(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
To appreciate all that Squarcione’s school at Padua did for Italian art, we must trace its influence into the second and third generation. In addition to the sons of Bellini—to whom we shall return—who were the real founders of Venetian painting, the old contractor had among his pupils Cosimo Tura (1420-95) who founded the School of Ferrara. Tura had a pupil named Bianci, who founded a school in Modena, and there had a pupil greater than any of his predecessors, Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio, from the place of his birth. Of the life of this great man singularly little is known, and apart from his art it does not seem to have been in any way eventful. Vasari tells us that Correggio ‘was of a very timid disposition and, at a great personal inconvenience, worked continually for the family which depended on him. In art he was very melancholy, enduring its labors, but he never allowed difficulties to deter him, as we see in the great tribune of the Duomo of Parma.’
It is with Parma that the name of Correggio is always associated, for his greatest works were executed there between 1518 and 1530, and the Cathedral of Parma is the monument of his genius. In its marvelous complexity and rich invention, his ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ there has no rival in the world. If his fluent and sure drawing was derived from Mantegna, his mastery of light and shade from Leonardo da Vinci, and his tremendous forms and designs borrowed from the storehouse of Michael Angelo, yet his marvelous coloring is entirely his own, and it is as a colorist, above all, that Correggio is supreme.
‘It is considered certain,’ wrote Vasari, ‘that there never was a better colorist, nor any artist who imparted more loveliness or relief to his things, so great was the soft beauty of his flesh tints and the grace of his finish.’ Nearly 400 years have passed since these lines were written, but no connoisseur of today would change a word in this appreciation. The work of Correggio appeals to every human being who is susceptible to the indefinable quality of charm. Whether his subject be frankly pagan, as in ‘The Education of Cupid’ at the National Gallery, or avowedly religious, as in his ‘St Catherine’ at Hampton Court, it is on the satisfaction of the eye, and through the eye of all the senses, that Correggio relies.
So modest was this great colorist, that portrait of himself by himself is known to exist. ‘He was content with little,’ says Vasari, ‘and lived as a good Christian should.’ A modern critic, Mr Berenson, has pronounced Correggio’s paintings to be ‘hymns to the charm of feminity the like of which have never been known before or since in Christian Europe,’ yet from all accounts this artist’s private life was singularly free from amours. Correggio was a model husband and father, and the only thing said against him by his Italian biographer is that ‘he was anxious to save, like everyone who is burdened with a family, and he thus became excessively miserly.’ This closeness is said to have brought about his premature death. ‘Payment of 60 crowns being made to him at Parma in farthings, which he wished to take to Correggio for his affairs, he set out with this burden on foot. Becoming overheated by the warmth of the sun, he took some water to refresh himself, and caught a severe fever, which terminated his life in the fortieth year of his age.’
The Road To Venice (continued)
Friday, December 07, 2007
Diamonds Of Fate
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Much has been written about the Hope diamond, mainly with the intent to stress the fact that it has brought bad luck to all successive owners. But I do not wish to enlarge upon the aspect. I remember seeing a telegram forty two years ago addressed to my principal in Paris advising him that his father (my uncle) had purchased the Hope diamond at Christie’s sale rooms and that he had already received an offer for it from a New York firm of diamond merchants. It is true that my uncle died at a comparatively early age in the prime of his life and the New York merchant met with financial disaster, and also that another merchant into whose hands the stone had passed, an Armenian named Habib, was drowned in the ill-fated La Seine whilst on his way to Java. His wallet contained amongst other precious stones the Hope diamond. I myself narrowly missed traveling by the same steamer, having missed my connection at Singapore on my way from Australia, so the tragic event is still sharp on my memory. Subsequently an ex-naval deep sea diver whom I met on that occasion in Singapore was instrumental in recovering Habib’s wallet, and with it the Hope diamond.
The later history of the stone is well known can be found in many accounts. I may quote in passing a news item from the London Evening News of May 4th, 1938, which says: ‘Boston, Wednesday—May Yohe, international stage star of the ‘nineties, one-time wearer of the ill-fated Hope diamond, and friend of royalty, now rises at six every morning to do a job of relief work at £3 6s per week. She is working as a research clerk for the Works Progress Administration, and she is living in a four-room flat alongside the railway lines in Boston.’
But although within my own ken the several persons who have had anything to do with that noble gem ended their days in a manner different from that which they might have chosen for themselves, I should be lacking in sincerity if for the sake of playing up to the reader’s desire for a spot of goose-flesh I were to refrain from saying bluntly: ‘Bosh!’ A piece of crystallized pure carbon cannot in itself have baneful influence upon man.’
Before I mention the other stone, the green diamond noted above, you may like to know something about Tavernier, whose name has been given several times already in these pages. This intrepid traveler, gem expert, trader and adventurer in the best sense of the word, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, was born in 1605 at Antwerp. His father, Gabriel Tavernier, was by profession a geographer—a maker of maps and an engraver. Perhaps it was this paternal factor which in some way created in the young Jean Baptiste a desire to travel. Having journeyed much in Europe, Tavernier seized an opportunity which presented itself to travel in the company of two French priests, possibly missionaries, to Constantinople and thence to Persia. That was in 1631. In 1638 he made a second journey, this time visiting Persia and India, trading in jewels and precious stones wherever he went. He must have been what nowadays is called a good mixer, for he seems to have experienced no great difficulty in bringing himself and his wares to the notice of the most eminent persons. Then he made a third journey, which took him to Java, whence he returned to Europe via the Cape. During so much traveling and trading he must have acquired an immense fund of practical knowledge on matters connected with precious stones, and aided by a natural flair, he became a foremost authority on all that concerned gems. At any rate, the splendor-loving Louis XIV became one of his patrons, and it was said that by the sale of jewels to the King alone Tavernier made a profit of £100000. To wealth was added, in 1669, a title of nobility, and he purchased in 1670 the Barony of Aubanne near Geneva. But like many another man, he had a son who could get rid of money faster than the old man had made it, and the young man brought about his father’s financial ruin. After selling his estates to discharge his debts, Tavernier again, at the great age of 84, went in search of fortune. But he did not reach India, the object of his journey. In 1689, while on the way to Persia, he met his end at Moscow. Amongst other writings he left a work in two volumes, Les Six Voyages de J.B.Tavernier, which was published in Paris in 1676.
