light and shadow has increasingly become the preoccupation of the ‘natural’ landscape painter.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Portugal’s Model Town
Sun + Water + Waves + Wind = Energy
Moura, in southern Portugal is the model town + it represents the coming of age of solar power + it will be the biggest photovoltaic power station in the world + experts believe it’s a viable technology + Portugal's plan to switch electricity generation from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources represents coming of age, and other countries will have to try to follow Portugal's lead.
Useful links:
www.min-economia.pt
http://aesol.es
Moura, in southern Portugal is the model town + it represents the coming of age of solar power + it will be the biggest photovoltaic power station in the world + experts believe it’s a viable technology + Portugal's plan to switch electricity generation from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources represents coming of age, and other countries will have to try to follow Portugal's lead.
Useful links:
www.min-economia.pt
http://aesol.es
Sinhalite From Burma
Sinhalite has been known from Burma (Ohn Gaing: Ongaing, in northern Mogok) for decades + crystals are well-formed + the colors range from light yellow to brownish yellow + the brown coloration is due to iron and other trace elements (Cr/Mn/Ga/Zn) + most commonly confused with chrysoberyl + the name comes from the word Sinhala, the Sanskrit word for Sri Lanka (Ceylon) + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Gold Prospectors
Elisabeth Malkin writes about a new breed of gold prospector: geologists and engineers, armed with sophisticated equipment and millions in investor dollars + other viewpoints @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/18/business/gold.php
Useful links:
www.imdex.com
www.diabras.com
www.paramountgold.com
Useful links:
www.imdex.com
www.diabras.com
www.paramountgold.com
Great Ideas In Psychology
Great Ideas in Psychology: A Cultural and Historical Introduction by Fathali M. Moghaddam is an excellent book on group thinking + I liked it.
Diamond Update
A 101.27-carat stone, the biggest colorless diamond to appear at auction for 20 years, will be sold at the Hong Kong branch of Christie's auction house on May 28, 2008 (the diamond was found at the Premier diamond mine in South Africa, and is being sold by a Europe-based diamond trading company) + expect pleasant surprises!
Useful link:
www.christies.com
Useful link:
www.christies.com
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Dangerous Destinations
(via Forbes) In Pictures: World's Most Dangerous Destinations.
Useful links:
www.ijet.com
www.control-risks.com
I think the info should be useful for gemstone and art dealers who travel frequently to find what they like + certain threats are more frequent now than they have been so you should do your homework and do the right thing.
Useful links:
www.ijet.com
www.control-risks.com
I think the info should be useful for gemstone and art dealers who travel frequently to find what they like + certain threats are more frequent now than they have been so you should do your homework and do the right thing.
The Russian Connection
I found the gold tie clip in the form of a Russian Kalashnikov assault rifle (Junwex, in St Petersburg) @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/19/russia very interesting + I liked it.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
3. The Twelve Mazarins
For some years after young Louis XIV became King of France the diamond cutters of Paris found themselves struggling against heavy odds. For one thing, many Parisians, instead of patroniziing the home jeweler, turned to Amsterdam, where they could buy the finest stones of Golconda, cut in the latest mode, the rose.
Possibly it was with an eye to stimulating interest in the work of French gem cutters that at this time it was decided to refashion twelve of the thickest diamonds in the royal crown. At any rate, under the direction of Cardinal Mazarin the twelve stones were recut according to a new form specially invented for the occasion. Whether or not the Cardinal himself actually did invent the new cutting is a question, but he is usually credited with having done so.
The twelve stones were named for him—The Twelve Mazarins. All we know of their ultimate fate is that in an inventory of the crown jewels of France, dated 1774, there is one diamond listed as ‘The Tenth Mazarin.’ According to the late E W Streeter, leading English authority on gems that ‘tenth Mazarin’ was a ‘four-cornered brilliant.’
The typical brilliant-cut, however, was not invented until the close of the century.
After the Court of Louis XIV had developed into the most magnificent in Europe, the Paris jewelers were top of the wave. Many of them were quartered in the Louvre. They led the fashion in jewelry and their designs became international through the publication of engraved patterns, ready for copying by goldsmiths at large.
Luxury and more luxury was called for by the dazzling monarch. When the noblemen of France or Spain appeared before his super-royal eyes, Louis demanded that they and their wives should carry upon their persons fortunes equal to ‘the value of lands and forests’ in the form of glittering gems. The great mirrors of the famous Galérie des Glaces must have reflected a brilliant galaxy of elegant gentlemen and their still more elegant ladies clad in silks, satins, and laces, all a-sparkle like Christmas trees.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
3. The Twelve Mazarins
For some years after young Louis XIV became King of France the diamond cutters of Paris found themselves struggling against heavy odds. For one thing, many Parisians, instead of patroniziing the home jeweler, turned to Amsterdam, where they could buy the finest stones of Golconda, cut in the latest mode, the rose.
Possibly it was with an eye to stimulating interest in the work of French gem cutters that at this time it was decided to refashion twelve of the thickest diamonds in the royal crown. At any rate, under the direction of Cardinal Mazarin the twelve stones were recut according to a new form specially invented for the occasion. Whether or not the Cardinal himself actually did invent the new cutting is a question, but he is usually credited with having done so.
The twelve stones were named for him—The Twelve Mazarins. All we know of their ultimate fate is that in an inventory of the crown jewels of France, dated 1774, there is one diamond listed as ‘The Tenth Mazarin.’ According to the late E W Streeter, leading English authority on gems that ‘tenth Mazarin’ was a ‘four-cornered brilliant.’
The typical brilliant-cut, however, was not invented until the close of the century.
After the Court of Louis XIV had developed into the most magnificent in Europe, the Paris jewelers were top of the wave. Many of them were quartered in the Louvre. They led the fashion in jewelry and their designs became international through the publication of engraved patterns, ready for copying by goldsmiths at large.
Luxury and more luxury was called for by the dazzling monarch. When the noblemen of France or Spain appeared before his super-royal eyes, Louis demanded that they and their wives should carry upon their persons fortunes equal to ‘the value of lands and forests’ in the form of glittering gems. The great mirrors of the famous Galérie des Glaces must have reflected a brilliant galaxy of elegant gentlemen and their still more elegant ladies clad in silks, satins, and laces, all a-sparkle like Christmas trees.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
For example, in the ‘Sketch for the Leaping Horse,’ the bent willow is to the right of the horse and its rider, as it doubtless was in the scene that Constable actually beheld; but in the picture of ‘The Leaping Horse in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, the tree is shifted to the other side of the horse and rider, more to your left, in order to improve the design and emphasise the rhythm of the diagonal accents from the big tree on our left to the waterweeds in the opposite lower corner. This transposition of the willowtree is exceedingly instructive, for it proves that Constable did not, as some have maintained, simply paint ‘snapshots’ of Nature; he understood the science of picture making as well as any artist, and while desirous above all of presenting the general truth of the scene before him, he did not scruple to alter the position of one particular tree or other object if thereby he thought he could improve the composition of his picture.
