Caught Up In The Drama

The title of the article is great: Put a Diamond Under Stress, and You Might Crack -- the actors in the drama include: Ralph O. Esmerian, 68, a collector of American folk art and precious gems who owns the Fred Leighton jewelry company + Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital, a division of Merrill Lynch & Company + Peter E. Bacanovic, the former Merrill Lynch broker who was sentenced to five months in prison for his role in the Martha Stewart stock case + François Curiel, the director of Christie’s jewelry department + read the full story @ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/fashion/20jewels.html

The following comments are great lessons in (jewelry) business.

'The estimates are disastrously low. It’s a fire-sale presentation. These are special pieces that deserve some respect. It’s like a magnificent Fifth Avenue mansion being offered for the price of a Third Avenue condo.'
- Ralph O. Esmerian

'Ralph is an artist, not a businessman. In his world, being a week late on a payment is nothing. When he sells a million-dollar piece of jewelry the client might walk out of the store without paying for it. He understands that it takes time for people to liquidate assets. People don’t have money sitting in cookie jars.'
- Helen Davis Chaitman

What Do Hedge-Funders Do With All That Money?

(via wsj) According to Alpha Magazine the top 25 fund managers earned US$16 billion in 2007, and what do hedge-funders do with all that money? They spend + according to Prince & Associates, most hedge funders spend their millions on art, jewelry, watches, hotels and spas.

As they say in business, if you have got it flaunt it.

Useful links:
www.alphamagazine.com
www.russalanprince.com
www.exoticexcess.com

Green Websites

I found the Green Websites via Time informative + useful.

- Grist
http://grist.org

- TreeHugger
www.treehugger.com

- Dot Earth
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com

- climate conversation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechange

- RealClimate
www.realclimate.org

- Environmental Capital
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital

- No Impact Man
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog

- EcoGeek
www.ecogeek.org

- Ecorazzi
www.ecorazzi.com

- Switchboard
http://switchboard.nrdc.org

- Mongabay
www.mongabay.com

- ClimateEthics
http://climateethics.org

- Climate Progress
http://climateprogress.org

- WorldChanging
www.worldchanging.com

- PlanetArk
www.planetark.com

Random Thoughts

The brush can capture in a single stroke the entire tragedy of a life.

- Philippe Pasqua

Alchemy Of Glass

A must-visit: The upcoming exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, 'Glass of the Alchemists: Lead Crystal-Gold Ruby, 1650-1750,' will explore how alchemists contributed to the creation of colorless crystal and gold ruby glass, two advances of fundamental importance in the history of glassmaking + the museum is home to the world's most comprehensive collection of glass from all periods and cultures over the past 3,500 years.

Useful links:
www.cmog.org
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raacorn.php

Christian Louboutin

I found the article on Christian Louboutin @ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1731871,00.html interesting because beautiful shoe designs = posture and proportion, just like well-cut gemstones, good proportions, symmetry and finish = total internal reflection + no wonder his shoes are like jewels.

Useful link:
www.christianlouboutin.fr

The Back Of The Napkin

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam is a fascinating/insightful book on simple visuals + simple images is as much an art as a skill.

I liked it.

Useful link:
http://digitalroam.com

The Coxcomb Cut

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

A coxcomb (or cockscomb) is ‘a cap worn by a jester, like a cock’s comb in shape and color’ (Oxford English Dictionary), while Victor Gay’s Glossaire gives this defintion of the French creste: ‘ornament qui pose depuis les premières années du 13ème siècle sur le heaume (helmet), est plus connu sous le nom de cimier (souvent une aigrette de plumes)’. These two terms are used to describe a fancy type of gem cut which was already appearing in inventories in the early fifteenth century: in 1402 Duke Louis of Guyenne had ‘un rubis a crestè’. In 1420 Philip the Good had ‘ung bien gros dyament taillé en façon de creste de cog.’

It is quite evident what type of cut was meant, since it is easy to find such diamonds in various collections. However, it was not common. It was applied only when the rough was suitable and an appreciable amount of weight could be saved. Modern versions are called Multiple Step Cuts, Bent Top Cuts, or simply Bar Cuts. They are fashioned in a variety of outlines and with very varied pavilions.

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Claude Monet, who is still alive, has also seen pictures he sold for £4 bring thousands of pounds in America and elsewhere. Devoting himself to the painting of landscapes in bright sunlight, he has carried the pitch of painting into a higher key than any artist before him had done. ‘Pine Tree at Antibes’ is a beautiful example of his style at its maturity; radiant colors are laid side by side in small broken touches to suggest the vibration of light, while the decorative arrangement shows that Monet also has taken hints for design from the artists of Japan. Light is always the ‘principal person’ in Monet’s landscape, and since he is always aiming at seizing a fugitive effect, he has insisted on consistency of illumination at particular hours of the day and season. With this object be adopted, since the early eighties, a habit of painting the same subject under different conditions of light. He would set our early in the monrning with a carriage-load of canvases, and arriving at his destination he would start his day’s work, changing his canvas every couple of hours as the light changed. In this way he painted a series of views, all of the same subject, but all different in color and lighting. Among the most famous of these series are those known as ‘Haystacks,’ ‘The Poplars,’ ‘The Thames at Waterloo Bridge,’ ‘Rouen Cathedral,’ and ‘Waterlilies,’ the last being a scene in his own riverside garden at Giverny. When he was a young man M Monet once said, ‘I want to paint as a bird sings,’ and all his pictures have this delicious lyrical quality. While he adopted the rainbow palette and the technique of the small touch—‘the procedure by the touch’ as it is called in France—Monet has never been dogmatic in his use of divisionism.

The elaboration of Divisionism into a rigid scientific theory of painting was the work principally of two younger men; Georges Seurat (1859-91) and the living artist Paul Signac, born at Paris in 1863. But for his early death would have obtained a foremost place in modern art. It was Seurat about 1880 who definitely established the superiority, for the purposes of brilliance and intensity, of ‘optical blending’ to actual blending on the palette. The division of tones, which are never more than a convenience to painters like Monet and Sisley, became a law not to be departed from in the work of Seurat and Signac. This new scientific development of Impressionism became known as ‘neo-Impressionism.’ For a time Pissarro also practised this method of Divisionism with scrupulous exactness, but eventually he adopted a broader and freer manner, though still retaining the general principle of divided color. In addition to Seurat and Signac, the chief exponents of neo-Impressionism have been Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910) and the living Belgian painter, Théo van Rysselberg. This method of painting and the scientific theories on which it is based are fully described in M Paul Signac’s book D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionisme (Paris, 1898).

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Two Days In An Elevator

This is the story of Nicholas White, who was trapped in an elevator in New York City’s McGraw-Hill building for forty-one hours.

Watch it @ http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators

What an experience!

Green Companies

I found the Green Start-Up Companies via Time informative + useful.

- Amyris Biotechnologies
www.amyrisbiotech.com

- Nanosolar
www.nanosolar.com

- First Solar
www.firstsolar.com

- Serious Materials
www.seriousmaterials.com

- PetroAlgae
www.petroalgae.com

- eMeter
www.emeter.com

- Solarcity
www.solarcity.com

- ClimateCheck
www.climate-check.com

- Verdiem
www.verdiem.com

- Enphase Energy
www.enphaseenergy.com

- Ausra
www.ausra.com

- Verenium
www.verenium.com

- Finavera
www.finavera.com

- Ergo Exergy
www.ergoexergy.com

- GridPoint
www.gridpoint.com

Random Thoughts

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.