The green brilliant has a history like a mere postscript to the story of the great blue stone. But it, too, was of unique color, though not in the first rank for size, being only 160 grains (forty carats). It was worn by the King of Saxony when in Court dress. Brilliant cut, it was set ájour, in a plume to be worn as a hat ornament.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Much has been written about the Hope diamond, mainly with the intent to stress the fact that it has brought bad luck to all successive owners. But I do not wish to enlarge upon the aspect. I remember seeing a telegram forty two years ago addressed to my principal in Paris advising him that his father (my uncle) had purchased the Hope diamond at Christie’s sale rooms and that he had already received an offer for it from a New York firm of diamond merchants. It is true that my uncle died at a comparatively early age in the prime of his life and the New York merchant met with financial disaster, and also that another merchant into whose hands the stone had passed, an Armenian named Habib, was drowned in the ill-fated La Seine whilst on his way to Java. His wallet contained amongst other precious stones the Hope diamond. I myself narrowly missed traveling by the same steamer, having missed my connection at Singapore on my way from Australia, so the tragic event is still sharp on my memory. Subsequently an ex-naval deep sea diver whom I met on that occasion in Singapore was instrumental in recovering Habib’s wallet, and with it the Hope diamond.
The later history of the stone is well known can be found in many accounts. I may quote in passing a news item from the London Evening News of May 4th, 1938, which says: ‘Boston, Wednesday—May Yohe, international stage star of the ‘nineties, one-time wearer of the ill-fated Hope diamond, and friend of royalty, now rises at six every morning to do a job of relief work at £3 6s per week. She is working as a research clerk for the Works Progress Administration, and she is living in a four-room flat alongside the railway lines in Boston.’
But although within my own ken the several persons who have had anything to do with that noble gem ended their days in a manner different from that which they might have chosen for themselves, I should be lacking in sincerity if for the sake of playing up to the reader’s desire for a spot of goose-flesh I were to refrain from saying bluntly: ‘Bosh!’ A piece of crystallized pure carbon cannot in itself have baneful influence upon man.’
Before I mention the other stone, the green diamond noted above, you may like to know something about Tavernier, whose name has been given several times already in these pages. This intrepid traveler, gem expert, trader and adventurer in the best sense of the word, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, was born in 1605 at Antwerp. His father, Gabriel Tavernier, was by profession a geographer—a maker of maps and an engraver. Perhaps it was this paternal factor which in some way created in the young Jean Baptiste a desire to travel. Having journeyed much in Europe, Tavernier seized an opportunity which presented itself to travel in the company of two French priests, possibly missionaries, to Constantinople and thence to Persia. That was in 1631. In 1638 he made a second journey, this time visiting Persia and India, trading in jewels and precious stones wherever he went. He must have been what nowadays is called a good mixer, for he seems to have experienced no great difficulty in bringing himself and his wares to the notice of the most eminent persons. Then he made a third journey, which took him to Java, whence he returned to Europe via the Cape. During so much traveling and trading he must have acquired an immense fund of practical knowledge on matters connected with precious stones, and aided by a natural flair, he became a foremost authority on all that concerned gems. At any rate, the splendor-loving Louis XIV became one of his patrons, and it was said that by the sale of jewels to the King alone Tavernier made a profit of £100000. To wealth was added, in 1669, a title of nobility, and he purchased in 1670 the Barony of Aubanne near Geneva. But like many another man, he had a son who could get rid of money faster than the old man had made it, and the young man brought about his father’s financial ruin. After selling his estates to discharge his debts, Tavernier again, at the great age of 84, went in search of fortune. But he did not reach India, the object of his journey. In 1689, while on the way to Persia, he met his end at Moscow. Amongst other writings he left a work in two volumes, Les Six Voyages de J.B.Tavernier, which was published in Paris in 1676.
The green brilliant has a history like a mere postscript to the story of the great blue stone. But it, too, was of unique color, though not in the first rank for size, being only 160 grains (forty carats). It was worn by the King of Saxony when in Court dress. Brilliant cut, it was set ájour, in a plume to be worn as a hat ornament.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
45 Social Entrepreneurs
(via Fastcompany): Make a profit + Make a difference = Social Capitalist. I liked the concept. http://www.fastcompany.com/social/2008
Connecting The Dots
(via Fastcompany): Mark Dziersk writes about design + its impact on indusry/commerce if properly delivered + other viewpoints @ http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/design/dziersk/connecting-the-dots-112807.html
Useful links:
www.sirkenrobinson.com
www.fitch.com
Useful links:
www.sirkenrobinson.com
www.fitch.com
Children of Paradise
Children of Paradise (1945)
Directed by: Marcel Carné
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert
Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault
(via YouTube): Children Of Paradise - Trailer (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpmADgSQaxM
Children of Paradise (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUIFRtvUU2A
One-of-a-kind story from a different period + its artistic angle + the love story--I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Marcel Carné
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert
Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault
(via YouTube): Children Of Paradise - Trailer (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpmADgSQaxM
Children of Paradise (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUIFRtvUU2A
One-of-a-kind story from a different period + its artistic angle + the love story--I enjoyed it.
The Evolution Of The Taille en Seize
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The Taille en Seize can be seen in early seventeenth-century drawings of jewels by Arnold Lulls, Thomas Cletscher and occasionally others. Designers were still using it a hundred years later, but only in a restricted form—that is, as far as one can ascertain, with never more than sixteen facets, whereas Legare, with his special liking for this design, often used thirty-two.