Constable was now fifty, but still he was only an A.R.A. Neither ‘The Leaping Horse’ nor ‘The Cornfield’, which he exhibited in 1826, moved his brother artists to make him an Academician, and though ‘The Cornfield attracted a good deal of attention and was one of the first pictures to make Constable talked about in London, it did not sell, but remained in his possession to the day of his death. There would seem to be no denying that to the end of a number of Academicians were unable to appreciate the genius of Constable, and after the death of Joseph Farington in 1821 he had no keen admirer with influence within their ranks. The story is told that one year, after he had at last been elected R.A in 1829, Constable submitted one of his works labelled with another name to the Academy jury. When the majority had voted for its rejection, Constable admitted his authorship and quietly remarked, ‘There, gentlemen, I always thought you did not like my style of painting.’
When official recognition came it was ‘too late,’ as Constable sady said. Fortunately he was not in want, for in 1828 his wife’s father had died and left Constable the sum of £20000. ‘This,’ wrote Constable, ‘I will settle on my wife and children, and I shall then be able to stand before a six-foot canvas with a mind at ease, thank God!’ From this exclamation it would certainly appear as if the painter himself took more pleasure in his six-foot sketch than in painting a picture from it for the market.
Any pleasure he migiht have experienced in his election to the Academy as a full member in 1829 was counteracted by his grief at the loss of his wife, who had just previously died. It was the thought of this faithful companion and helper that prompted Constable to say his election as R.A was ‘too late’.
Though it would be a gross exaggeration to say that Constable ever obtained anything like popularity in his own lifetime, his landscapes after 1831 began to be known to a wider public by virtue of the mezzotints of some of his best paintings by David Lucas (1802-81). Lucas was an engraver of genius, who brilliantly translated into black-and-white the beauties of Constable’s light and shadow, but when he first approached the artist for permission to engrave his work Constable was dismally despondent about project. ‘The painter himself is totally unpopular,’ he said, ‘ and will be so on this side of the grave. The subjects are nothing but art, and the buyers are wholly ignorant of that.’ Nevertheless Lucas persisted with his mezzotints, which did much to spread the fame of Constable, and these engravings are now eagerly sought for at high prices by collectors.
Though never becoming actually despondent or embittered, Constable naturally craved for the appreciation which he felt he deserved, and in the endeavor to court notice he even went so far as to advertise in the newspapers:
‘Mr Constable’s Gallery of Landscapes, by his own hand, is to be seen gratis daily, by an application at his residence.’
Natural Landscape (continued)
For example, in the ‘Sketch for the Leaping Horse,’ the bent willow is to the right of the horse and its rider, as it doubtless was in the scene that Constable actually beheld; but in the picture of ‘The Leaping Horse in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, the tree is shifted to the other side of the horse and rider, more to your left, in order to improve the design and emphasise the rhythm of the diagonal accents from the big tree on our left to the waterweeds in the opposite lower corner. This transposition of the willowtree is exceedingly instructive, for it proves that Constable did not, as some have maintained, simply paint ‘snapshots’ of Nature; he understood the science of picture making as well as any artist, and while desirous above all of presenting the general truth of the scene before him, he did not scruple to alter the position of one particular tree or other object if thereby he thought he could improve the composition of his picture.
Constable was now fifty, but still he was only an A.R.A. Neither ‘The Leaping Horse’ nor ‘The Cornfield’, which he exhibited in 1826, moved his brother artists to make him an Academician, and though ‘The Cornfield attracted a good deal of attention and was one of the first pictures to make Constable talked about in London, it did not sell, but remained in his possession to the day of his death. There would seem to be no denying that to the end of a number of Academicians were unable to appreciate the genius of Constable, and after the death of Joseph Farington in 1821 he had no keen admirer with influence within their ranks. The story is told that one year, after he had at last been elected R.A in 1829, Constable submitted one of his works labelled with another name to the Academy jury. When the majority had voted for its rejection, Constable admitted his authorship and quietly remarked, ‘There, gentlemen, I always thought you did not like my style of painting.’
When official recognition came it was ‘too late,’ as Constable sady said. Fortunately he was not in want, for in 1828 his wife’s father had died and left Constable the sum of £20000. ‘This,’ wrote Constable, ‘I will settle on my wife and children, and I shall then be able to stand before a six-foot canvas with a mind at ease, thank God!’ From this exclamation it would certainly appear as if the painter himself took more pleasure in his six-foot sketch than in painting a picture from it for the market.
Any pleasure he migiht have experienced in his election to the Academy as a full member in 1829 was counteracted by his grief at the loss of his wife, who had just previously died. It was the thought of this faithful companion and helper that prompted Constable to say his election as R.A was ‘too late’.
Though it would be a gross exaggeration to say that Constable ever obtained anything like popularity in his own lifetime, his landscapes after 1831 began to be known to a wider public by virtue of the mezzotints of some of his best paintings by David Lucas (1802-81). Lucas was an engraver of genius, who brilliantly translated into black-and-white the beauties of Constable’s light and shadow, but when he first approached the artist for permission to engrave his work Constable was dismally despondent about project. ‘The painter himself is totally unpopular,’ he said, ‘ and will be so on this side of the grave. The subjects are nothing but art, and the buyers are wholly ignorant of that.’ Nevertheless Lucas persisted with his mezzotints, which did much to spread the fame of Constable, and these engravings are now eagerly sought for at high prices by collectors.
Though never becoming actually despondent or embittered, Constable naturally craved for the appreciation which he felt he deserved, and in the endeavor to court notice he even went so far as to advertise in the newspapers:
‘Mr Constable’s Gallery of Landscapes, by his own hand, is to be seen gratis daily, by an application at his residence.’
Natural Landscape (continued)
Colored Stone Update
Intense yellow green (Canary type) tourmalines from Zambia (Lundazi district, eastern Zambia) is the talk of the town + the stones are mined in eluvial/alluvial and primary deposits + most of the tourmalines are heat treated (550-550°C) to reduce the brown/orange tint + stones of mixed sizes (melee +) are encountered in the marketplace + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Heard On The Street
The school of hard knocks (SOHK) is the best education one can have in gem / jewelry / art business + it teaches you that very often you get even basic principles completely mixed up + one lives and learns.
John Jewkes
I found John Jewkes' short summary on The Sources of Invention fascinating and educational + I think unique breakthroughs in alternative energy sources may most likely come from unexpected sources.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Public Art
I found the article on public art @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/gallery/2008/feb/15/photography?picture=332544168 very interesting.
Frida Kahlo
The largest U.S. show of the Frida Kahlo's work in 15 years opens at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on February 20 + on view are over 40 of Frida Kahlo's famed self-portraits, spanning her life's work.