- Andy Warhol

The Art Of Investing

Only time will tell: I found the article The Art of Investing @ http://www.livemint.com/2008/04/16191717/The-Art-of-Investing.html intriguing + what's worrying is that the bourgeoning Indian art market is attracting a lot of attention worldwide due to the sudden rise of investors and collectors (with/without product knowledge) in various hues and this may be the tip of the iceberg.

Another art market bubble?

Joan Miró

(via Wiki) Joan Miró was a Catalan (Spanish) painter, sculptor and ceramicist + his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride + his artistic autonomy is reflected in his work and his willingness to work with several media.

I really like his style of art.

Useful links:
www.museothyssen.org
www.palazzodiamanti.it
www.nga.gov.au
www.guggenheim.org
www.expomuseum.com
www.centrepompidou.fr

The De Beers Anti-Trust Settlement: Winners and Losers

I found Chaim Even Zohar's views on the De Beers Anti-Trust Settlement @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp informative and insightful because at the end of the day consumers are always the losers.

Graphic Novel Update

I think comics are unique genre of art that connects people + I love it.

Useful links:
www.comic-con.org
http://act-i-vate.com
http://paulmay.livejournal.com
http://www.hollywoodcomics.com/pope.html

The Picture Of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a great book, a book about you + there are lessons to be learned + I liked it.

Useful links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037988
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WilDori.html
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/174

Chequer Designs

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

I have seen several diamonds dating from around 1600, and even one or two from the middle of the sixteenth century, which have surfaces covered all over with very very small squares or lozenges, rather like the design of a chessboard. One of the main reasons for this type of faceting was that at that time, when light effects were not considered important, closely packed small facets could completely disguise even very disturbing inclusions in a gem. Many of these Chequer Cuts would otherwise have been fashioned into Table Cuts.

A number of Chequer Cuts were shaped like calves’ heads, though just as many had other outlines—square, oval, round, triangular, etc. On the whole, early inventories mention either faceting or outline, but very seldom both.

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Another contributor to this exhibition, whose picture, ‘The Dancing Lesson’, attracted much attention, was Degas. Friendship with Manet drew Degas into this circle, though he never entirely accepted all the priciples of Impressionism. Edgar Hilaire Germain Degas (1834-1917) was born in Paris, the son of a banker, and, like Courbet and Manet, was originally destined for a legal career. In 1855, however, he entered the École des Beaux Arts, and also studied under Lamothe, a pupil of Ingres. All this life Degas, who was brought up in the classical tradition, had the deepest veneration for Ingres. He was also an admirer of Holbein and Clouet, whose pictures he copied. In 1856 he went to Rome and remained two years in Italy studying the work of the early Italian masters. Returning to Paris, he began as an historical painter, his last picture in this style being ‘A Scene of War in the Middle Ages,’ shown in the Salon of 1865. But about this time he came into contact with Manet, and through him with Pisaro, Monet, Renoir, and others who frequented the Café Guerbois in the Batingnolles, and there endlessly discussed their artistic aims and ideals. Because of this centre for social intercourse the Impressionist group was at one time nicknamed ‘The School of Batingnolles’. Owning to the powerful new influences surrounding him, Degas was led to abandon his historical works and devote himself to painting scenes of modern life. Always intensely interested in the rendering of movement, Degas was first attracted to subjects he found on the racecourse, one of the earliest successes in his new manner being ‘A Carriage at the Races’. He also painted washerwomen at their work, scenes in cafés and in theaters, and revealed himself as an artist passionately absorbed in the spectacle of city life, though with rather a cynical outlook. Degas was the greatest draughtsman among the Impressionists, and in his pictures of modern life he relied upon line more than any other of the friends with whom he exhibited, like Whistler, he was much influenced by Japanese colors prints, which gave him new ideas of pattern and design.

After the Franco-Prussian war, during which he served in the artillery, Degas concentrated on the Ballet, a subject for which he became famous throughout the world, and which occupied his best attention for twenty years. In these works Degas stands revealed as an uncompromising Realist. What he usually shows us is not the glamor and illusion of the Ballet from the spectator’s standpoint; Degas get behind the scenes and exposes the work and discipline which lie behind this artificial fairyland; he strips the dancers of their tinsel, compelling us to see that they are not lovely young nymphs, but plain, tired, hardworked women, often middle-aged. The beauty of his pictures is to be found not in any prettiness of his models but in the lighting, the arrangement, the drawing, and later, in the color, in the convincing truth of his vision, and in the decorative charm of his design. In the later seventies and thenceforward, Degas worked more frequently in pastel than in oils, and in these later pastels he adopts the prismatic hues of Luminism, based on the rainbow colors of the solar spectrum, so that these works, in addition to their masterly drawing and decorative design, have the additional beauty of shimmering, iridescent color. A superb example of his later style is the pastel ‘A Dancer on the Stage’ in the Luxembourg, Paris. Here, for once in a way, Degas forgets his cynicism and shows us the magical glamor of a première danseuse quivering with movement, bathed with light, and happy apparently in her moment of success. After 1886 Degas retired almost completely from the public eye, living the life of recluse on a fifth floor in Montmartre; refusing for the most part to sell his works or even to show them to collectors, though his fame continually increased and the value of his earlier works rose to sensational prices. Before his death his pictures ‘Dancers at the Bar,’ which he had originally sold for £20, was bought by an American collector for £17,400, this being the record price obtained today at public auction for a picture by any living artist. But Degas was equally contemptuous of praise or criticism, and to the end he declined all honors.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Oriental Rug, Gemstones, Jewelry

I found the article How To Buy an Oriental Rug @ http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1732112,00.html informative because buying rugs can be intimidating for the beginner, just like buying gemstones/jewelry + there is the clash of cultures + you shouldn't forget the first lesson: The seller is going to win, because he invented the game.

Heard On The Street

There is a market for everything + pay attention to how it works.

Iceland And Renewable Energy

Iceland's primary innovation = renewable energy + Iceland has begun making clean hydrogen fuel, a new blueprint to the rest of the world.

Useful links:
www.ectos.is
www.ge-prize.ru
www.nmi.is
www.statoilhydro.com
www.sri.com

Art Reflections In Dallas

The Goss-Michael Foundation's gallery in Dallas (USA) is a must-visit + they are showcasing works by Damien Hirst, including his 'Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain' — a black calf encased in a formaldehyde solution, its body pierced with arrows +++++++

Useful links:
www.gossmichaelfoundation.org
http://dallasmuseumofart.org
www.nashersculpturecenter.org
www.whitecube.com

Ólafur Elíasson

Olafur Eliasson is a Danish/Icelandic artist, who is well-known for his intellectually stimulating work of art, in my view, of a different kind, immersive and impermanent + makes you reflect and refract.

Useful links:
www.olafureliasson.net
www.moma.org
www.sfmoma.org
www.ps1.org

Jewelry Sales Training Program

I think the idea of providing custom sales training programs for jewelers (jewelry sales scenarios, role-playing, overview of sales styles, basic skills to overcome customer objections, guidance on competition, sales framework +++) by American Gem Society is brilliant + I wish there were similar programs tailored specifically for the culture-conscious jewelry sector in Asia, Europe, Africa and South America.

Useful link:
www.americangemsociety.org

Corporate Social Responsibility Educational Program

During the annual congress in Dubai, 2008, CIBJO + United Nations have decided to create a foundation that will finance and administer a worldwide Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) educational program (s) for the benefit of the jewelry industry.