It seems that the Taille en Seize and the Rose Cut had an influence on each other. Drop-shaped, flat-bottomed diamonds are clearly hybrids. Two such cuts can still be seen in the Imperial Austrian Sceptre, and three in the shoulder knot commissioned by Augustus the Strong. Jeffries depicts this as a standard for Rose Cut Pendeloques. Only a few of them are known actually to have carried—most of the illustrations represent ‘patterns’ of the kind widely distributed among jewelers all over Europe. All they indicate now is the period during which this particular cut was available. The drawings are so numerous that it seems incredible that no actual diamonds of this kind should have survived. All we know is that it was extremely simple to refashion a large Taille en Seize into a Brilliant Cut, and that it involved even less labor to transform a small one into a sixteen-facet cut with a square table facet. Was the Taille en Seize perhaps a premature cut which fascinated the professional but not the consumer?
Ecce Homo
This medallion contains thirty four variously faceted diamonds: ten of them are Tailles en Seize, and the remaining twenty-four are normal Rose Cuts.
The Taille en Seize can be seen in early seventeenth-century drawings of jewels by Arnold Lulls, Thomas Cletscher and occasionally others. Designers were still using it a hundred years later, but only in a restricted form—that is, as far as one can ascertain, with never more than sixteen facets, whereas Legare, with his special liking for this design, often used thirty-two.
It seems that the Taille en Seize and the Rose Cut had an influence on each other. Drop-shaped, flat-bottomed diamonds are clearly hybrids. Two such cuts can still be seen in the Imperial Austrian Sceptre, and three in the shoulder knot commissioned by Augustus the Strong. Jeffries depicts this as a standard for Rose Cut Pendeloques. Only a few of them are known actually to have carried—most of the illustrations represent ‘patterns’ of the kind widely distributed among jewelers all over Europe. All they indicate now is the period during which this particular cut was available. The drawings are so numerous that it seems incredible that no actual diamonds of this kind should have survived. All we know is that it was extremely simple to refashion a large Taille en Seize into a Brilliant Cut, and that it involved even less labor to transform a small one into a sixteen-facet cut with a square table facet. Was the Taille en Seize perhaps a premature cut which fascinated the professional but not the consumer?
Ecce Homo
This medallion contains thirty four variously faceted diamonds: ten of them are Tailles en Seize, and the remaining twenty-four are normal Rose Cuts.
Who Buys Old Masters?
Economist writes about a new class of buyers: Russian oligarchs and their acolytes(“market freshness”: a phrase referring to a good painting that has not been on the market for a long time) + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10235514
The Incredible Growing Art Museum
Blake Eskin writes about museums around the globe erecting new structures or expanding their current homes + the global phenomenon + the concept of bringing art and people together + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=988
The Road To Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
To enumerate all the artists who were influenced by Mantegna and the School of Squarcione would be to give a list of a hundred names, and to attempt a task beyond the scope of the Outline; but brief mention must be made of one whose life, and particularly whose death, is of unusual and romantic interest. Franceso Francia (1450-1517) was a goldsmith of Bologna who achieved great fame as an engraver of medallion portraits long before the example of Mantegna inspired him to become a painter also. Francia was one of the first artists to make prints from an engraved plate, and served literature by designing the famous italic type for the press of Aldus Manutius. As a painter, Francia began with portraits and proceeded to altar-pieces, in which he displayed a remarkable psychological insight. Both in ancient times and in modern his lunette of the Dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin has been regarded as a most beautiful work, poignant in the intensity of its expression. The half-moon shaped picture is the upper part of a famous alter piece originally painted for the Church of St. Frediano at Lucca, and now in the National Gallery, London. The main picture below shows the Madonna and Child, with the following saints: St. Sebastian, St. Paul, St. Anne, St. Lawrence, and St. Benedict, while in front of the throne is the figure of the young St. John the Baptist; and the wan, expressive face of the young Virgin seems to suggest that she is already forewarned of the tragedy commemorated by the picture.
Francis was at the height of his reputation in Bologna when the young Raphael was working in Rome. The two artists never met, for Raphael was too busy to leave the Vatican and Francia was too old to travel. But they heard much of one another, and Francia as the elder, offered to help his junior in any way he could. He had never seen a picture of Raphael, and longed to view some work by the young man of whom everybody was talking. At last the opportunity came. Raphael was commissioned to paint a panel of ‘St. Cecilia’ for a Bolognese chapel, St. Giovanni in Monte; and when he had finished the painting he sent it to Francia at Bologna with a courteous letter begging the older artist to ‘correct any errors found in it,’ and then set it up on the altar for which it was intended.
When Francia drew the masterpiece from its case and viewed it in a good light, he was filled with amazement and with chagrin, so Vasari says, at his presumption in offering to help so great a genius:
‘Francia, half dead at the overwhelming power and beauty of the picture, which he had to compare with his own works lying around, though thoroughly discouraged, took it to St. Giovanni in Monte, to the chapel where it was to be. Returning home he took to his bed in an agony, feeling that art could offer him no more, and died, some suppose of grief and melancholy, due to his contemplation of the living picture of Raphael.’
That is the story told by Vasari, and though it may seem incredible to us that any artist should be so fatally affected by seeing the work of another, the fact that so strange a cause of death was related in good faith reveals to us how seriously art was taken in Italy in 1518.
The Road To Venice (continued)
2
To enumerate all the artists who were influenced by Mantegna and the School of Squarcione would be to give a list of a hundred names, and to attempt a task beyond the scope of the Outline; but brief mention must be made of one whose life, and particularly whose death, is of unusual and romantic interest. Franceso Francia (1450-1517) was a goldsmith of Bologna who achieved great fame as an engraver of medallion portraits long before the example of Mantegna inspired him to become a painter also. Francia was one of the first artists to make prints from an engraved plate, and served literature by designing the famous italic type for the press of Aldus Manutius. As a painter, Francia began with portraits and proceeded to altar-pieces, in which he displayed a remarkable psychological insight. Both in ancient times and in modern his lunette of the Dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin has been regarded as a most beautiful work, poignant in the intensity of its expression. The half-moon shaped picture is the upper part of a famous alter piece originally painted for the Church of St. Frediano at Lucca, and now in the National Gallery, London. The main picture below shows the Madonna and Child, with the following saints: St. Sebastian, St. Paul, St. Anne, St. Lawrence, and St. Benedict, while in front of the throne is the figure of the young St. John the Baptist; and the wan, expressive face of the young Virgin seems to suggest that she is already forewarned of the tragedy commemorated by the picture.
