Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

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We have seen now with what variety and perfection the Dutch artists painted their national hearthside: and next we must consider how they painted their homeland. Midway between the genre painters and the landscape-painters stands Aart van der Neer (1603-77), who forms a bridge, as it were, between the two groups. Born three years before Rembrandt, he, like Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), is one of the early pioneers of landscape painting, yet by the the little figures in his landscapes he tells us a great deal of the life of Holland. Thus his ‘Skating Scene’ in the Wallace Collection has been ranked by the famous Dr Bode as ‘among the most perfect landscape delineations of winter,’ but it is also a charming picture of manners, giving us a glimpse of the life on the ice in seventeenth-century Holland.

Towards the end of his life Aart van der Neer deteriorated as other ‘Little Master’ did also; in addition to painting, he kept a tavern, and possibly business losses in the wine trade drove him to do inferior but more immediately saleable work during his last years. Nearly all his best work was done before 1665, when he was not dependent on painting for a livelihood, but a happy amateur who could paint what he liked. He was one of the first artists to attempt painting night scenes, but though the novelty of his moonlit views attracted attention his winter landscapes in daylight are usually considered to be his best work.

Agriculture has always been an important industry in Holland, and the local artists who catered so well for the needs of the citizen did not forget to make an appeal also to farmers. Of many who made a specialty of painting cattle, Paul Potter (1623-54) is the most celebrated, though he died in his twenty-ninth year. His big picture ‘The Bull’ is a favourite show piece at The Hague, where guides—most conservative critics—wax enthusiastic about its accuracy. Courageous people, however, have been known to confess that they find its precise statement of fact a little dull, though few dare to be so severe as Dr Muther, who once described Potter’s cattle as ‘essentially Dutch, for they know neither passions, nor struggles, nor movement, but chew the cud phlegmatically or lie down in comfortable repose.’

Cattle also figure largely in the paintings of Albert Cuyp (1620-91), who is splendidly represented in English collections. Cuyp was no mere animal painter: his principal interest lay neither in the beast nor in the earth, but above in the mighty vault of the heavens. He does not so much set out to paint cattle as to use cattle, and we may see in his ‘River Scene’ how effectively cows can be used as dark spots which bring out by contrast the luminosity of the sky, and as prominent objects in the foreground which emphasize the great stretch of flat landscape which reaches out to the horizon. The glowing light and golden color of Cuyp have placed him among the great sky painters of the world, and his work has for centuries been an example and an incentive to British landscape painting.

Apart from all other Dutch painters of landscape—seeming, indeed, to belong to another race—stands the austere and majestic figure of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-82). Though he took all Nature for his province, and in his youth painted her more peaceful aspects, we instinctively associate his sublime spirit with holy spots ‘both savage and enchanted.’ It is difficult to think of him as eight years younger than Cuyp, for so serious and austere is his vision that we can hardly believe Ruisdael was ever young. Even when he paints a simple seaside scene like ‘The Shore at Scheveningen’ he gives dramatic intensity to the scene by the rolling clouds in the sky which seem to repeat the restlessness of the agitated waves. Again, in his famous painting of ‘The Mill’, for all the stillness of the scene, we feel that this is the calm before the storm—as, indeed, the sky betokens. Grandly designed as this painting is, it is one of the quietest works of the artist, who, though infinitely varied in his choice of subject delighted especially in painting waterfalls, cascades, and rocky cliffs, Ruisdael, says a gifted American painter, Mr John La Farge,

Is as different from Cuyp as shadow is from sunshine; and his grave and solemn mind gives to the simplest and most commonplace of landscapes a look of sad importance, which is almost like a reproach of lightmindedness to any other man’s work which happens to hand alongside.

Meindert Hobbema (1638-1700) was Ruisdael’s pupil and friend, but as different in temperament from his master as a man could well be. Ruisdael approaches Nature with devoutness of a worshipper approaching a shrine; Hobbema, with the unconscious ease of a man entering his own home. He painted the same subjects over and over again, but he painted them so naturally, so freshly and convincingly, that they take us straight back to Nature, not to the pictures of another artist. In the humbleness and sincerity of his naturalism he expresses everybody’s feeling of delight and thankfulness in sunny weather and fresh country air. ‘The Avenue’ is probably the best beloved landscape in the National Gallery, London, and this and other works by Hobbema have had a profound and far-reaching effect on British landscape. Out of his smiling and friendly art grew our Norwich school of landscape. Gainsborough acknowledged his worth by word and deed, and the last sentence ever uttered by John Crome was, ‘Oh, Hobbema, my dear Hobbema, how I have loved you!’ It is sad to think that this simple, honest, and most easily understood painter, a man of genius who has given happiness to millions for six generations, fared so poorly in his profession of painting that when he was thirty he sought another means of livelihood. He sought and obtained a small position in the wine customs, and thus made himself independent of picture buyers and dealers. He saw his master, the great painter Ruisdael, battling with poverty and becoming no more prosperous as the years rolled on, so Hobbema wisely determined to look elsewhere for his bread and butter and make landscape painting his hobby and pastime. It is significant to note that his supreme masterpiece, ‘The Avenue’ was painted some years after he had become a civil servant, and when, without having to think of what the buyer might or might not like, he could indulge to the full his feeling for the pattern in landscape and his sense of beauty in the elements of Nature.