Useful links:
www.cibjo.org
www.un.org

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson finds beauty via science + it's a delightful book + I liked it.

The Cuboid Cut

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

The term Cuboid Cut has been given to diamonds which have all the six planes of a cube, even though they may contain combinations of the octahedron and the dodecahedron as well. Growth like this in the crystal was perhaps what first inspired cutters to produce these fancy shapes, though later Cuboid Cuts were probably also fashioned from rounded or oval dodecahedrons.

Depending on the outline of the rough, the girdle outline of a Cuboid Cut is either a regular or a slightly elongated octagon with four main square or rectangular facets in the crown sloping towards the girdle from the table. These facets, which form a cross, are separated from each other by triangular facets. The girdle, composed of eight high vertical facets, is very thick. The pavilion design is similar to that of one in a normal Table Cut. The culet is usually small and the same shape as the table. The table, the culet and four of the girdle facets form the cubic planes. The main facets correspond more or less to dodecahedral faces, and the triangular facets to octahedral faces.

Once they had achieved this original shape with very little loss of weight, some cutters ( such as the maker of the cuboid gem on the Burgundian Court Goblet) found that they had also, though probably by chance, produced a diamond of exceptional brilliance—such brilliance, in fact, that when I first saw the diamond on the Burgundian Goblet in Vienna, I thought it must be a modern replacement. Later, when I was allowed to study all the diamonds on the goblet, I was able to assure myself that this was indeed the original diamond and that it had never been replaced. The Cuboid Cut apparently became more popular than the Burgundian Point Cut in the fashioning of dodecahedral rough, but it did not survive nor evolve into any other design.

Hartley (1968) explained how to fashion, from synthetics, a Cross Brilliant. This is a design circular in outline, but with a square table—very similar, in fact, to the old Cuboid Cut. Hartley described it as being ‘very simple cut, but it has a surprising amount of brilliance’, and said that the table facet must be perfectly square adn 25-26 percent of the width of the stone. Perhaps the old Cuboid Cut has been revived!

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

4

Camille Pissarro (1830-1930) was born at St Thomas in the Danish West Indies and came to Paris with his parents when he was twenty five. He became a pupil of Corot, and his earlier works show the influenec of Corot as regards style and color and of Millet in subject adn drawing. He was the eldest of the Impressionists, being two years older than Manet; but throughout his life Pissarro was an ardent student, never ceasing to investigate and experiment, always ready to listen to the theories and to observe the practice of a junior who claimed to have discovered a new truth. Though darker in color than his later work, a small landscape now in the Musée des Arts Decoratis at Paris, painted by Pissarro in 1869, shows that even at this time he was experimenting in the division of tones. Unfortunately nearly all the earlier paintings of Camille Pissarro are lost, for his home and studio were in the line of approach of the destroying Prussians in 1870. Owing to the war Pissarro and Monet came to London in 1871, and there they saw the later paintings of Turner, which confirmed their ideas about color and encouraged them to paint brighter and still brighter.

Claude Monet was ten years younger than Pissarro. Though born in 1840 at Paris, where his father was a merchant, he spent much of his boyhood at Havre, where he learnt a good deal about painting from Boudin. After completing his military service in Algeria, Monet returned to Paris and entered the studio of Gleyre. Here he formed a close friendship with two fellow students, Renoir and Sisley, and became acquainted later with Manet, as has already been related. Monet’s earliest paintings, however, are not lighter than those by Boudin and Corot, and he was first influenced by these and others of the Barbizon School.

Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was born at Limoges, where his father was a tailor in a small way of business, and at the age of thirteen young Auguste began to earn his living as a painter on porcelain. This early apprenticeship left a certain trace on his art which was always decorative adn evel elegiac in spite of its later realism. In time Renoir saved up enough money to go to Paris and become a pupil of Gleyre, but while his friends were landscapists Renoir was first and foremost a figure painter.

Alfred Sisley (1839-99) was born in Paris of English parents, and his development was parallel to that of Monet, whose work his own pictures closely resemble. We may say that all these young men, together with Pissarro, were discontented with the state of painting before 1870. They looked at their pictures and they looked at Nature; but while they realized how far their painting fell short of their intention, they had not yet found the way to secure greater brilliancy and truth. That way was discovered during the ‘seventies, after Pissarro and Monet had seen the Turners in London and returned to Paris. It is possible to exaggerate the influence of Turner on the new movement, for it had really begun earlier with Delacroix, but the sight of the Turners undoubtedly hastened its accomplishment as far as Pissarro and Monet are concerned. Not the beginning of Impressionism, but the first public revelation of Impressionism, was an exhibition held at Nadar’s galleries, Boulevard des Capucines, in 1874. Here were gathered together works by many of the ‘rejected’ of 1863, Manet being the best known of them and generally considered the leader of the movement, and also works by new adherents to Impressionist doctrine. The exhibitions provoked much controversy, but it was sufficiently talked about to be something of a success, and thereafter for several years a Salon des Impressionistes was an annual event. But in 1874, the science of color was still in its infancy, and if the exhibitors were ‘Impressionists’ they were not all ‘luminists’. Even Renoir’s famous picture of people in a theatre box, painted about this time, is sombre in color, in comparison with the scintillating canvases he was to paint later.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Hormones And Market Crises

I found the article Hormones may fuel market crises @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7342923.stm interesting because the Cambridge University team found testosterone levels were directly linked to the profit City of London traders made during trade sessions.

I think the diamond/colored stone dealers + auctioneers worldwide are no different from City of London traders + the team should have gone the extra mile to conduct similar research in diamond bourses + colored stone markets + auction houses worldwide to learn a bit more about testosterone levels + the impact.

Useful links:
www.nasonline.org
www.cam.ac.uk

Kurt Masur

Kurt Masur is a German conductor, noted for his interpretation of German Romantic music, is one of the most widely admired and respected musicians of his generation + I think there is brilliance and that otherness in his music, which I like.

Useful link:
www.kurtmasur.com

Champagne Diamonds Update

The world's largest supplier of champagne diamonds has released its latest range of champagne diamond promotional materials @ http://www.riotintodiamonds.com/ENG/media/media_releases_1078.asp

Useful link:
www.riotintodiamonds.com

Art Update

(via NYTimes) I liked the video art collections at Ubu + Franklin Furnace’s online archive

They were educational + entertaining.

Useful links:
www.ubu.com
http://www.ubu.com/film
http://acorn.forest.net/franklin/search.html

Jill Bolte Taylor

I found Jill Bolte Taylor's story about her stroke @ http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229 inspiring + it's amazing how our brain connect us to the world and to one another.

Random Thoughts

'The one thing you do know when you hold an all-you-can-eat buffet, the heavy eaters show up first.'

- Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com

Google Earth 4.3

The lighting effects + panorama streets of Google Earth 4.3 version @ gearthblog.com are superb + as I was watching the YouTube demo by Google of 4.3 I thought this would be a great tool for jewelers and colored stone dealers to communicate colors with their clients and customers no matter where you are.

I liked it.

McMafia

McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny is a fascinating book on powerful criminal networks that have linked across continents and become sophisticated money making machines + the impact.

A must-read.

The Great Florentine Diamond—A Fancy Sancy Cut

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

The Great Florentine diamond (fashioned in 1615) has several names. It has been called the Tuscan, the Tuscany Diamond, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and even the Austrian Yellow Diamond—an unfortunate name, since it creates confusion with another lost diamond, the Austrian Yellow Brilliant.