Useful links:
http://philamuseum.org
www.fridakahlo.com
Useful links:
http://philamuseum.org
www.fridakahlo.com
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
It was in 1816 that he married Maria Bicknell, with whom he had been in love since 1811, and the correspondence between the two during these five years—several letters of which still exist—shows the simple nature of the writers and the complete trust each had in the other. The marriage was delayed owning to the long opposition of Constable’s father, and eventually it took place against his wishes, but there was no serious breach between father and son, and neither Constable senior nor Mr Bicknell, who was also very comfortably off, allowed the young couple to be in actual want. Two years before his marriage Constable had for the first time sold two landscapes to total strangers, but as yet he had no real success, and the young couple set up house modestly at 76 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.
In 1819, when Constable was forty three, he exhibited at the Academy a large landscape, ‘View on the River Stour,’ which was keenly appreciated by his brother artists and resulted in his being elected as Associate, and in the following year his love of Nature led him to take a house at Hampstead.
When ‘The Hay Wain’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1821 it attracted compartively little attention, but three years later it was sold to a French collector, who sent it to the Paris Salon of 1824, where it created a veritable sensation. Constable was awarded a gold medal, and his picture had an immediate and lasting effect on French art. His pure and brilliant color was a revelation and an inspiration to French painters, and under the glamor of ‘The Hay Wain’ Delacroix, the leader of the French Romanticists, obtained leave to retouch his ‘Massacre of Scio’ in the same exhibition. In a fortnight he repainted it throughout, using the strongest, purest, and most vivid colors he could find, and henceforward not only were Delacroix’s ideas of color and landscape revolutionized by Constable’s masterpiece, but a whole school of French landscape painters arose, as we shall see in a later chapter, whose art to a great extent based on the example and practice of Constable.
It was in France, then, that Constable had his first real success, and Frenchmen were the first in large numbers fully to appreciate his genius. It is a piece of great good luck that ‘The Hay Wain’ ever came back to England, but fortunately it was recovered by a British collector, George Young, and at his sale in 1866 it was purchased by the late Henry Vaughan, who in 1886 gave it to the National Gallery.
In 1825 Constable, now possessing a European reputation though still neglected in his own country, sent to the Academy his famous picture ‘The Leaping Horse’, which is generally considered to be his central masterwork, though many shrewd judges consider that the essence of his fresh, naturalistic art is still more brilliantly displayed in the big preparatory six foot sketch of the same subject, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was Constable’s habit to make these large preparatory sketches for pictures of special importance, and the great difference between the sketch and the picture is that the former was done in the open, directly from Nature, while the latter was worked up in the studio. Consequently the sketch always contains a freshness and vigor, something of which is lost in the picture, though this last sometimes has refinements of design, not to be found in the sketch.
Natural Landscape (continued)
It was in 1816 that he married Maria Bicknell, with whom he had been in love since 1811, and the correspondence between the two during these five years—several letters of which still exist—shows the simple nature of the writers and the complete trust each had in the other. The marriage was delayed owning to the long opposition of Constable’s father, and eventually it took place against his wishes, but there was no serious breach between father and son, and neither Constable senior nor Mr Bicknell, who was also very comfortably off, allowed the young couple to be in actual want. Two years before his marriage Constable had for the first time sold two landscapes to total strangers, but as yet he had no real success, and the young couple set up house modestly at 76 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.
In 1819, when Constable was forty three, he exhibited at the Academy a large landscape, ‘View on the River Stour,’ which was keenly appreciated by his brother artists and resulted in his being elected as Associate, and in the following year his love of Nature led him to take a house at Hampstead.
When ‘The Hay Wain’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1821 it attracted compartively little attention, but three years later it was sold to a French collector, who sent it to the Paris Salon of 1824, where it created a veritable sensation. Constable was awarded a gold medal, and his picture had an immediate and lasting effect on French art. His pure and brilliant color was a revelation and an inspiration to French painters, and under the glamor of ‘The Hay Wain’ Delacroix, the leader of the French Romanticists, obtained leave to retouch his ‘Massacre of Scio’ in the same exhibition. In a fortnight he repainted it throughout, using the strongest, purest, and most vivid colors he could find, and henceforward not only were Delacroix’s ideas of color and landscape revolutionized by Constable’s masterpiece, but a whole school of French landscape painters arose, as we shall see in a later chapter, whose art to a great extent based on the example and practice of Constable.
It was in France, then, that Constable had his first real success, and Frenchmen were the first in large numbers fully to appreciate his genius. It is a piece of great good luck that ‘The Hay Wain’ ever came back to England, but fortunately it was recovered by a British collector, George Young, and at his sale in 1866 it was purchased by the late Henry Vaughan, who in 1886 gave it to the National Gallery.
In 1825 Constable, now possessing a European reputation though still neglected in his own country, sent to the Academy his famous picture ‘The Leaping Horse’, which is generally considered to be his central masterwork, though many shrewd judges consider that the essence of his fresh, naturalistic art is still more brilliantly displayed in the big preparatory six foot sketch of the same subject, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was Constable’s habit to make these large preparatory sketches for pictures of special importance, and the great difference between the sketch and the picture is that the former was done in the open, directly from Nature, while the latter was worked up in the studio. Consequently the sketch always contains a freshness and vigor, something of which is lost in the picture, though this last sometimes has refinements of design, not to be found in the sketch.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
2. Tavernier, Jeweler To The King
In France, during the first half of the seventeenth century, the taste for fine gemstones had been fanned to a flame by tales of the splendors of the Orient and by confirmation of those tales in the form of magnificent gems brought home by merchant-travelers.
Foremost among the travelers was Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605-89), who at the age of twenty-five set forth in the company of two French priests for the Orient. He spent a year in Constantinople trading in costly stones and then made his way to Persia. His description of the splendors he beheld in that land of jewels was more like a dream of enchantment than reality. Even the royal thrones were encrusted with precious stones, he said, but the throne of Shah Jehen eclipsed all others.
This was the famous peacock throne, so-called because of the great jeweled peacock placed above it. The plumage of the bird’s wide-spread tail was represented by a mass of sapphires, emeralds, and other color stones. Its body was enameled gold, studded with rich stones, and from its breast hung a huge pendent ruby and a pear-shaped pearl. Suspended in front of the throne itself was an enormous diamond so that at all times the Shah could feast his eyes on its glittering beauty.
During the course of the next thirty years Tavernier made five more journeys to the Orient, visiting the diamond mines of Golconda and the court of the Great Mogul of India, where he saw a diamond which he described as having the form of an egg cut through the middle. He estimated its value as being more than $4,000,000. This diamond, says Tavernier, was ‘rose cut’; and behind that simple fact lay one of those minor tragedies due to divergence of viewpoint between contracting parties.
The Mogul of India, instead of entrusting his great diamond to a native diamond cutter had commissioned Hortensio Borgio, a Venetian, to cut the stone.