Francis was at the height of his reputation in Bologna when the young Raphael was working in Rome. The two artists never met, for Raphael was too busy to leave the Vatican and Francia was too old to travel. But they heard much of one another, and Francia as the elder, offered to help his junior in any way he could. He had never seen a picture of Raphael, and longed to view some work by the young man of whom everybody was talking. At last the opportunity came. Raphael was commissioned to paint a panel of ‘St. Cecilia’ for a Bolognese chapel, St. Giovanni in Monte; and when he had finished the painting he sent it to Francia at Bologna with a courteous letter begging the older artist to ‘correct any errors found in it,’ and then set it up on the altar for which it was intended.
When Francia drew the masterpiece from its case and viewed it in a good light, he was filled with amazement and with chagrin, so Vasari says, at his presumption in offering to help so great a genius:
‘Francia, half dead at the overwhelming power and beauty of the picture, which he had to compare with his own works lying around, though thoroughly discouraged, took it to St. Giovanni in Monte, to the chapel where it was to be. Returning home he took to his bed in an agony, feeling that art could offer him no more, and died, some suppose of grief and melancholy, due to his contemplation of the living picture of Raphael.’
That is the story told by Vasari, and though it may seem incredible to us that any artist should be so fatally affected by seeing the work of another, the fact that so strange a cause of death was related in good faith reveals to us how seriously art was taken in Italy in 1518.
The Road To Venice (continued)
Diamonds Of Fate
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
One of the most recent famous gems is the ‘Jonker,’ said to be amongst the four largest diamonds ever to come to light. It was dug from a muddy hole not far from Pretoria by a colored man in the service of an Afrikander names Jacobus Jonker. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer paid £60000 for it. Like most of these extraordinarily large stones in the rough, the Jonker,too showed defects which made is advisable to split it into several pieces. One of the minor pieces when cut weighed about twenty carats and was sold for a large sum to a London businessman in April, 1938. Although I only heard of the deal going through as I was leaving my office in the evening, one of the leading London papers had already got wind of it and rang me up for any information I could give. I mention this to show that sizable gems of quality are of perennial news value.
One can have too much even of the best. The recital of rare diamonds is no exception, but I cannot bring this chapter to a close without mentioning the two rarest diamonds in the world: one blue and the other green.
It was in the year 1642 that Tavernier bought in India a rough diamond weighing 112¼ carats, of a violet-blue so extremely rare that no other stone of such tint of any appreciable size has been known before or since. When later he sold the stone to Louis XIV in 1668 as a faceted stone, its weight had been reduced to sixty seven and one-eights carats.
Louis, who is spoken of as le roi soleil—the Sun King—owed this flattering epithet less to his mental gifts than to his love of display. On appropriate occasions he could deck himself out i such manner that his person put in the shade the lesser luminaries. ‘The King,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘on occasion of the reception of the Persian Ambassador, was dressed in a black suit ornamented with gold and embroidered with diamonds at a cost of twelve million, five hundred thousand livres. Suspended from a light blue ribbon round his neck he wore a dark-blue diamond as a pendant.’
At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1792 the French regalia was seized and stored at the Garde Meubles, but whatever else may have remained intact, the blue diamond had disappeared.
Now, when thirty two years had elapsed there appeared in the hands of a dealer, one Daniel Eliason, a blue diamond of a tint identical with that worn by Louis XIV, but it only weighed forty four and a quarter carats, or twenty three and one-eighth carats less than the King’s gem. Was this a new stone that had no connection with the royal jewel? The possibility must be admitted, but in the light of what transpired subsequently we are justified in arriving at a different conclusion.
But before we go in search of clues to the unravelling of the mystery, let us see what Mr Daniel Eliason did with his forty four and a half carat blue diamond. Being a trader, he did not wear it suspended round his neck, but seeking a customer for it, found him in the person of a Mr Henry Thomas Hope, and from the time the gentleman parted with £18000 to get possession of the lovely gem of a beautiful sapphire blue, it became known as the ‘Hope’ diamond. Of this stone E W Streeter, as great a connoisseur of gems as any of his contemporaries, says ‘that because of its extreme brilliancy, faultless texture, exquisite form (7/8-inch in breadth, 1 1/8 inches in length, and of unusual thickness), it is unique’. He estimated its value at £30000. It was his opinion that Louis XIV’s blue diamond had been cloven into two parts: one the size of the Hope diamond (being none other), and another, after allowing for the unavoidable waste in recutting, of ten to eleven carats.
Now for the denouement of the riddle. In the year 1874 there actually came into the market, at a sale of the Duke of Brunswick’s jewels at Geneva, a triangular blue diamond weighing between twelve and thirteen carats; and subsequently elsewhere a very much smaller piece again of the same color and quality. Since all these stones were of the same rare blue tint which has never been encountered in any other diamond known in the world, and since their total weight—allowing for cleavage and cutting—is a rough equivalent of the royal French jewel, no doubt can exist in the mind of any logical person that the thief, whoever it was, had the original stone cut into three pieces as conditioned by its natural cleavage lines.
Diamonds Of Fate (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
One of the most recent famous gems is the ‘Jonker,’ said to be amongst the four largest diamonds ever to come to light. It was dug from a muddy hole not far from Pretoria by a colored man in the service of an Afrikander names Jacobus Jonker. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer paid £60000 for it. Like most of these extraordinarily large stones in the rough, the Jonker,too showed defects which made is advisable to split it into several pieces. One of the minor pieces when cut weighed about twenty carats and was sold for a large sum to a London businessman in April, 1938. Although I only heard of the deal going through as I was leaving my office in the evening, one of the leading London papers had already got wind of it and rang me up for any information I could give. I mention this to show that sizable gems of quality are of perennial news value.
One can have too much even of the best. The recital of rare diamonds is no exception, but I cannot bring this chapter to a close without mentioning the two rarest diamonds in the world: one blue and the other green.