The stone was drop-shaped with both the front and the reverse more or less similarly faceted. The center of the front had trihedral faceting, but the mactching area on the reverse simply had nine basic facets. Both front and reverse were stepped twice, producing nine rows, each containing nine facets in the front, and seven rows of nine facets on the reverse—144 facets in all. The overall impression is of a nine-rayed star.

Through the works of Speranza Cavenago Bignami, Guido Gregorietti and others, I have been able to trace the history of this stone. P.Aloisi stated in 1932 that the rough stone was ‘acquired’ in the late sixteenth century from the King of Vijayanagar (modern Narsingha) in southern India by the Portuguese Governor of Goa, Ludovico Castro, Count of Montesanto, after the king’s defeat by Portuguese troops. The crystal was deposited with the Jesuits in Rome until, after lengthy negotiations, Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany succeeded in buying it from the Castro-Noranha family for 35000 Portuguese scudi crocati.

Duke Ferdinand’s son, Grand Duke Cosimo II (who ruled from 1609 to 1621), finally entrusted his father’s purchase to a cutter, Pompeo Studentoli, a Venetian working in Florence. The finished gem was delivered on 10 October 1615. An inventory drawn up on Cosimo’s death confirms the acquisition of the rough diamond by Ferdinand and describes the gem as ‘faceted on both sides and encircled by a diamond-encrusted gold band.’

Dr Heinz Biehn reproduced a sketch of a pendant containing the Great Florentine with a caption reading, ‘Il Gran Diamante del Serimo Gran Duca di Toschana , Pesa 138 Carati.’ Despite extensive investigation, the origin of this drawing remains obscure. The correct weight and the exact faceting indicate that it was probably drawn just after its fashioning in 1615. The outline differs slightly, most likely because the artist wished to show a perfect and therefore pleasing symmetry.

Thomas Cletscher, who must have seen the gem in Florence, produced a clearly recognizable sketch of it in about 1625: neither the faceting nor the outline is aboslutely correct, which indicates that it may have been done from memory. The faceting of the central trihedrally faceted section is fairly accurate, but the surrounding steps, which he depicts as being similarly fashioned, cannot be correct. Cletscher also gives the weights of the rough and the finished gem as being 170 ct and 120 ct, neither of which would appear to be accurate.

The next specialist to describe and sketch the diamond was Tavernier, who claims to have seen it in 1657 and on some other occasion. The outline he gives differs from the actual shape of the stone, although he reproduces the faceting correctly; but he gives faceting of the reverse of the gem with its six basic facets in the centre, instead of the trihedral faceting of the front. Max Bauer gives more plausible proportions. Other authors have either reproduced these same illustrations or drawn from their imaginations.

My own line drawing are based on the only available photograph, but this is so poor that the faceting cannot be clearly seen. The correct girdle outline is, however, found. As to the design, I have studied the sketches carefully and am convinced that this is how the faceting must have been. At first glance it looks as though the gem was almost symmetrical, but in fact this was not so. The drawings show the actual shape of the stone and a symmetrized version.

Little is known of the jewel once it was set. No doubt it remained in the Medici family ans was worn occasionally, even though there are no portraits in which it appears. It was mentioned in an inventory of 1740, after the death in 1737 of Giovanni Gasto, husband of Duchess Anna Maria. The jewel remained in her possession until her death without heirs three years later, when it became part of the Tuscan duchy treasury.

Meanwhile, in 1736, Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, had been obliged to renounce his duchy because of his marriage to Maria Theresa of Austria, but had been given Tuscany instead. In 1747 he became Holy Roman Emperor and he took the Florentine diamond to Austria as one of his own personal possessions. It was set, first in a crown and then in a hat jewel. When the Austrian empire came to an end in 1918 the jewel was removed from the treasury by the ex-Emperor Karl, and disappeared.

Surprisingly little has been written about the Florentine, perhaps because it was in a private treasury and not easily available for inspection. The only known analysis was by Schrauf, who gave its weight as 27.454 grams (i.e. 137.27 ct). J Cohn, basing his statements on undisclosed sources, said that the Florentine was of a light greyish-yellow color and displayed quite exceptional dispersion (fire), which strengthened this color. He added that it was flawless and of a good make and, taking all factors into consideration, classified it as being of ‘second water.’

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Various names have been given to this technique. It has been called ‘Divisionism,’ because by it the tones of secondary and tertiary colors were divided into their constituent elements. It has been called ‘Pointillism,’ because the color was applied to the canvas in points instead of in sweeping brush strokes. It has been called ‘Luminism,’ because the aim of the process is primarily to express the color of light with all its sparkle and vibration. This last is the best name of all, because it serves to emphasize the new outlook of the new painters. The tendency before the Impressionists was to regard color from the standpoint of black and white. Thus, in considering a grey, it would have been asked is it a dark grey or a light grey, does it approach black or white? The Impressionists took quite a different attitude and asked whether it was a bluish grey, or a greenish grey, or a purplish grey, or a reddish grey: in a word, not whether it was light or dark, but to which color in the solar spectrum it most closely approached.

To the Impressionists shadow was not an absence of light, but light of a different quality and of different value. In their exhaustive research into the true colors of shadows in Nature, they conquered the last unknown territory in the domain of Realist Painting.

To sum up, then, it may be said the Impressionist Painting is based on two great principles:

1. The substitution of a simulataneous vision that sees a scene as a whole in place of a consecutive vision that sees Nature piece by piece.

2. The substitution of a Chiaroscuro based on the colors of the solar spectrum for a Chiaroscuro based on Black and White.

This new technique, with all the research and experiment which is implies, was not the invention of one man, but the outcome of the life studies of a whole group of men. Most prominent among those who brought Impressionist painting to perfection in theory and practice were Camille Pissaro, Claude Monet, and Auguste Renoir.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Heard On The Street

Customers want three things: the best selection + the lowest prices + the cheapest and most-convenient delivery.

Ian Fleming

I am a Ian Fleming fan (a famous British author, journalist and Second World War Navy Commander), who is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond, who loves cars, diamonds, girls and guns.

Quantum of Solace: November, 2008

Useful links:
www.ianflemingcentre.com
www.ianflemingcentenary.com
www.ianflemingfoundation.org
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7346971.stm
www.007.com
www.mi6.co.uk
www.cubbybroccoli.com

Innovative Carver

The Carver = Motorcyle + Automobile, is just a brilliant concept. I don't drive a car, but take a look at this video

I really fell in love with the Carver.

Useful links:
www.flytheroad.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg8KDHfr14w

Dyson Product Design Award

Dyson Product Design Awards are awarded annually for inventions that demonstrate exceptional ingenuity and function + it was amazing/inspiring to see talented designers with their concepts from all corners of the world in New York on April 9, 2008 for the special event.

Useful links:
www.dyson.co.nz
www.jamesdysonfoundation.com

Good design is about how something works, not just how it looks.
- James Dyson

Hermann Scheer

(via Wiki) Hermann Scheer, a physicist, a member of the German Bundestag, President of the European Association for Renewable Energy, and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy believes it is technically and environmentally feasible to harness enough solar radiation to achieve a total replacement of the fossil/nuclear energy system by a global renewable energy economy.

I think he was spot on + the benefits are huge.

Useful links:
www.wcre.de
www.eurec.be
www.hermannscheer.de
www.rightlivelihood.org
www.internationaldialogues.nl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nq2iLnAETA

The Art Fund Prize

I liked the purpose of The Art Fund prize because it does increase public appreciation of art via museums and galleries, and now a shortlist for the 2008 Art Fund prize for museums and galleries in the UK will be announced on April 18, 2008.