Now, in Europe, diamonds had been cut in the form known as rose as early as 1520, the idea being to bring out the brilliance of the gem even at considerable sacrifice of its size; but in the Orient, size was all important factor. A native gem cutter would small facets (placed hit or miss) to conceal whatever flaws a diamond might have, but he wasted as little as possible of the precious material in the process. Brilliance and symmetry were secondary considerations.
Evidently neither the Mogul nor Hortensio Borgio had suspected this difference of opinion until it was too late. The luckless Venetian had reduced the weight of the great diamond to such an extent that its owner expressed his royal displeasure, not only by refusing to pay for the work but by fining the gem cutter 10000 rupees—and only stopped at that because the poor man had no more.
This big stone, ever a trouble-maker, has long since disappeared—no one knows where—for the great diamond described by Tavernier was the famous Great Mogul whose colorful story, told in a later chapter, ends in mystery.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
2. Tavernier, Jeweler To The King
In France, during the first half of the seventeenth century, the taste for fine gemstones had been fanned to a flame by tales of the splendors of the Orient and by confirmation of those tales in the form of magnificent gems brought home by merchant-travelers.
Foremost among the travelers was Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605-89), who at the age of twenty-five set forth in the company of two French priests for the Orient. He spent a year in Constantinople trading in costly stones and then made his way to Persia. His description of the splendors he beheld in that land of jewels was more like a dream of enchantment than reality. Even the royal thrones were encrusted with precious stones, he said, but the throne of Shah Jehen eclipsed all others.
This was the famous peacock throne, so-called because of the great jeweled peacock placed above it. The plumage of the bird’s wide-spread tail was represented by a mass of sapphires, emeralds, and other color stones. Its body was enameled gold, studded with rich stones, and from its breast hung a huge pendent ruby and a pear-shaped pearl. Suspended in front of the throne itself was an enormous diamond so that at all times the Shah could feast his eyes on its glittering beauty.
During the course of the next thirty years Tavernier made five more journeys to the Orient, visiting the diamond mines of Golconda and the court of the Great Mogul of India, where he saw a diamond which he described as having the form of an egg cut through the middle. He estimated its value as being more than $4,000,000. This diamond, says Tavernier, was ‘rose cut’; and behind that simple fact lay one of those minor tragedies due to divergence of viewpoint between contracting parties.
The Mogul of India, instead of entrusting his great diamond to a native diamond cutter had commissioned Hortensio Borgio, a Venetian, to cut the stone.
Now, in Europe, diamonds had been cut in the form known as rose as early as 1520, the idea being to bring out the brilliance of the gem even at considerable sacrifice of its size; but in the Orient, size was all important factor. A native gem cutter would small facets (placed hit or miss) to conceal whatever flaws a diamond might have, but he wasted as little as possible of the precious material in the process. Brilliance and symmetry were secondary considerations.
Evidently neither the Mogul nor Hortensio Borgio had suspected this difference of opinion until it was too late. The luckless Venetian had reduced the weight of the great diamond to such an extent that its owner expressed his royal displeasure, not only by refusing to pay for the work but by fining the gem cutter 10000 rupees—and only stopped at that because the poor man had no more.
This big stone, ever a trouble-maker, has long since disappeared—no one knows where—for the great diamond described by Tavernier was the famous Great Mogul whose colorful story, told in a later chapter, ends in mystery.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Colored Stone Jewelry
What's intriguing in the colored stone jewelry business is that consumers are always looking for something new and different to enhance their styles + they want something that reflects and refracts their personality + they appreciate the quality, and if there is a good story, and when they see it, they want it.
Indiana Jones Movie
(via budgettravel) The movie trailer for the next Indiana Jones movie has hit the Web + what's interesting about the Indian Jones series is that the lustre/characters of the movie will be always with you forever.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Paul Reeves
Economist writes about Paul Reeves and his unique furniture collections (British design from the Gothic Revival onwards) + the upcoming exhibition/auction at Sotheby's + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10711664
Useful link:
www.paulreeveslondon.com
I think they are beautiful + Paul Reeves definitely has a good eye to spot the real ones.
Useful link:
www.paulreeveslondon.com
I think they are beautiful + Paul Reeves definitely has a good eye to spot the real ones.
Game Of Go
In my view, Go is a very challenging game of the highest levels + the Game of Go may have a lot to teach us about the state of mind + it’s very much a game of risk and reward.
The Cigar-butt Approach
(via Warren Buffett) A cigar butt found on the street that has only one puff left in it may not offer much of a smoke, but the 'bargain purchase' will make that puff all profit.
I have a great attachment to this style because of its simplicity and intuitive appeal + it is easier to figure out and requires less use of judgment than other forms of investing + I wonder whether the concept works in the gem/jewelry/art business.
I have a great attachment to this style because of its simplicity and intuitive appeal + it is easier to figure out and requires less use of judgment than other forms of investing + I wonder whether the concept works in the gem/jewelry/art business.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
This work was accomplished in less than three weeks’ time, for, says a State record, 1623, ‘Mr Heriot sat up day and night to get them completed.’
In a letter to the Prince of Wales, who was then traveling in Spain, James wrote that he was sending for his ‘Babie’s owin wearing.....the Three Brethren, that you knowe full well, but newlie sette.’
Aside from the famous pendant, orders were issued concerning the selection of ‘five or six faire jewels to be worn in men’s hats, same to be of £6000 or £7000 value, and none under.’ And to these sumptuous hat ornaments for the Prince, James added ‘the Mirroure of Frawnce, the fellowe of the Portugall Dyamont, quhiche I wolde wishe you to weare alone in your hatte with a little blakke feather.’
The rich jewels of the English crown were before long to face new dangers to their permanent existence. Not long after they came into the hands of Charles I, the ‘Babie’ for whom The Brethren had already suffered resetting, financial affairs were in a bad way. But there were all those jewels which had been collecting for so many years in the royal treasury—and to these Charles turned for a source of ready money, selling and pawning jewels that merely for their historic, if not their intrinsic, value, would each be worth a small fortune today. Many of these he pawned or sold in England, but during the Civil War much valuable jewelry was sent by the King and his sympathizers from England to Amsterdam, where it was broken up, the gold melted, and the gems thrown on the market for whatever they would fetch.
Amsterdam was at that time the gem grading center of Europe. When Portugal had expelled her Jewish gem merchants many of them migrated to Amsterdam, where they opened shops in which jewelry was both sold and taken as security. Above the shop door hung three golden balls as the symbol of the retail jeweler and money lender.
But, all the cash that Amsterdam could supply in exchange for English jewels was insufficient to stem the rush of events that proved fatal, not only to King Charles, but to whatever portion of the royal collection of gems had still remained intact.