It was in the year 1642 that Tavernier bought in India a rough diamond weighing 112¼ carats, of a violet-blue so extremely rare that no other stone of such tint of any appreciable size has been known before or since. When later he sold the stone to Louis XIV in 1668 as a faceted stone, its weight had been reduced to sixty seven and one-eights carats.
Louis, who is spoken of as le roi soleil—the Sun King—owed this flattering epithet less to his mental gifts than to his love of display. On appropriate occasions he could deck himself out i such manner that his person put in the shade the lesser luminaries. ‘The King,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘on occasion of the reception of the Persian Ambassador, was dressed in a black suit ornamented with gold and embroidered with diamonds at a cost of twelve million, five hundred thousand livres. Suspended from a light blue ribbon round his neck he wore a dark-blue diamond as a pendant.’
At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1792 the French regalia was seized and stored at the Garde Meubles, but whatever else may have remained intact, the blue diamond had disappeared.
Now, when thirty two years had elapsed there appeared in the hands of a dealer, one Daniel Eliason, a blue diamond of a tint identical with that worn by Louis XIV, but it only weighed forty four and a quarter carats, or twenty three and one-eighth carats less than the King’s gem. Was this a new stone that had no connection with the royal jewel? The possibility must be admitted, but in the light of what transpired subsequently we are justified in arriving at a different conclusion.
But before we go in search of clues to the unravelling of the mystery, let us see what Mr Daniel Eliason did with his forty four and a half carat blue diamond. Being a trader, he did not wear it suspended round his neck, but seeking a customer for it, found him in the person of a Mr Henry Thomas Hope, and from the time the gentleman parted with £18000 to get possession of the lovely gem of a beautiful sapphire blue, it became known as the ‘Hope’ diamond. Of this stone E W Streeter, as great a connoisseur of gems as any of his contemporaries, says ‘that because of its extreme brilliancy, faultless texture, exquisite form (7/8-inch in breadth, 1 1/8 inches in length, and of unusual thickness), it is unique’. He estimated its value at £30000. It was his opinion that Louis XIV’s blue diamond had been cloven into two parts: one the size of the Hope diamond (being none other), and another, after allowing for the unavoidable waste in recutting, of ten to eleven carats.
Now for the denouement of the riddle. In the year 1874 there actually came into the market, at a sale of the Duke of Brunswick’s jewels at Geneva, a triangular blue diamond weighing between twelve and thirteen carats; and subsequently elsewhere a very much smaller piece again of the same color and quality. Since all these stones were of the same rare blue tint which has never been encountered in any other diamond known in the world, and since their total weight—allowing for cleavage and cutting—is a rough equivalent of the royal French jewel, no doubt can exist in the mind of any logical person that the thief, whoever it was, had the original stone cut into three pieces as conditioned by its natural cleavage lines.
Diamonds Of Fate (continued)
How To Dream
The book, Dream: A Tale of Wonder, Wisdom & Wishes by Susan V. Bosak is about life's hopes and dreams, inspiring both children and adults.
Useful link:
http://www.tcpnow.com/books/dream.html
Useful link:
http://www.tcpnow.com/books/dream.html
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
When Nature Calls, Use Your Cell Phone
(via Budget Travel): When nature calls, use bathroom locator service @ www.mizpee.com
Here's how it works: Turn on your phone's Web browser, and search for bathrooms by city and street address. The site will fetch a list of the nearest ones, along with details, such as whether each bathroom has a diaper-changing station.
Call MizPee
Here's how it works: Turn on your phone's Web browser, and search for bathrooms by city and street address. The site will fetch a list of the nearest ones, along with details, such as whether each bathroom has a diaper-changing station.
Call MizPee
The Jewelry Channel
www.tjc.tv is interactive + includes user forums + blogs + live broadcast 24 hours a day + a unique shopping experience.
Meet The Woman Who Dictates The Taste Of Coffee
Jenny Gold writes about Tracy May Adair, who holds the grand title of master coffee cupper for Folgers + how to taste Folgers coffee + other viewpoints @ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16671564&ft=1&f=3
In my view, the concept of grading and tasting coffee is similar to colored stone grading / diamond grading / wine tasting / tea tasting + it's subjective, educational.
In my view, the concept of grading and tasting coffee is similar to colored stone grading / diamond grading / wine tasting / tea tasting + it's subjective, educational.
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane (1941)
Directed by: Orson Welles
Screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
(via YouTube): Citizen Kane (1941) Full Film - Part 1/12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYbXQmD_Fq8
One of the greatest films + a rare gem + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Orson Welles
Screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
(via YouTube): Citizen Kane (1941) Full Film - Part 1/12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYbXQmD_Fq8
One of the greatest films + a rare gem + I enjoyed it.
Pearls Of Dubai
The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre + Arrow Pearls of Australia would be culturing Akoya pearls in the region (United Arab Emirates) + the pilot project of 100000 oysters would be harvested early in 2009 + the concept is to produce a branded ‘Dubai’ line of cultured pearls, 8-9 mm size + marketed
via local jewelers.
Cultured pearl industry is a highly fragmented industry. In my view, the cultured pearl industry may go through boom and busts in the coming years due to proliferation of producers around the world + the unpredictability of nature.
I also believe the popularity of pearls in the traditional and emerging consumer populations are growing due to improvement in quality, innovative jewelry designers + creative retailers.
via local jewelers.
Cultured pearl industry is a highly fragmented industry. In my view, the cultured pearl industry may go through boom and busts in the coming years due to proliferation of producers around the world + the unpredictability of nature.
I also believe the popularity of pearls in the traditional and emerging consumer populations are growing due to improvement in quality, innovative jewelry designers + creative retailers.