I also think other countries should follow the UK model to stimulate interest in museums and galleries for wider appreciation and participation, which I think benefits all.

Useful link:
www.theartfundprize.org.uk

Pu'er Tea

Pu'er Tea from Yunnan, has become a fashionable, must-have variety in the tea shops of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing + I think in a way to appreciate Pu'er tea is similar to enjoying wine because you need to understand the different areas where tea grows to differentiate flavors + among the wealthy, health-conscious Chinese there is also a belief that Pu'er tea lowers cholesterol, cures hangovers, helps fortify teeth and trims away fat + like with many other products in China it is difficult to tell the real from imitations.

I think buying Pu'er tea is like buying rubies and sapphires--you must have product knowledge.

Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu-erh
www.pu-erh.net
http://community.livejournal.com/puerh_tea

The Levity Effect

The Levity Effect: Why it Pays to Lighten Up by Adrian Gostick + Scott Christopher is an interesting book about humor in the workplace because in the changing workforce/workplace environment fun is a serious business.

I liked the book + I think a fun workplace improves communication and morale + you can achieve anything you want while enjoying what you do by changing you.

Useful links:
www.levityeffect.com
www.greatplacetowork.com
www.ipsos.com

The Mazarin Diamond Number 4

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

One more diamond belonging to the French crown was the Mazarin number 4. It originally weighed 24¼ ct. It was Sancy Cut above, but as it was said to have been ‘very thick’ it will have had a pavilion of some sort, possibly very primitively faceted. The Mazarin was refashioned, some time between 1786 and 1788, into a roundish oval Brilliant weighing 13 5/8 ct.

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

The nineteenth was a scientific century during which great additions were made to our knowledge of optics. The French scientist Chevreuil wrote a learned book on color, which was studied with avidity by the younger painters. It became clear to them that color was not a simple but a very complex matter. For example, we say that grass is green, and the green is the local color of grass, that is to say, the color of grass at close range, when we look down on it at our feet. But grass-covered hills seen at a great distance do not appear green, but blue. The green of their local color is affected by the veil of atmosphere through which we view it in the distance, and the blue we see is an example of atmospheric color. Again, the local color of snow is white, but everybody who has been to Switzerland is familiar with the ‘Alpine glow’ when the snow-clad peaks of the mountains appear a bright copper color owing to the rays of the setting sun. This ‘Alpine glow’ is an example of illumination color, and since the color of sunlight is changing throughout the day, everything in Nature is affected by the color of the light which falls upon it.

The landscape painter, then, who, wishes to reproduce the actual hues of Nature, has to consider not only ‘local color’ but also ‘atmospheric color’ and ‘illumination color’, and further take into consideration ‘complementary colors.’ One of the most important discoveries made by the later Impressionist painters was that in the shadows there always appears the complementary color of the light. We should ponder on all these things if we wish to realize the full significance of Manet’s saying, ‘The principal person in a picture is the light.’

This new intensive study of color brought about a new palette and a new technique. For centuries all painting had been based on three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow; but science now taught the painters that though these might be primary colors in pigment, they were not primary colors in light. The spectroscope and the new science of spectrum-analysis made them familiar with the fact that white light is composed of all colors of the rainbow, which is the spectrum of sunlight. They learnt that the primary colors of light were green, orange-red, and blue-violet, and that yellow—though a primary in paint—was a secondary in light, because a yellow light can be produced by blending a green light with an orange-red light. On the other hand green, a secondary in paint because it can be produced by mixing yellow with blue pigment, is a primary in light. These discoveries revolutionized their ideas about color, and the Impressionist painters concluded they could only hope to paint the true color of sunlight by employing pigments which matched the colors of which sunlight was composed, that is to say, the tints of the rainbow. They discarded black altogether, for, modified by atmosphere and light, they held that a true black did not exist in Nature: the darkest color was indigo, dark green, or a deep violet. They would not use a brown, but set their palettes with indigo, blue green, yellow, orange, red, and violet, the nearest colors they could obtain to the seven of the solar spectrum.

Further, they used these colors with as little mixing as possible. Every amateur in watercolor knows that the more he mixes his paints, the more they lose in brilliancy. The same is true of oil paints. The Impressionists refrained, therefore, as much as possible from mixing colors on their palettes, and applied them pure in minute touches to the canvas. If they wanted to render secondary or tertiary colors, instead of mixing two or three pigments on the palette, they would secure the desired effect by juxtaposed touches of pure colors which, at a certain distance, fused in the eye of the beholder and produced the effect of the tint desired. This device is known as optical mixture, because the mixing is done in the spectator’s eye. Thus, whereas red and green pigment mixed on a palette will give a dull grey, the Impressionists produced a brilliant luminous grey by speckling a sky, say, with little points of yellow and mauve which at a distance gave the effect of a pearly grey. Similarly the effect of a brilliant brown was given by the juxtaposition of a series of minute touches of green, red and yellow; and this association of minute touches of three pure colors set up a quivering vibration which had greater luminosity than any streak of brown pigment. It was an endeavor to use paints as if they were colored lights.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Gem + Jewelry Update

According to the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, India's total gem and jewelry exports provisionally stood at $20.9 billion in the year to March 2008.

Useful link:
www.gjepc.org

Heard On The Street

Buys and sells are decided on emotion not logic.

Bernard Magrez

The story of Bernard Magrez, the business-oriented winemaker, with an estimated 30 plus vineyards in seven countries @ http://nz.entertainment.yahoo.com/080413/8/4vl3.html is unique because as an outsider, in terms of the Bordeaux establishment, he is different/self-made + more importantly he knows how to cut down a tree!

I think he is one-of-a-kind person in the wine business + there is something to learn.

Useful link:
www.bernard-magrez.com

Jewelry Collection Of Christina Onassis

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The Sun Halo

The Sun Halo in Ethiopia, which is the ring of light caused by sunlight refracted by ice crystals hung in the sky @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7346133.stm was beautiful + the photograph reminded me of inclusions in Corundum (rubies + sapphires).

A Win-Win Business Model

The article on Specialisterne@ http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5869.html
was interesting because I haven't heard of autism spectrum disorder + the after-effects, but what's intriguing is that someone had found an industry niche, along with a commitment to raising the profile of hidden talents of individuals with ASD.

Brilliant!

Useful link:
www.specialisterne.com

Glasgow's Art Festival

Glasgow International (founded in 2004) is now set to become a regular biennial + it has the most developed arts scene outside London + the city supports a number of commercial galleries + the event will run until April 27, 2008.

A must-visit. You will always learn something new.

Useful links:
www.glasgowinternational.org
www.glasgowmuseums.com
www.themoderninstitute.com
www.sorchadallas.com
www.marymarygallery.co.uk

Confessions Of A Shopaholic

The book Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella is funny + refreshing because at times you realize that we all have spending habits, a lot of us do + I think that most males / females will find themselves in Rebecca Bloomwood.

Useful links:
www.sophiekinsella.co.uk
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1093908

Two Flat-Bottomed Sancy Cut Diamonds

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

Two diamonds from Mazarin’s collection, numbers 17 and 18, are of similar shape and faceting, but differ radically from ordinary Sancy Cuts in being flatbacks. If the two halves were rejoined on their flat sides, they would form a single Sancy Cut diamond. The original crystal, which must have been either a macle or a dodecahedroid stone, was probably cleaved into two halves before being given the same faceting as the Grand Sancy. A close inspection of the gems in their settings revealed that not only were the two stones identical in outline, but also in their slightly brownish tint. There is no question of their not being originally the same stone.