Up to this point—the death of Charles—the jewels had at least served the utilitarian purpose of providing the King with money. They had been sacrificed to Mammon but not to Malice. But now the House of Commons, determined to stamp out all things relating to monarchy, proceeded ruthlessly to demolish the emblems of royalty. Deaf to the voices of the few members who tried to halt destruction by pointing out the fact that the crown jewels intact were worth far more than their value if reduced to lumps of gold and unmounted stones, the puritanical members had their way.
Among the treasures was the ancient crown of Alfred the Great, made of gold wire and set with small gems. It was melted down and sold at £3 an ounce. Other royal ornaments, broken up or sold at auction, include scepters; crowns set with diamonds, rubies and sapphires; swords, spurs, and regal plate. The list concludes with the following statement:
The foremention’d crownes, since y inventorie was taken, are accordinge to ord’ of parm totallie broken and defaced.
Eleven years later England again had need of crowns and scepters. According to one old account:
Because through Rapine of the late unhappy times all the Royall Ornaments and Regalia heretofore preserved from age to age in the Treasury of the Church at Westminster, were taken away, sold and destroyed, the Committee mett divers times not only to direct the remaking such Royall Ornaments adn Regalia, but even to sette the form and fashion of each particular.
The new Regalia, made from Charles II, son of the ‘Martyr’, met wtih misfortune when Colonel Blood all but succeeded in making off with it. The State Crown, having been bashed in during this raid, was replaced with an entirely new one for which extra gems had to be purchased, since a number of the original ones were lost in the shuffle.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
This work was accomplished in less than three weeks’ time, for, says a State record, 1623, ‘Mr Heriot sat up day and night to get them completed.’
In a letter to the Prince of Wales, who was then traveling in Spain, James wrote that he was sending for his ‘Babie’s owin wearing.....the Three Brethren, that you knowe full well, but newlie sette.’
Aside from the famous pendant, orders were issued concerning the selection of ‘five or six faire jewels to be worn in men’s hats, same to be of £6000 or £7000 value, and none under.’ And to these sumptuous hat ornaments for the Prince, James added ‘the Mirroure of Frawnce, the fellowe of the Portugall Dyamont, quhiche I wolde wishe you to weare alone in your hatte with a little blakke feather.’
The rich jewels of the English crown were before long to face new dangers to their permanent existence. Not long after they came into the hands of Charles I, the ‘Babie’ for whom The Brethren had already suffered resetting, financial affairs were in a bad way. But there were all those jewels which had been collecting for so many years in the royal treasury—and to these Charles turned for a source of ready money, selling and pawning jewels that merely for their historic, if not their intrinsic, value, would each be worth a small fortune today. Many of these he pawned or sold in England, but during the Civil War much valuable jewelry was sent by the King and his sympathizers from England to Amsterdam, where it was broken up, the gold melted, and the gems thrown on the market for whatever they would fetch.
Amsterdam was at that time the gem grading center of Europe. When Portugal had expelled her Jewish gem merchants many of them migrated to Amsterdam, where they opened shops in which jewelry was both sold and taken as security. Above the shop door hung three golden balls as the symbol of the retail jeweler and money lender.
But, all the cash that Amsterdam could supply in exchange for English jewels was insufficient to stem the rush of events that proved fatal, not only to King Charles, but to whatever portion of the royal collection of gems had still remained intact.
Up to this point—the death of Charles—the jewels had at least served the utilitarian purpose of providing the King with money. They had been sacrificed to Mammon but not to Malice. But now the House of Commons, determined to stamp out all things relating to monarchy, proceeded ruthlessly to demolish the emblems of royalty. Deaf to the voices of the few members who tried to halt destruction by pointing out the fact that the crown jewels intact were worth far more than their value if reduced to lumps of gold and unmounted stones, the puritanical members had their way.
Among the treasures was the ancient crown of Alfred the Great, made of gold wire and set with small gems. It was melted down and sold at £3 an ounce. Other royal ornaments, broken up or sold at auction, include scepters; crowns set with diamonds, rubies and sapphires; swords, spurs, and regal plate. The list concludes with the following statement:
The foremention’d crownes, since y inventorie was taken, are accordinge to ord’ of parm totallie broken and defaced.
Eleven years later England again had need of crowns and scepters. According to one old account:
Because through Rapine of the late unhappy times all the Royall Ornaments and Regalia heretofore preserved from age to age in the Treasury of the Church at Westminster, were taken away, sold and destroyed, the Committee mett divers times not only to direct the remaking such Royall Ornaments adn Regalia, but even to sette the form and fashion of each particular.
The new Regalia, made from Charles II, son of the ‘Martyr’, met wtih misfortune when Colonel Blood all but succeeded in making off with it. The State Crown, having been bashed in during this raid, was replaced with an entirely new one for which extra gems had to be purchased, since a number of the original ones were lost in the shuffle.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Sir George Beaumont not only encouraged young Constable to go on with his sketching, but lent him works which might serve as models for his practice. Among these were two water colors by Thomas Girtin, which Constable always maintained set his feet firmly in the right road, and also Claude’s ‘Landscape with the Angel appearing to Hagar,’ a work Beaumont so loved that he took it about with him wherever he traveled. In 1826 he gave this with fifteen other pictures to the nation, but finding he could not live without it he asked for it back till his death, which occurred in the following year. This Claude is now in the National Gallery.
The opinion of this artist-baronet naturally carried weight with Constable’s father, and as a result of his influence John Constable was permitted to go to London in 1795 to study art. Here he was encouraged by Joseph Farington, A.A (1747-1821), who communicated to him some of the precepts he had himself derived from his master Richard Wilson, and in 1799 Constable, through Farington’s influence, was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. Although the first painting Constable exhibited at the Academy was a landscape, shown in 1802, he began his professional career as a portrait painter, which was then the only profitable branch of art. But after painting some portraits and altar pieces for Brantham in 1804 and for Nayland in 1809, he came to devote himself more or less exclusively to landscape, which was the true bent of his genius. He felt he could paint his own places best, he delighted in the flats of Dedham, with its trees and slow river ‘escaping from milldams, over willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork’; and so he finally settled down as the painter of the rural scenery among which he had been born. In 1803 he had written, ‘I feel now, more than ever, a decided conviction that I shall some time or other make some good pictures; pictures that shall be valuable to posterity, if I do not reap the benefit of them.’
These words were prophetic, and for some years almost the only patrons the young artist had were a kindly uncle and his friend Archdeacon Fisher, the nephew and chaplain of the Bishop of Salisbury. Had Constable been content to be merely topographical artist as Farington and most of the older water colorists were, he would probably have found it easier to sell his works and make a respectable income; but from the first it was his desire not merely to paint ‘portraits of places,’ but to give a true and full impression of Nature, to paint light, dews, breezes, bloom, and freshness. The multitude of his sketches—of which a fine collection may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington—show how earnestly and assiduously he studied Nature in all her aspects to attain this end, and though a love of Nature and of truth is discernible even in his earliest works, it was only gradually that Constable acquired the breadth and freedom which distinguish his later works.