Wallinger Takes Turner prize With Re-creation Of Parliament Protest
(via The Guardian) Charlotte Higgins writes about Mark Wallinger, the Turner prize winner + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/turnerprize2007/story/0,,2221510,00.html
The Master Swindler Of Yugoslavia
Konstantin Akinsha writes about Ante Topic Mimara, Yugoslav mystery man: a collector, dealer, painter, restorer, forger, alleged art thief, and probable spy + the Mimara Museum + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=975
The Road To Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art of Mantegna, Francia, Correggio, Bellini, And Giorgione
It takes nine tailors to make a man. So runs the familiar sayings, but one tailor of Padua in the fifteenth century sufficed to found a school of painting which has won immortal fame. In all the history of art no stranger figure exists than than of Franceso Squarcione, tailor and embroiderer of Padua. He had little to do with painting or painters till he was past forty, and yet this man was the master of 137 pupils and the the ‘Father’ of the glorious schools of Venice, Parma, Bologna, Lombardy, and Ferrara.
Here let us pause to explain tht while the succession of painters known as the Florentine School were perfecting their art, as related in the last chapter, groups of artists had already begun to collect in other Italian cities. So far back at 1375, twelve years before the birth of Fra Angelico, a Florentine painter named Justus had settled in Padua; and when Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, Padua was already famous as an art center.
But to return to our tailor. To the University of Padua came, at one time or another, all the learned men of Italy. Nothing was heard in the streets but talk of ancient lore and the beauty of ancient art. The astute tailor soon found that a fragment of sculpture or a stone with a Greek inscription brought him more and better customers than the display of the latest fashions. Gradually the tailoring and embroidering became a side-line in his complicated business, and the shop of Squarcione gained much fame as a store house of antique treasures of art. Artists came to him asking to be allowed to draw his fine old statues.
Squarcione had a keen eye to the main chance, and the power to discover and use the talents of others. Whether he himself ever painted is doubtful, but in 1441, when he was a man of forty-seven, he managed to qualify himself for admission to the Guild of Painters at Padua. His business instinct would not allow him to let slip a ready-made opportunity. When students sought to study his unrivalled collection of antique models, they found themselves bound as apprentices to Squarcione; and hence forward—on the strength of their work—Squarcione blossomed into the proprietor of a flourishing art business.
In 1443 he was given the contract to decorate with paintings the Chapel of the Eremitani at Padua, and this contract he fulfilled for the most part by the hand of a boy of twelve, whom two years earlier Squarcione had adopted as his son and pupil. This boy was a nameless orphan, who acquired undying fame as Andrea Mantegna. He was only ten years old when, as the ‘son of Squarcione,’ he was admitted a member of the Padua Guild of Painters, and from this fact alone we can guess his extraordinary precocity. At the age of twelve Mantegna was employed on important paintings for the Chapel of the Eremitani, and it was the reputation of the pupil, rather than that of the master, which brought students in shoals to Padua.
Another great piece of good luck which befell Squarcione was the arrival in Padua of the Venetian painter Jacopo Bellini (c. 1400-71), whom the wily contractor inveigled into his business, and there is little room for doubt that Bellini was for many years the actual teacher of painting in the school of the Paduan contractor. Mantegna got his drawing from observing the Greek statues among Squarcione’s antiques, but he learnt coloring from Bellini, who was his true master. But so precocious was the genius of Mantegna that at seventeen he had already formed his style and brought his natural talents to mature perfection. At this age he painted an altar piece for St. Sophia at Padua, a picture which, as the sixteenth century critic Vasari wrote, ‘might well be the production of a skilled veteran and not of a mere boy.’
Success begets success, and at an early age Mantegna was able to set up for himself. Squarcione became still more furious when Mantegna married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, who had now broken away from the firm and become a rival. Henceforward the old contractor blamed Mantegna’s works as much as he had previously praised them, ‘saying they were bad, because he had imitated marble, a thing impossible in painting, since stones always possess a certain harshness and never have that softness peculiar to flesh and natural objects.’
It is true that Mantegna’s sense of form was severe and his figures often remind us of marble statues, but the envious carping of his old master in no wise injured his reputation. His fame spread throughout Italy, and Pope Innocent VIII invited him to Rome, where he was employed on painting the walls of the Belvedere. The payments for this work were not so regular as the painter thought they should have been, and one day he ventured to drop a hint to the Pope, who had come to look at Mantegna’s paintings of the Virtues.
‘What is that figure?’ asked the Pontiff.
‘One much honored here, your Holiness,’ said the artist pointedly. ‘It is Prudence.’
‘You should associate patience with her,’ replied the Pope, who understood the allusion, and later when the work was completed we are told Mantegna was ‘richly rewarded.’
After painting in various Italian cities, Mantegna returned to Mantua, where he built himself a handsome house, and there in 1506, he died at the age of seventy five. The peculiar qualities of his art, his austere draughtsmanship and compact design may be seen in many works in England, notably in ‘The Triumph of Julius Caesar’ at Hampton Court, and in his ‘Madonna and Child’ and ‘Triumph of Scipio’ in the National Gallery; but the most perfect example of Mantegna’s art is his great picture ‘Parnassus’ in the Louvre at Paris. Here, Mantegna is able to express all his love of Greek art in picturing the home of the Nine Muses, who dance in homage round Venus and Apollo, while Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, awaits with Pegasus, the winged horse, to bear inspiration from this mythological heaven to the artists and poets of the earth.
The Road To Venice (continued)
The Art of Mantegna, Francia, Correggio, Bellini, And Giorgione
It takes nine tailors to make a man. So runs the familiar sayings, but one tailor of Padua in the fifteenth century sufficed to found a school of painting which has won immortal fame. In all the history of art no stranger figure exists than than of Franceso Squarcione, tailor and embroiderer of Padua. He had little to do with painting or painters till he was past forty, and yet this man was the master of 137 pupils and the the ‘Father’ of the glorious schools of Venice, Parma, Bologna, Lombardy, and Ferrara.
Here let us pause to explain tht while the succession of painters known as the Florentine School were perfecting their art, as related in the last chapter, groups of artists had already begun to collect in other Italian cities. So far back at 1375, twelve years before the birth of Fra Angelico, a Florentine painter named Justus had settled in Padua; and when Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, Padua was already famous as an art center.