In the 1691 inventory the two diamonds were described as being ‘faceted and heart-shaped’, but in 1791, following contemporary nomenclature, they were called ‘Rose Cuts’, and were said to weigh 21 3/19 ct. At one time they were dress buttons, first for Louis XIV and then for Louis XV. Louis XVIII had them set in a broadsword, later worn by Bapst in 1885 for the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon I, and are in the Galerie d’Apollon, Musée du Louvre. Between the twin Mazarins, Bapst place two very old lozenge-shaped diamonds, and below them an equally old pentagonal one. All three are trihedrally faceted. The large drop in the center, which is almost a Sancy Cut, could, in fact, be Tavernier’s number 10, very slightly symmetrized. It is larger than the stone depicted in Tavernier’s book but is very similarly fashioned. Under this is an unusual long hexagon with very narrow facets. I believe this to be the cut called, in old French inventories, Tombstone (en façon de tombeau).

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

3

If we look at all the bottles in ‘A Bar at the Folies—Bergère’ we shall notice that the treatment of detail here is totally different from the treatment of detail, say, in Millais’s ‘Ophelia’. In his picture Millais looked at each leaf, flower, and branch separately, and set them down separately on his canvas like a sum in addition. But all the bottles in Manet’s picture are seen simulataneously in relation to each other: it is a synthesis, not an addition. Impressionism, then, in the first place, is the result of simultaenous vision that sees a scene as a whole as opposed to consecutive vision that sees Nature piece by piece. Let us suppose, for a moment, that we are staying at a house on the banks of the Seine opposite the church at Vernon. Let us suppose that, having arrived there in darkness the previous evening, we jump out of bed in the morning, open the window, and put out our head to see the view. Monet’s picture ‘The Church at Vernon’ shows us what we should see at the first glance; the glance, that is to say, when we see the scene as a whole, before any detail in it has riveted our attention and caused us unconsciously to alter the focus of our eye in order to see that detail more sharply. Another way of putting the matter is to say that in an Impressionist picture there is only one focus throughout, while in a Pre-Raphaelite picture there is a different focus for every detail. These two methods of painting represent different ways of looking at the world, and neither way is wrong, only whereas the Pre-Raphaelite looks particularly at a series of objects, the Impressionist looks generally at the whole.

This way of viewing a scene broadly, however, is only a part of Impressionism. It was not a new invention, for Velazquez saw and painted figures and groups in a similar way, therefore Impressionists like Whistler and Manet (in his earlier works), who adopted this broad style, were in this respect developing an existing tradition rather than inventing a new one. But a later development of Impressionism which was a complete innovation, was the new palette they adopted. From the time of Daubigny, who said, ‘We never paint light enough,’ the more progressive painters had striven to make the colors in their pictures closer to the actual hues of Nature. Delacroix was one of the pioneers in the analysis of color. When he was in Morocco he wrote in his Journal about the shadows he had seen on the faces of two peasant boys, remarking that while a sallow, yellow-faced boy had violet shadows, a red-faced boy had green shadows. Again, in the streets of Paris, Delacroix noticed a black and yellow cab, and observed that, beside the greenish-yellow, the black took on a tinge of the complementary color, violet. An advertisement issued by a well-known soap firm will have made many readers familiar with the phenomenon of complementary color. The name of the soap was printed in bright red letters on a white paper, and we were asked, after gazing at this steadfastly for a few moments, to look up at a white ceiling, when we should see the name of the soap in green letters. Every color has its complementary, that is to say, an opposing color is evoked by the action of the human eye after we have been gazing at the said color; consequently all colors act and react on one another. Delacroix discovered that to obtain the full brilliance of any given hue it should be flanked and supported by its complementary color. He did not attain to full knowledge; it was left for a later generation to make nicer complementary for a greenish-yellow, an orange-yellow requires a turquoise blue, and so on.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Jewelry Update

According to the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, India's total gem and jewelry exports provisionally stood at $20.9 billion in the year to March 2008

Random Thoughts

'The bright new financial system for all its talented participants, for all its rich rewards, has failed the test of the marketplace.'

- Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman

I think he was spot on.

Milk = Beautiful Design

The style + name = Milk

Cool design. Brilliant. I liked it.

Useful link:
www.milk.dk

Delphine Boël

Delphine Boël is a Belgian artist who specializes in papier maché sculpture + I liked her works because the colors and objects relate to unique concepts that are so subjective yet natural in its own way. That's her otherness.

Useful link:
www.delphineboel.com

Mona Hauser + XVA Gallery

I found the article about Mona Hauser and her XVA gallery @ http://www.newsweek.com/id/131729 interesting + insightful because to me it's amazing to see the rapid emergence and openness of Dubai (land of surprises + opportunities) becoming the contemporary art center of the Middle East.

Useful link:
www.xvagallery.com
www.cultures.ae

Michael McDonough

Bamboo + Creativity: I really liked environmentalist-architect Michael McDonough's sustainable housing concepts: e-House + ArcHouse + the designs are beautiful and natural.

Useful link:
www.michaelmcdonough.com

T Boone Pickens

T Boone Pickens, an American businessman, who made his fortune in oil has turned his attention to wind power + over the next four years he intends to erect 2,700 turbines across 200,000 acres of the Texan panhandle (five times bigger than the world's current record-holding wind farm), a perfect location for wind-generated energy + studies proved him right -- people call it the Wind West.

He is thinking big + going to make a lot of money.

Useful links:
www.boonepickens.com
www.bpcap.net

Vipassana

It wouldn't be a bad idea to encourage members of the gem/jewelry + art sector, gemologists, and CEOs to mirror their inner conscience (total internal reflection) by taking a vow of silence for few days or weeks every year because I think Vipassana could be an excellent + natural vehicle for cleansing one's inclusions and blemishes quietly, though difficult in the beginning, with some practice you will emerge as a more clear-headed person.

Useful links:
www.dhamma.org
www.globalpagoda.org

Cibjo Update

The World Jewelry Confederation (CIBJO) has launched an upgraded version of its website to coincide with the 2008 CIBJO Congress, opening in Dubai on April 14-16, 2008.

Useful link:
www.cibjo.org

Brain Scanner + Real-Life Decisions

(via Wired) I was intrigued by a study published in Nature Neuroscience about researchers using brain scanners to predict people's decisions seven seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making them--though I have my doubts, but it was an interesting study + I would love to see researchers do similars tests on diamond and colored stone graders, and artists to study their sensory integration/shifting neural patterns so that we could learn something new and analyze the impact.

Useful links:
www.nature.com/neuro
www.mpg.de
www.nih.gov
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/mind_decision

The Beau Sancy

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

The dominating feature of the Beau Sancy (documented 31 January 1589) is a central star composed of eight pentagonal facets round a very small octagonal table. Between the points of the stars are eight squares or lozenges, each divided into two triangles. Together, these twenty four facets form two large interlacing squares. The remaining thirty facets (eight lozenges and twenty-two triangles) all touch the girdle. The reverse side of the gem is almost an exact replica, as far as one can judge from an examination of the diamond in its setting. That means that there are 108 faces plus the table and culet. What an incredible masterpiece of precision and artistic inventiveness! The few small irregularities and inclusions do not in the least detract from its beauty.