If we compare even so beautiful an example of his early style as ‘Boat-building near Flatford Mill,’ painted in 1815, with ‘The Hay Wain,’ painted in 1821, we at once perceive the tremendous advance made by the artist in the intervening six years. It is not altogether without significance to note that the greatest strides forward in his art were made during the early years of his married life, and it may not unreasonably be surmised that the happiness of his private life and domestic contentment compensated Constable for public neglect and helped to give him increased confidence in his own powers.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Sir George Beaumont not only encouraged young Constable to go on with his sketching, but lent him works which might serve as models for his practice. Among these were two water colors by Thomas Girtin, which Constable always maintained set his feet firmly in the right road, and also Claude’s ‘Landscape with the Angel appearing to Hagar,’ a work Beaumont so loved that he took it about with him wherever he traveled. In 1826 he gave this with fifteen other pictures to the nation, but finding he could not live without it he asked for it back till his death, which occurred in the following year. This Claude is now in the National Gallery.
The opinion of this artist-baronet naturally carried weight with Constable’s father, and as a result of his influence John Constable was permitted to go to London in 1795 to study art. Here he was encouraged by Joseph Farington, A.A (1747-1821), who communicated to him some of the precepts he had himself derived from his master Richard Wilson, and in 1799 Constable, through Farington’s influence, was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. Although the first painting Constable exhibited at the Academy was a landscape, shown in 1802, he began his professional career as a portrait painter, which was then the only profitable branch of art. But after painting some portraits and altar pieces for Brantham in 1804 and for Nayland in 1809, he came to devote himself more or less exclusively to landscape, which was the true bent of his genius. He felt he could paint his own places best, he delighted in the flats of Dedham, with its trees and slow river ‘escaping from milldams, over willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork’; and so he finally settled down as the painter of the rural scenery among which he had been born. In 1803 he had written, ‘I feel now, more than ever, a decided conviction that I shall some time or other make some good pictures; pictures that shall be valuable to posterity, if I do not reap the benefit of them.’
These words were prophetic, and for some years almost the only patrons the young artist had were a kindly uncle and his friend Archdeacon Fisher, the nephew and chaplain of the Bishop of Salisbury. Had Constable been content to be merely topographical artist as Farington and most of the older water colorists were, he would probably have found it easier to sell his works and make a respectable income; but from the first it was his desire not merely to paint ‘portraits of places,’ but to give a true and full impression of Nature, to paint light, dews, breezes, bloom, and freshness. The multitude of his sketches—of which a fine collection may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington—show how earnestly and assiduously he studied Nature in all her aspects to attain this end, and though a love of Nature and of truth is discernible even in his earliest works, it was only gradually that Constable acquired the breadth and freedom which distinguish his later works.
If we compare even so beautiful an example of his early style as ‘Boat-building near Flatford Mill,’ painted in 1815, with ‘The Hay Wain,’ painted in 1821, we at once perceive the tremendous advance made by the artist in the intervening six years. It is not altogether without significance to note that the greatest strides forward in his art were made during the early years of his married life, and it may not unreasonably be surmised that the happiness of his private life and domestic contentment compensated Constable for public neglect and helped to give him increased confidence in his own powers.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Global Warming + Wine
At a recent wine makers conference in Barcelona, Spain, carbon dioxide storage was an important topic for discussion (s) among the experts + wine production emits large quantities of CO2, the main gas responsible for climate change + experts believe global warming would lead to harder and less aromatic wines + some have already started experimenting with carbon capture and storage techniques whereby harmful CO2 emissions are trapped and stored underground + I hope wine producers will find innovative ways to use less water, less energy, and practice a more holistic agriculture to produce quality wine.
Useful link:
www.climatechangeandwine.com
Useful link:
www.climatechangeandwine.com
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Coal Is Still King
According to the WCI’s most updated numbers, coal still represents a full quarter of the world’s energy consumption + for world electricity consumption, the share is 40% + more than half of America’s electricity comes from coal + in China and Australia, the totals are closer to 80% + in Poland and South Africa, the totals are over 90% + at the end of the day we’re all coal addicts + most of us just don’t realize it + right now, I think coal is the hottest commodity.
Useful links:
www.worldcoal.org
www.fossil.energy.gov
www.futuregenalliance.org
Useful links:
www.worldcoal.org
www.fossil.energy.gov
www.futuregenalliance.org
Random Thoughts
Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it.
- Maurice Chevalier (Actor and singer)
- Maurice Chevalier (Actor and singer)
Diamond-encrusted Hot Wheel Car
Here is what the Mattel website has to say about the diamond-encrusted car:
Hot Wheels® today announced its year-long plans to celebrate the brand's 40-year heritage at the 105th American International Toy Fair®. Anniversary activities were kicked off with the unveiling of a custom jeweled 1:64-scale Hot Wheels® car, designed by celebrity jeweler Jason of Beverly Hills. This one-of-a-kind car, the most expensive in Hot Wheels® history, was made to commemorate the production of the 4 billionth Hot Wheels® vehicle. The diamonds on the custom-made jeweled car, valued at $140,000, totals more than 2,700 and weighs nearly 23 carats. The car is cast in 18-karat white gold with the majority of the vehicle detailed with micro pave-set brilliant blue diamonds, mimicking the Hot Wheels® Spectraflame® blue paint. Under the functional hood, the engine showcases additional micro pave-set white and black diamonds. The Hot Wheels® flame logo found on the underbelly of the car is lined with white and black diamonds. Red rubies are set as the tail lights, while black diamonds and red enamel create the "red line" tires. The custom-made case that houses the jewel-encrusted vehicle also holds 40 individual white diamonds, signifying each year in the legacy of Hot Wheels®.
I really liked it.
Useful links:
www.mattel.com
www.hotwheels.com
Hot Wheels® today announced its year-long plans to celebrate the brand's 40-year heritage at the 105th American International Toy Fair®. Anniversary activities were kicked off with the unveiling of a custom jeweled 1:64-scale Hot Wheels® car, designed by celebrity jeweler Jason of Beverly Hills. This one-of-a-kind car, the most expensive in Hot Wheels® history, was made to commemorate the production of the 4 billionth Hot Wheels® vehicle. The diamonds on the custom-made jeweled car, valued at $140,000, totals more than 2,700 and weighs nearly 23 carats. The car is cast in 18-karat white gold with the majority of the vehicle detailed with micro pave-set brilliant blue diamonds, mimicking the Hot Wheels® Spectraflame® blue paint. Under the functional hood, the engine showcases additional micro pave-set white and black diamonds. The Hot Wheels® flame logo found on the underbelly of the car is lined with white and black diamonds. Red rubies are set as the tail lights, while black diamonds and red enamel create the "red line" tires. The custom-made case that houses the jewel-encrusted vehicle also holds 40 individual white diamonds, signifying each year in the legacy of Hot Wheels®.