But to return to our tailor. To the University of Padua came, at one time or another, all the learned men of Italy. Nothing was heard in the streets but talk of ancient lore and the beauty of ancient art. The astute tailor soon found that a fragment of sculpture or a stone with a Greek inscription brought him more and better customers than the display of the latest fashions. Gradually the tailoring and embroidering became a side-line in his complicated business, and the shop of Squarcione gained much fame as a store house of antique treasures of art. Artists came to him asking to be allowed to draw his fine old statues.
Squarcione had a keen eye to the main chance, and the power to discover and use the talents of others. Whether he himself ever painted is doubtful, but in 1441, when he was a man of forty-seven, he managed to qualify himself for admission to the Guild of Painters at Padua. His business instinct would not allow him to let slip a ready-made opportunity. When students sought to study his unrivalled collection of antique models, they found themselves bound as apprentices to Squarcione; and hence forward—on the strength of their work—Squarcione blossomed into the proprietor of a flourishing art business.
In 1443 he was given the contract to decorate with paintings the Chapel of the Eremitani at Padua, and this contract he fulfilled for the most part by the hand of a boy of twelve, whom two years earlier Squarcione had adopted as his son and pupil. This boy was a nameless orphan, who acquired undying fame as Andrea Mantegna. He was only ten years old when, as the ‘son of Squarcione,’ he was admitted a member of the Padua Guild of Painters, and from this fact alone we can guess his extraordinary precocity. At the age of twelve Mantegna was employed on important paintings for the Chapel of the Eremitani, and it was the reputation of the pupil, rather than that of the master, which brought students in shoals to Padua.
Another great piece of good luck which befell Squarcione was the arrival in Padua of the Venetian painter Jacopo Bellini (c. 1400-71), whom the wily contractor inveigled into his business, and there is little room for doubt that Bellini was for many years the actual teacher of painting in the school of the Paduan contractor. Mantegna got his drawing from observing the Greek statues among Squarcione’s antiques, but he learnt coloring from Bellini, who was his true master. But so precocious was the genius of Mantegna that at seventeen he had already formed his style and brought his natural talents to mature perfection. At this age he painted an altar piece for St. Sophia at Padua, a picture which, as the sixteenth century critic Vasari wrote, ‘might well be the production of a skilled veteran and not of a mere boy.’
Success begets success, and at an early age Mantegna was able to set up for himself. Squarcione became still more furious when Mantegna married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, who had now broken away from the firm and become a rival. Henceforward the old contractor blamed Mantegna’s works as much as he had previously praised them, ‘saying they were bad, because he had imitated marble, a thing impossible in painting, since stones always possess a certain harshness and never have that softness peculiar to flesh and natural objects.’
It is true that Mantegna’s sense of form was severe and his figures often remind us of marble statues, but the envious carping of his old master in no wise injured his reputation. His fame spread throughout Italy, and Pope Innocent VIII invited him to Rome, where he was employed on painting the walls of the Belvedere. The payments for this work were not so regular as the painter thought they should have been, and one day he ventured to drop a hint to the Pope, who had come to look at Mantegna’s paintings of the Virtues.
‘What is that figure?’ asked the Pontiff.
‘One much honored here, your Holiness,’ said the artist pointedly. ‘It is Prudence.’
‘You should associate patience with her,’ replied the Pope, who understood the allusion, and later when the work was completed we are told Mantegna was ‘richly rewarded.’
After painting in various Italian cities, Mantegna returned to Mantua, where he built himself a handsome house, and there in 1506, he died at the age of seventy five. The peculiar qualities of his art, his austere draughtsmanship and compact design may be seen in many works in England, notably in ‘The Triumph of Julius Caesar’ at Hampton Court, and in his ‘Madonna and Child’ and ‘Triumph of Scipio’ in the National Gallery; but the most perfect example of Mantegna’s art is his great picture ‘Parnassus’ in the Louvre at Paris. Here, Mantegna is able to express all his love of Greek art in picturing the home of the Nine Muses, who dance in homage round Venus and Apollo, while Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, awaits with Pegasus, the winged horse, to bear inspiration from this mythological heaven to the artists and poets of the earth.
The Road To Venice (continued)
Diamonds Of Fate
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
There is another ‘Regent’ called the ‘Regent of Portugal’ to distinguish it from the Pitt. This again was a Brazilian diamond. It was found in 1775 in Brazil by a poor negro slave to whom it brought more luck than usually accrues to him humble discoverers of great gems. For he was given his freedom and a pension of £50 a year. This round stone, whose original weight is not on record, turned the scale when faceted at 215 carats. I have seen its value given by an ‘authority’ as 396800 guineas, supposedly an expert assessment. He must have been a great authority on diamonds indeed who could with such precision put a value on a gem for which there could at no time exist an open market. Great diamonds have no price. They are, like any gem of the first class, worth what they can bring.
From a stone which bears the name of ‘Sea or River of Light’ we can expect no less than that it should be of the finest water, matchless in luster and of a size comparable with the largest of its kind. Certainly the ‘Darya-i-nur,’ possessing all these qualities, is truly well name. One hundred and eighty six carats of flashing fire, reflected by facets cut rose shape, make this diamond one of the mineral wonders of the world. But it is only one of two, for it is one of a pair of marvelous gems of Hindustan origin which are set in two matchless bracelets owned by the Shah of Persia (or should I say Iran?).
The other stone, the celebrated ‘Taj-e-mah,’ is even finer than its mate, for it is undoubtedly the greatest gem in the Persian collection. It also is rose cut and weighs 146 carats, so that the two stones together in the one pair of bracelets weigh 332 carats. Their value, as near as can be given by anyone (bearing in mind my remark about values above) for two such exceptional values, cannot be short of one million pounds sterling.
The Taj-e-mah was brought away from Hindustan by the Perso-Tartar conqueror Nadir Shah in 1739 amongst other looted treasure, his total bag having been estimated as worth between thirty and sixty million pounds. Nadir Shah’s successor, Shah Rokh, was a spineless ruler who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the resolute Aga Mohammed. Determined not to give up his treasure, which he had had the forethought to hide, Shah Rokh defied the tortures of his implacable enemy and clung tenaciously for a long time to his secret. Hunger, thirst, cold, heat and other intelligent and refined methods of persuasion did Aga Mohammed try upon his luckless victim. Finally he deprived him of his eyesight, and Shah Rokh was persuaded to give up what was left of his inheritance, the great diamond Taj-e-mah amongst the rest. But to Aga Mohammed the stone brought no luck, for he was assassinated.