The light effects of the Beau Sancy itself are wonderful. The facets on the reverse reflect brilliant rays of light through the front. It was given the name ‘Beau’ Sancy to distinguish it from the Grand Sancy, and it truly deserves its title. The measurements are:

Height: 22.4mm
Width: 19.5mm
Thickness: 11.5mm

It weight has been estimated at 33-34 ct, but I suggest that 35-36 ct would be nearer the truth.

It is documented that Queen Maria de’ Medici bought the Beau Sancy from Sancy himself. The transaction is dated 1604, and she is said to have paid ‘XXVm escus’ for it. For her coronation in 1610, the diamond was set at the top of the crown which she wears in her portrait. Maria died poverty-stricken and in exile, and her creditors disposed of any jewels she still possessed. The Beau Sancy was bought by Frederick Henry of Orange, and then passed to his descendants; it has never again been put up for sale. William III of Orange gave it to his bride, Mary, and after her death it went to Frederick, the future King of Prussia.

In the late 1960s, I knew that the Grand Sancy was in England, still at that time in the possession of the Astors. I also knew that the Beau Sancy had once formed part of te Prussian Crown Jewels. Through a series of chance meetings, I learned that Viscount Astor had deposited the head of the Hohenzollern family, Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, grandson of William II, the last German Emperor. Having discovered the whereabouts of the two diamonds, I decided to try to reunite them—in Finland! There was already a Finnish connection: Paul Demidoff, who inherited the Grand Sancy in 1836, gave it as a wedding present to his bride Aurora Karamzin, a Finnish-born lady-in-waiting at the Russian court.

Years of preparatory work, correspondence and persuasions of the relevant authorities followed, until finally, in October 1972, Prince Louis Ferdinand himself came to Helsinki to open the exhibition ‘Two Historic Diamonds’. The two brothers, the Grand Sancy and the Beau Sancy, were reunited after a separation of some 370 years.

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Prior to the Salon des Rufusés Edouard Manet had little or no knowledge of Claude Monet, who was seven years his junior, but now the similarity between their names and the abuse showered upon both drew the two men together. Through Monet, Manet came to know Renoir and Sisley, who had been fellow-students with Monet in the studio of Gleyre, Whistler’s master, and this group was joined, among others, by two older artists, Camille Pissaro and Degas. As in the case of the Pre-Raphaelites, it was friendship and unjust derision which created the solidarity of the Impressionists, though the individual painters had by no means identical aims. Manet, we now realize, was far more a Realist than an Impressionist, and it is important to remember that he passed as an innovator years before Impressionism existed or was even thought of. Itr was more then ten years after the Salon des Refusés before Manet became influenced by the new ideas of color evolved by Pissaro, Monet, and Renoir. In his fine portrait ‘Le Bon Bock’, painted in 1873, Manet still reveals himself as the heir, not only of Courbet, but of Velazquez, Hals, and Goya. Nothing could be further from the once popular notion of an ‘Impressionist’ picture as a daub hastily put together, than this careful, if unconventional, portrait of his friend the engraver Belot enjoying a glass of beer. M Belot gave Manet no less than eighty sittings before this portrait was finished. It is freer than Courbet, with a greater simplifying of planes and values, but it is no revolution, it is a continuation and development of Courbet’s realism.

Quite different in style is ‘A Bar at the Folies—Bergère’, painted in 1882. We may say at once that the chief difference between the two pictures is in the color, for—to borrow a term from the wine-list—the color in ‘Le Bon Bock’ is ‘still’, while that in the ‘Bar’ picture is ‘sparkling’, sparkling especially in the wonderful painting of the bottles and glasses as we may see even in a photograph. Both pictures are magnificent, both are marvelously lifelike, but in the second there is a more searching pursuit of color, in shadow as well as in light, and a more vivacious statement of its actuality. In a word, it is a typical ‘Impressionist’ picture: and here we may well pause to inquire what is meant by ‘Impressionism’.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continue)

The Battle For The Soul Of Capitalism

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John C. Bogle is an essential book for all + he gives an interesting perspective on moral capitalism and community ownership + the book also has a lot of ideas and solutions for the corporate/financial institutions + I think it will take a lot of effort on our part to change the inert system (s) that's simulated worldwide due to globalization.

Useful links:
http://johncbogle.com
www.vanguard.com

Pendants + Charms

I really liked the simple + innovative designs @ www.bittyblock.com They looked great!

Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman is an English composer of minimalist music + pianist + librettist + musicologist + best known for the many scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway + the score to Jane Campion's award-winning 1993 film The Piano became a classical music best-seller, which I love so much, is beauty in motion.

Useful links:
www.michaelnyman.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dPS-EHl-FE

Heard On The Street

Truth at big events is a manufactured commodity, not an absolute value.

Babylon: Myth + True Facts

A must-visit: Two worlds, one exhibition + jointly with the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London, the National Museums in Berlin venture to explore the backgrounds behind the myth of Babel and the true facts surrounding the ancient city of Babylon + discover what lies at the bottom of the legend - the legend which accounts for today’s fascination with Babylon.

Useful links:
www.britishmuseum.org
www.smb.spk-berlin.de
www.louvre.fr
http://mini-site.louvre.fr/trois-empires/index_en.htm

Natalia Goncharova

The article about Natalia Goncharova @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11037482 and her beautiful paintings were interesting + what really intrigued me is the business angle (Rothenstein family chose to sell the painting through Bonhams instead of Christie's/Sothebys): We try harder (Avis slogan)

For the Rothenstein family it must be an interesting bet.

Useful link:
www.bonhams.com

Golf, An Economic Indicator

I found the Fast Money/CNBC interview with Greg Norman @ http://www.cnbc.com/id/24068220?__source=RSS*blog*&par=RSS intriguing because he gave an interesting perspective about his company (caters primarily to the high-end market) and how it relates to the global economy.

Useful link:
www.shark.com

The Grand Sancy

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

The Grand Sancy (sometimes known simply as the Sancy and documented in June 1586) was bought by the Banque de France and the Musées de France from the 4th Viscount Astor in 1977 and is now on display in the Galerie d’Apollon of the Musée du Louvre, Paris. According to Cletscher, the rough Grand Sancy was acquired in Constantinople and fashioned in Paris. In its lifetime it has been part first of the English and then of the French Crown Jewels.

The outline and faceting of the stone: At its pointed end it looks very like a Rose Cut, which probably explains why it has so often wrongly been described as a Double Rose. But between the table and the blunt end the faceting is of a totally different design.

The central facet, the table, has always been thought to be pentagonal, but under a magnifying glass one can see that the narrow end does not, in fact, terminate in a point but has three edges, and that three of the five triangular facets which appear to meet at the point have had their apexes removed and join the table at these upper edges. This means that instead of being a pentagonal kite, as it appears to the naked eye, the table is actually eight-sided. The pavilion is faceted in more or less the same design as the crown, except that the culet, which is the same size as the table, is genuinely pentagonal. The gem is ‘convexo-convex’ (i.e the two sides are rounded) and the two convex surfaces meet at the girdle. It was not possible to study the girdle itself as this was hidden in the setting when I had it in my hands. The dimensions are:

Height: 25.7mm
Width: 20.6mm
Thickness: 14.3mm
Weight: 55.23 ct (according to Sancy himself, 60 ct including te setting of about 1.3 grams)

Through the pointed end, a distinct flaw and several abraded facet edges are visible, even in photographs.