I really liked it.
Useful links:
www.mattel.com
www.hotwheels.com
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, the iconoclastic British film-maker, will be bringing to life the hidden stories he sees in Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper, turning into a narrative that stretches from Christ's birth to his crucifixion with voice given to the thoughts of each disciple as they work out which of them will betray him + if all goes well, it's going to be one-of-a-kind movie with spectacular visual effects and educational content.
Useful link:
www.petergreenawayevents.com
Useful link:
www.petergreenawayevents.com
Vanity Fair Portraits
Vanity Fair has an impressive photographic collection + a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London will show classic images from Vanity Fair's early period + other viewpoints @ http://www.npg.org.uk/vanityfair/index.htm
I have seen a few and they are brilliant.
I have seen a few and they are brilliant.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
1. Old Jewels In New Settings
The dauntless Elizabeth, Queen of England, had died with her clothes on, refusing to relinquish her cumbersome finery even in death. Perhaps it might be possible for a lady to carry a greater load of gold and precious stones than did the regal Elizabeth but for the time being she was champion. The culminating point in the matter of quantity had been reached, and with her death in 1603 the flood tide of jewels in Europe began gradually to recede.
James I, who succeeded Elizabeth, had a wife, Anne, who loved finery but lacked that elusive quality called style. There was little change in dress and jewels in England for some years. After Queen Anne’s death, the ladies even became a degree less flamboyant—but not so the men. Jewels seem to have found a special place of prominence on their enormous felt hats. These hats were decorated extravagantly with jeweled bands and gold clasps set with gems that held in place the bunch of plumes waving jauntily from the side, back, or upturned brim.
Pearls were especially in vogue. My lady’s hair was twined with pearls and it was the acme of elegant distinction for a gentleman to wear a single large, pear-shaped pearl dangling from one ear only, the other ear left unadorned.
Meanwhile, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Europe was torn with a series of wars. In Germany, the Thirty Years’ War had left the country ruined and desolate. The highly skilled, individualistic work of the goldsmith-jeweler is not an art that thrives in time of war. Germany’s goldsmiths, if escape were possible, fled and scattered in other lands.
Along with these unsettled times came changes of fashion. In France, the heavy velvets and stiff brocades that could almost stand alone made place for dainty silks and furbelows less stately, more gay, in accordance with the temper of the French court. Out of mode were the architectural forms, scrolls, and strapwork dear to the German school. Paris called for open lace-like settings in keeping with the new delicacy of fabrics, not the massive ornaments of the century past. The gemstone itself was now called upon to play the leading role; the setting must be subordinate.
And then, as has so often happened, came a wave of remodeling jewelry. Many a fine example of the goldsmith’s art was cast without regard to its beauty into the melting pot.
The epidemic of destruction did not confine itself to France. In Merrie England, when the new king, James I, took stock of the crown jewels, the inventory of 1603 listed ‘a fayre Flower, with three great ballaces, in the myddest a greate pointed dyamonde, and three greate perles fixed, with a fayre greate perle pendante, called The Brethren.’ It was, of course, the same historic pendant made for Charles the Bold, and later added to the royal regalia by Henry VIII. Elizabeth had kept the jewel intact, but when the fever of remodeling jewelry swept Europe, the pendant was among the royal jewels handled over to one of the court jewelers, George Heriot of Edinburgh, for refashioning.
Jewlers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
1. Old Jewels In New Settings
The dauntless Elizabeth, Queen of England, had died with her clothes on, refusing to relinquish her cumbersome finery even in death. Perhaps it might be possible for a lady to carry a greater load of gold and precious stones than did the regal Elizabeth but for the time being she was champion. The culminating point in the matter of quantity had been reached, and with her death in 1603 the flood tide of jewels in Europe began gradually to recede.
James I, who succeeded Elizabeth, had a wife, Anne, who loved finery but lacked that elusive quality called style. There was little change in dress and jewels in England for some years. After Queen Anne’s death, the ladies even became a degree less flamboyant—but not so the men. Jewels seem to have found a special place of prominence on their enormous felt hats. These hats were decorated extravagantly with jeweled bands and gold clasps set with gems that held in place the bunch of plumes waving jauntily from the side, back, or upturned brim.
Pearls were especially in vogue. My lady’s hair was twined with pearls and it was the acme of elegant distinction for a gentleman to wear a single large, pear-shaped pearl dangling from one ear only, the other ear left unadorned.
Meanwhile, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Europe was torn with a series of wars. In Germany, the Thirty Years’ War had left the country ruined and desolate. The highly skilled, individualistic work of the goldsmith-jeweler is not an art that thrives in time of war. Germany’s goldsmiths, if escape were possible, fled and scattered in other lands.
Along with these unsettled times came changes of fashion. In France, the heavy velvets and stiff brocades that could almost stand alone made place for dainty silks and furbelows less stately, more gay, in accordance with the temper of the French court. Out of mode were the architectural forms, scrolls, and strapwork dear to the German school. Paris called for open lace-like settings in keeping with the new delicacy of fabrics, not the massive ornaments of the century past. The gemstone itself was now called upon to play the leading role; the setting must be subordinate.
And then, as has so often happened, came a wave of remodeling jewelry. Many a fine example of the goldsmith’s art was cast without regard to its beauty into the melting pot.
The epidemic of destruction did not confine itself to France. In Merrie England, when the new king, James I, took stock of the crown jewels, the inventory of 1603 listed ‘a fayre Flower, with three great ballaces, in the myddest a greate pointed dyamonde, and three greate perles fixed, with a fayre greate perle pendante, called The Brethren.’ It was, of course, the same historic pendant made for Charles the Bold, and later added to the royal regalia by Henry VIII. Elizabeth had kept the jewel intact, but when the fever of remodeling jewelry swept Europe, the pendant was among the royal jewels handled over to one of the court jewelers, George Heriot of Edinburgh, for refashioning.
Jewlers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art Of Constable, Bonington, Crome, And Cotman
1
Unquestionably the two greatest English painters of landscape, and probably the two greatest English painters of any kind, were Turner and Constable, who were born within a year of one another. Turner, as we saw in the last chapter, amassed a large fortune; Constable, on the other hand, could hardly earn a bare living, and not until 1814, when the artist was thirty eight, did he sell a picture to any but his own personal friends.
How was it that, from a worldly point of view, Constable failed where Turner succeeded? The explanation is to be found in the totally different character of the landscapes painted by these two artists. Turner, as Claude had done before him, made frequent use of nominal subjects as an excuse for his pictures of Nature; there was a dramatic element in his art which appealed to the popular imagination, and even when, as in many of his later works, people found difficulty in apprehending the elements of his style, they were insensibly affected by the splendor of his color and brought to admit that these pictures, if difficult to understand, were paintings in the ‘grand style’.