It must be admitted that if Holland had a galaxy of artistic talent during the seventeenth century she did little to encourage genius. As so often happens in modern times, the mediocre painters made the best income, while the men of genius starved. This state of affairs is not satisfactory, but it is not inexplicable. The men who prospered and made money were, as a rule, painters like Gerard Dou, who painted every feather on a bird, every scale of a fish, the shine of a copper pan, and the luster of an earthenware pot. These were things within the range of everybody’s observation and interest, and demanded no imagination, no culture. Therefore the painters of pots and pans, of insects, fruit and flowers, all prospered, while great artists like Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, and Ruisdael, who concentrated their attention on higher things, were neglected. Anybody could understand a picture of a cat stealing a fish, but appreciate the beauty of pearly light stealing through high windows to lighten an apartment, presupposes some sense of poetry in the mind of the beholder.

Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)

Sherlock, Jr.

Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
Directed by: Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Jean C. Havez, Joseph A. Mitchell
Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Ward Crane

(via YouTube): Sherlock Jr. (Silent, 1924) - Buster Keaton Pt 1 of 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrfzXSUQ2J0

Sherlock Jr. (1924)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1pvu1fOxCU

An impeccable silent comedy + I enjoyed it.

Everybody's An Expert

(via New Yorker) Louis Menand's review: I think knowing a lot can actually make a person less reliable.

Useful link:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/05/051205crbo_books1

Crimes Of Persuasion

I came upon www.crimes-of-persuasion.com which features a list (s) of scams + it's insightful + valuable.

Macau

Macau, the Las Vegas of the Far East is becoming the newest hot spot for business + entertainment in Asia + I think in time Macau would rival Hong Kong as a jewelry hub.

Useful links:
www.macaujewelryfair.com
www.macautourism.gov.mo
www.gov.mo

Virtual Reconstruction Of Ancient Rome

A unique voyage through the past and present + roam the ancient Via Flaminia @ www.vhlab.itabc.cnr.it/flaminia + RomeReborn1.0 a project that will soon be made available to the public by university researchers.

In Search Of The Precious Stone

Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:

The camp at Lightning Ridge consisted of a group of tents and a few shacks. Accommodations were of the crudest sort and I established my headquarters in a tent, shared with a miner. While at Walgett I had heard tales of numerous holdups and not caring to augment the natural dangers of a trip through the bush by the risk of robbery, I deposited the large sum of cash I had brought from Sydney in the town’s single bank. As a result of that decision I was the first man to pay by check at the Lightning Ridge mines. Commercial missionaries have their troubles as well do religious ones. An amusing incident in connection with my transaction will serve to illustrate the point.

Having selected a considerable parcel of opals I tendered the miner from whom I was purchasing them a check in payment. He examined it skeptically and it was after I had nearly exhausted my patience and vocabulary that he could be persuaded to accept it in lieu of cash. A group of miners who had witnessed the scene while waiting to deal with me lost interest immediately when they saw that their companion had received a slip of paper for his opals instead of currency. Neither argument not pleading availed. They were adamant, and it was not until two days later, after one of their number had gone to Walgett and verified my statements, that I was able to procure any more stones.