A stone which is famous for having belonged to Shah Jehan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, to whom it came from Akbar Shah, is called the ‘Akbar Shah’. It is noteworthy for having engraved upon both sides an inscription by which two Moguls hoped to have their names commemorated for ever. The fact that the art of engraving thus appears to have been known at the time might seem to invalidate my argument, in an earlier chapter, against the ‘diamond’ in the High Priest’s breastplate. But the method by which these names were written on the stone was not perhaps true engraving in the technical sense, but done with worms—the juice of certain worms have a unique action upon the incorruptible diamond, or so it was claimed.
Akbar Shah himself had the first writing put upon the diamond:
‘Shah Akbar, The Shah of the World, 1028 A.H’
When it came into the possession of Shah Jahan, he had set upon it these words:
‘To the Lord of Two Worlds, 1039 A.H, Shah Jehan’
But their hopes of immortality were mocked by later events in a world that knows the dead are powerless. The great stone was recut. In Shah Jehan’s time it had weighed 116 carats, but when the two Arabic inscriptions on either side of it had been destroyed, its weight was reduced to seventy two carats. In this state it was purchased by the Gaekwar of Baroda for £35000.
Another great diamond also in the treasury of Baroda is one less well known, but flawless. It is called ‘English Dresden’ after the merchant who sold it and who claimed for it, as another did for the Porter-Rhodes, that it was the most perfect stone for its size in the world. He also claimed that for color it excelled even the Kohinoor. In the rough the English Dresden weighed 119½ carats, but cutting and polishing brought it down to seventy six and a half carats. The Gaekwar of Baroda paid £40000 for it, so it is said.
Diamonds Of Fate (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
There is another ‘Regent’ called the ‘Regent of Portugal’ to distinguish it from the Pitt. This again was a Brazilian diamond. It was found in 1775 in Brazil by a poor negro slave to whom it brought more luck than usually accrues to him humble discoverers of great gems. For he was given his freedom and a pension of £50 a year. This round stone, whose original weight is not on record, turned the scale when faceted at 215 carats. I have seen its value given by an ‘authority’ as 396800 guineas, supposedly an expert assessment. He must have been a great authority on diamonds indeed who could with such precision put a value on a gem for which there could at no time exist an open market. Great diamonds have no price. They are, like any gem of the first class, worth what they can bring.
From a stone which bears the name of ‘Sea or River of Light’ we can expect no less than that it should be of the finest water, matchless in luster and of a size comparable with the largest of its kind. Certainly the ‘Darya-i-nur,’ possessing all these qualities, is truly well name. One hundred and eighty six carats of flashing fire, reflected by facets cut rose shape, make this diamond one of the mineral wonders of the world. But it is only one of two, for it is one of a pair of marvelous gems of Hindustan origin which are set in two matchless bracelets owned by the Shah of Persia (or should I say Iran?).
The other stone, the celebrated ‘Taj-e-mah,’ is even finer than its mate, for it is undoubtedly the greatest gem in the Persian collection. It also is rose cut and weighs 146 carats, so that the two stones together in the one pair of bracelets weigh 332 carats. Their value, as near as can be given by anyone (bearing in mind my remark about values above) for two such exceptional values, cannot be short of one million pounds sterling.
The Taj-e-mah was brought away from Hindustan by the Perso-Tartar conqueror Nadir Shah in 1739 amongst other looted treasure, his total bag having been estimated as worth between thirty and sixty million pounds. Nadir Shah’s successor, Shah Rokh, was a spineless ruler who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the resolute Aga Mohammed. Determined not to give up his treasure, which he had had the forethought to hide, Shah Rokh defied the tortures of his implacable enemy and clung tenaciously for a long time to his secret. Hunger, thirst, cold, heat and other intelligent and refined methods of persuasion did Aga Mohammed try upon his luckless victim. Finally he deprived him of his eyesight, and Shah Rokh was persuaded to give up what was left of his inheritance, the great diamond Taj-e-mah amongst the rest. But to Aga Mohammed the stone brought no luck, for he was assassinated.
A stone which is famous for having belonged to Shah Jehan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, to whom it came from Akbar Shah, is called the ‘Akbar Shah’. It is noteworthy for having engraved upon both sides an inscription by which two Moguls hoped to have their names commemorated for ever. The fact that the art of engraving thus appears to have been known at the time might seem to invalidate my argument, in an earlier chapter, against the ‘diamond’ in the High Priest’s breastplate. But the method by which these names were written on the stone was not perhaps true engraving in the technical sense, but done with worms—the juice of certain worms have a unique action upon the incorruptible diamond, or so it was claimed.
Akbar Shah himself had the first writing put upon the diamond:
‘Shah Akbar, The Shah of the World, 1028 A.H’
When it came into the possession of Shah Jahan, he had set upon it these words:
‘To the Lord of Two Worlds, 1039 A.H, Shah Jehan’
But their hopes of immortality were mocked by later events in a world that knows the dead are powerless. The great stone was recut. In Shah Jehan’s time it had weighed 116 carats, but when the two Arabic inscriptions on either side of it had been destroyed, its weight was reduced to seventy two carats. In this state it was purchased by the Gaekwar of Baroda for £35000.
Another great diamond also in the treasury of Baroda is one less well known, but flawless. It is called ‘English Dresden’ after the merchant who sold it and who claimed for it, as another did for the Porter-Rhodes, that it was the most perfect stone for its size in the world. He also claimed that for color it excelled even the Kohinoor. In the rough the English Dresden weighed 119½ carats, but cutting and polishing brought it down to seventy six and a half carats. The Gaekwar of Baroda paid £40000 for it, so it is said.
Diamonds Of Fate (continued)
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