Constable never made use of ficticious subjects and titles as an excuse for painting landscapes. His works were wholly free from any dramatic or foreign interest, and following example of the Dutch landscape painters of the seventeenth century, he whole-heartedly devoted himself to painting the simple, homely beauty of the scenery in his native land. He modestly confessed that he thought there was room for a ‘natural painter’ and by this he meant a painter who would devote himself to painting as truly as he could the beauty of Nature without importing into his pictures any extraneous reference to Homeric legend or to events in the past or present.
His landscapes were long unappreciated because they appealed to a pure love of Nature which was not fully awake in the artist’s lifetime. ‘My art,’ said Constable a little bitterly in his middle years, ‘flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness, it is without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how can I then hope to be popular?’
John Constable was born on June 11, 1776, nearly fourteen months, to be precise, after the birth of Turner. He was the son of a miller who owned watermills at Flatford and Dedham and two windmills at East Berghholt in Suffolk. It was at the mill house in East Berghholt that John Constable was born, and here he passed the greater part of his youth. His father wished him to enter the Church, but Constable had no inclination in this direction, and after he had finished his education in the local school, at the age of eighteen he assisted his father in the mill at East Bergholt which figures in so many of his landscapes.
Meanwhile his love of Nature and art was encouraged by a great amateur who happened to have his seat in the neighboring county of Essex and wa quick to recognize the talent of young Constable. Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827) was something of a painter himself, he had been a pupil of Richard Wilson; and he was an enthusiastic patron of art and artists. He had peculiar ideas about color, and his well-known saying that ‘a good picture, like good fiddle, should be brown,’ was not helpful to a painter like Constable, who saw them; but at this time Constable was beginner, and the friendly encouragement and advice of Beaumont decided Constable’s career.
One of the best things about Sir George Beaumont, to whose zeal and generosity we owe in large measure the establishment of the National Gallery, was his unremitting efforts to make England appreciate the genius of her own artists. As a young man he had waggishly shown up the ignorance of the public and its ridiculous passion for foreign artists by advertising in the newspapers that a wonderful German had arrived in Bond Street who could take likenesses by a new method of heating the mirror in which the sitter looked, and for ever fixing and preserving the reflection! On the next day a crowd of fashionable folk flocked to Bond Street, only to be laughed at by the practical joker and his friends.
Natural Landscape (continued)
The Art Of Constable, Bonington, Crome, And Cotman
1
Unquestionably the two greatest English painters of landscape, and probably the two greatest English painters of any kind, were Turner and Constable, who were born within a year of one another. Turner, as we saw in the last chapter, amassed a large fortune; Constable, on the other hand, could hardly earn a bare living, and not until 1814, when the artist was thirty eight, did he sell a picture to any but his own personal friends.
How was it that, from a worldly point of view, Constable failed where Turner succeeded? The explanation is to be found in the totally different character of the landscapes painted by these two artists. Turner, as Claude had done before him, made frequent use of nominal subjects as an excuse for his pictures of Nature; there was a dramatic element in his art which appealed to the popular imagination, and even when, as in many of his later works, people found difficulty in apprehending the elements of his style, they were insensibly affected by the splendor of his color and brought to admit that these pictures, if difficult to understand, were paintings in the ‘grand style’.
Constable never made use of ficticious subjects and titles as an excuse for painting landscapes. His works were wholly free from any dramatic or foreign interest, and following example of the Dutch landscape painters of the seventeenth century, he whole-heartedly devoted himself to painting the simple, homely beauty of the scenery in his native land. He modestly confessed that he thought there was room for a ‘natural painter’ and by this he meant a painter who would devote himself to painting as truly as he could the beauty of Nature without importing into his pictures any extraneous reference to Homeric legend or to events in the past or present.
His landscapes were long unappreciated because they appealed to a pure love of Nature which was not fully awake in the artist’s lifetime. ‘My art,’ said Constable a little bitterly in his middle years, ‘flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness, it is without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how can I then hope to be popular?’
John Constable was born on June 11, 1776, nearly fourteen months, to be precise, after the birth of Turner. He was the son of a miller who owned watermills at Flatford and Dedham and two windmills at East Berghholt in Suffolk. It was at the mill house in East Berghholt that John Constable was born, and here he passed the greater part of his youth. His father wished him to enter the Church, but Constable had no inclination in this direction, and after he had finished his education in the local school, at the age of eighteen he assisted his father in the mill at East Bergholt which figures in so many of his landscapes.
Meanwhile his love of Nature and art was encouraged by a great amateur who happened to have his seat in the neighboring county of Essex and wa quick to recognize the talent of young Constable. Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827) was something of a painter himself, he had been a pupil of Richard Wilson; and he was an enthusiastic patron of art and artists. He had peculiar ideas about color, and his well-known saying that ‘a good picture, like good fiddle, should be brown,’ was not helpful to a painter like Constable, who saw them; but at this time Constable was beginner, and the friendly encouragement and advice of Beaumont decided Constable’s career.
One of the best things about Sir George Beaumont, to whose zeal and generosity we owe in large measure the establishment of the National Gallery, was his unremitting efforts to make England appreciate the genius of her own artists. As a young man he had waggishly shown up the ignorance of the public and its ridiculous passion for foreign artists by advertising in the newspapers that a wonderful German had arrived in Bond Street who could take likenesses by a new method of heating the mirror in which the sitter looked, and for ever fixing and preserving the reflection! On the next day a crowd of fashionable folk flocked to Bond Street, only to be laughed at by the practical joker and his friends.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Heard On The Street
Remember: the market is always right + you can never be taught about market, you have to learn it + you must balance fear and greed.
Eric Estorick
The story of Eric Estorick is unique + the collection of art and sculpture (s) dating from 1890 to the 1950s includes Giacomo Balla + Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà + Gino Severini + Luigi Russolo + Ardengo Soffici + works by Giorgio de Chirico + Amedeo Modigliani + Giorgio Morandi + Mario Sironi + Marino Marini + the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art museum in Canonbury Square in the district of Islington on the northern fringes of central London is the United Kingdom's only gallery devoted to modern Italian art.
Useful links:
www.estorickcollection.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estorick_Collection_of_Modern_Italian_Art
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/15/arts/melik16.php
What made Eric a great collector?
A wonderful eye, timing, foresight, energy.
-Michael Estorick
I think that neatly sums up what it takes to be an art hunter, whether as a dealer or a collector.
Useful links:
www.estorickcollection.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estorick_Collection_of_Modern_Italian_Art
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/15/arts/melik16.php
What made Eric a great collector?
A wonderful eye, timing, foresight, energy.
-Michael Estorick
I think that neatly sums up what it takes to be an art hunter, whether as a dealer or a collector.
Flawless
Trailer for 'Flawless', the new diamond movie @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GfpT1GCXy8
I hope you will like it.
I hope you will like it.
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