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

2

Manet was the heir of Courbet with this difference, that the temper of his art was more aristrocratic. He also built up his pictures by the direct application of planes of color rather than by working up an underpainting based on linear design and light-and-shade; he also used the blonde palette of Velazquez and Hals, and he also chose his subjects from the life around him; but he painted the people and life of the middle-classes, while Courbet had concentrated on the proletariat.

Edouard Manet was born at Paris in 1833. His father was a magistrate and, like Manet was originally destined for the bar, but he eventually overcame family opposition, and when he was about eighteen he was permitted to enter the studio of Couture (1815-79). Thomas Couture was an accomplished artist whose rich colored paintings were a discreet compromise between Romanticism and Classicism, but his orthodox instruction appealed little to Manet, who from the beginning desired to observe Nature closely and reproduce it according to his own feeling. After traveling in Germany, Austria, and Italy to study the Old Masters, Manet finally found in the paintings by Velazquez and Goya at the Louvre the answer to all his questionings and aspirations for light and truth. Influenced by these masters and by the example of Courbet, he gradually evolved a new technique which presented modern aspects by modern methods. Observing how one color melted into another in nature, he declared ‘There are no lines in Nature,’ and in his pictures he abandoned the convention of the outline and shaped his forms by a modelling obtained by subtle gradations of tints which fused into one another. The problem of just illumination was to Manet a matter of primary importance. Once when he was asked to point out the principal figure in a group he had painted, he made a reply that has become historic. ‘The principal person in a picture,’ said Manet, ‘is the light.’

Manet made his first appearance at the Salon in 1861 with a portrait of himself and his young wife and another paiting, ‘The Spanish Guitar-player.’ Over both the cry of ‘Realism’ was raised, and Realism was unpopular at the moment, nevertheless the Jury, inspired by Delacroix, gave Manet an Honorable Mention. But during the next two years the partisans of the classical tradition obtained the upper hand agian, and Manet was excluded from the Salon of 1863. So many artists of admitted talent, however unpopular, had their works rejected en bloc by the Salon jury this year, that the Emperor, Napoleon III, inspired by a praiseworthy liberal thought, insisted that these innovators should at least have the right to exhibit together in a special room. Thus there came into being what was known as the Salon des Refusés: among the exhibitors there, in addition to Manet and Whistler, were Alphonse Legros, Fantin Latour (1836-1904), celebrated both as a portraitist and as a painter of flowers, Harpignies, Renoir, Claude Monet, and many others who have since become famous. One of the paintings in this exhibition, a sunset by Claude Monet, entitled ‘Impressions’, excited much laughter among the crowd that came to jeer at the ‘rejected’, and henceforward the custom arose of alluding to the new school of painters as ‘Impressionists’. Originating as a term of derision, the word remained in use, and the painters to whom it was applied adopted it as an official label which would serve, as well as any other, to cover their varied aims.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Random Thoughts

Superman (Christopher Reeve): Don't worry, I've got you.
Lois Lane (Margot Kidder): But who's got you?

A great line from the Superman movie.......

A Rare Rock Crystal Clock

It has been reported that the famous 'The Royal Skeleton Clock', a true work of art, crafted entirely of rare rock crystal + 18 karat gold, including the movement + a myriad of precious diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires that adorn every inch of the timepiece, created by Asprey, commissioned by the Sultan of Brunei, has been listed for sale.

It's an amazing piece of art (http://www.rauantiques.com/29-1865.html) that's finding its way to the market.

Useful links:
www.thewdn.com
www.rauantiques.com

Price Shock

After years of years of strong global economic growth, prices of oil, grains, and some metals have risen sharply + speculative investors have also added fuel to that fire by buying up hard assets like commodities, which are viewed as a hedge against inflation, and the impact is stunning --suddenly we are all sucked into this powerful magnetic field called inflation, and slowly getting weaker together + I am seeing strange behavioral patterns of businesses and consumers worldwide.

Useful links:
www.globalinsight.com
www.mbginfosvcs.com
www.imf.org
www.federalreserve.gov

The Tiny Overlooked Universes That Surround Us

Just look at the beauty and rarity of the photos @ http://www.wired.com/culture/art/news/2008/04/submissions_macro and the phenomenal effects -- they are so natural, it's just brilliant! The images reminded me of the spectacular inclusions in gemstones.

Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud by William Feaver is an excellent edition of Freud's work.

Lucian Freud is internationally acknowledged as one of the most important British painter working today, and now a life-size painting, Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, never been seen publicly, which features a Jobcentre worker fondly known as 'Big Sue', the subject of several masterpieces by Freud, painted in 1995, sold privately at the time, will be auctioned by Christie's next month in New York, which is expected to sell for up to £18m, one of the most expensive work by a living artist at auction.

Useful link:
www.christies.com

Arbitration Justice In Absentia

Chaim Even Zohar writes about procedural flaws in commercial disputes involving members of the diamond bourse (s) + bourse member’s unfamiliarity with the rules of sister bourses in cross-boundary arbitrations, and the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp

The Sancy Cut

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

The name Sancy Cut has so far only occasionally been given to diamonds that are halfway between Brilliants and Briolettes. They are pear-shaped gems with both the front and the back convex. A girdle divides the two halves, each of which has a small table. The gems must have been fasioned from macles, dodecahedroid crystals, or elongated, domed irregulars, all of which could have been fashioned into Sancy shapes without too much loss of weight.

There are, however, only two actual Sancys, once owned by the Seigneur de Sancy, but the name also applies to several pendeloques which were once in the crown of Louis XV; four stones in the Iranian Imperial sword and two in the Jiqa plum among the Iranian Crown Jewels, and Mazarin numbers 17 and 18 (two flatbacks which were clearly originally one stone). In the French Crown inventory of 1791 fifteen Sancys are mentioned, weighing between 1 and 3¾ ct. These are only a few of the best-known examples.

According to Jacques Babinet of the Institut de France, ‘all the diamonds which pretend to this name.......are cut in the form of a flattened pear, almost round, a shape called the ‘Pendeloque’, having facets above and below, with a small flat surface on the top.....This kind of cutting, which I venture to call the Sancy, merits as much attention as those known by the name of the rose or the brilliant.’

In the seventeenth century the standard description for the Sancy Cut was ‘taillé à facettes des deux côtés, en forme d’amande’. The French Crown inventory of 1691 gives the following descriptions:

C.I. : fort épais, taillé à facettes des deux côtés de forme pendeloque 53¾ (Le Grand Sancy)

59: à facettes, double, long, pointu, carré

1: un grand diamant en pendeloque, taillé à grande facettes des deux côtés. 15¼ ct

8: en pendeloque, taillé à grande facettes des deux côtés 14½ ct

Though some of the diamonds listed may have been girdled pendeloques, I believe that many of them were, in fact, Sancy Cuts.

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, Sancy Cuts have frequently been called Double Roses. This term evidently originated from French inventories of the previous century, when the cut was described as ‘un diamant brilliant formé en poire, taillé en rose des deux côtés, percé d’un bout’. Once Rose Cuts were established, the words taillé en rose were added, and the earlier term ‘almond-shaped’ was replaced by ‘pear-shaped’. According to Morel (1988), the fleur-de-lis on top of Louis XV’s crown (1722) was composed of four Double Roses each formed by two circular Rose Cut diamonds glued base to base.

Of specific interest is the fact that Sancy Cuts disclose a circlet of facets quite similar to the crown facets of a Brilliant, both of the standard type and the Split and Step Cut. With a large table facet replacing the apex they would have been as good as any Fancy Brilliant.