While at Lightning Ridge I had an experience which I never recall without a flutter. One day I decided to go shooting. I deemed it advisable to work toward the west in order that I might have the setting sun on my back as a guide during the return trip but the miner whose tent i was sharing suggested another route as being more likely to afford me a shot at a kangaroo. I followed his advice and was rewarded by the promised kangaroo and some rabbits. I was getting late and if I was to avoid being overtaken by nightfall it was imperative that I start back. Whether I was excited over my first kangaroo or whether I was too engrossed in the beauty surrounding me I do not know, but at any rate I forgot that I had altered my original intention, and proceeded away from the sun. After trudging for a long time without encountering any familiar objects the realization that I was ‘bushed’ burst upon me—in other words, I was lost in the tangled brush with darkness fast approaching. Through some psychological phenomenon it seems that in a crisis we are reminded of the most unpleasant things in connection with our particular predicament. My case was no exception and I recalled in vivid detail the story of a miner who had been ‘bushed’ the week previous and was found dead from thirst forty miles from camp. The thought of the poor chap’s fate and the excruciating torture which must have preceded it, filled me with panic and I immediately became obsessed by a mad desire for water, as commonly occurs when men realize that they are ‘bushed’. Wandering in circles, momentarily suffering more and more from thirst, I plucked handfulls of grass which I chewed in an attempt to allay my anguish. Exhausted, mentally and physically, I was about to lie down when I heard the faint tinkle of a bell. This imbued me with fresh courage and I set out to locate the source of the sound. At nine o’clock, scratched and bleeding from the briars, I stumbled upon a horse with a bell around the neck. Never before had the sight of a horse been so welcome for his presence might portend the proximity of human habitation or, things came to the worst,men had lived on horseflesh. Darkness had spread its ebon all over the wilderness and I decided to camp where I was until daybreak. Night birds called to their mates and my active imagination filled the brush with the forms of prowling beasts. As a result I was unable to sleep and in that, fate was kind to me, for about midnight the penetrating tones of an Australian ‘coo-ee’ were borne to me upon the wings of the night breeze. I fired my rifle in response and the horse bolted, but fortunately my signal had been heard and finally a black tracker appeared. My tentmate, worried over my failure to return, had spread the alarm and as a result four hundred miners set out to beat the brush in search of me. We reached camp early next morning. Perhaps it is base ingratitude to question the motives of my rescuers but I have since debated whether their solicitude for my welfare was not prompted more through the fear of losing a good customer than it was through any spirit of brotherly love.

During my two weeks stay I purchased about $50000 worth of rough stones. The return journey to Walgett was negotiated without mishap, riding at night, under the protection of an armed escort.

The fact that I had been fortunate beyond my fondest hopes in obtaining such wonderful specimens of opals whetted my desire to continue the search and I accordingly decided to proceed to Siam in quest of sapphires. As steamer ploughed northwestward across the Indian Ocean, the sea was an ever changing marvel of beauty. It resembled a huge casket, into which the jewels had been cast in promiscuous disarray. Jade and sapphire, turquoise and emerald, aquamarine and amethyst—all were inseparably mixed by nature’s magic hand. Schools of flying fish emerged, glided through the air for a brief moment, and then, with a splash that rippled the ocean’s calm surface, were gone into the depths from whence they had come. Porpoises, their backs as sleek and shiny as velvet, sported about the bow of the ship.

In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)

The Single Rosette

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

The Pyramidal Point Cut was in fashion for at least three centuries, until it was gradually replaced by square and rectangular Table Cuts. At the same time fancy shapes and cuts also became popular, with the result that the original four-petalled Rosettes developed more complex shapes, with anything from five to ten fan-shaped petals. The pointed ends of the fan-shaped stones which made up these Single Rosettes were held in place by a central gold knob, or under a setting containing a tiny emerald or some other colored precious stone. The wider, rounded end was partly hidden under the surrounding border, and prongs were placed between the diamonds. If the stones were not quite regular in shape, extra prongs were sometimes added.

A single ‘flower’ of small diamonds gave light effect not very much better than adamantine surface reflections, and size was usually limited to around 10mm, so Rosettes of this type were used mainly for romantic decorative details on large objects ďart such as the Munich crystal bowl and the St Michael Goblet. They were seldom used alone or as central ornaments.

A five petalled rosette, based on one from the bridal crown of Princess Margaret, dating from 1468 (now in the Domshatz, Aachen) was made up of regularly formed ‘wases’, fashioned from rock crystal. Obviously, diamonds of exactly the same shape and size could not be found in sufficient quantities and they had to be fashioned from suitable cleavages. This called for very special skills, and for diamond cutters who could produce large quantities of stones and then select matching ones for all the different types of Rosette. It would have be prohibitive, as experiments have shown, to fashion one Rosette at a time.

The bridal crown of Margaret, daughter of King Edward VI of England, appears to be the earliest surviving object to contain single Rosettes. It was probably made for her wedding to Charles the Bold in 1468 and Fritz Falk believes that it came from the workshop of a Burgundian jeweler.

The St Michael Goblet is decorated with five five-petalled, five six-petalled and two seven-petalled Single Rosettes, as well as other interesting gems. The stones are actually set very close to one another, so that they almost touch.

Rosettes were not always fashioned with diamonds. Rubies, spinels and amethysts were also used. A statuette reproduced in color in Codex Aschaffenburg, with a long accompanying text, has two red single rosettes, one of them clearly nine-petalled; it is dated 1513. Among the numerous colored illustrations in the inventory of monastic objects from Halle, in Germany, are some beautiful reproductions of fifteenth and sixteenth century diamond cuts. Many of these are diamond or ruby Rosettes mostly five-petalled; a few are even Double Rosettes. An angel in the Codex Aschaffenburg has a diamond Rosette on each shoulder and a number of ruby Rosettes on its dress; the accompanying text dates the statuette to 1518.

According to studies made in Prague and Venice by Hans R Hahnloser of Berne, the rock crystal bowl can be dated to before 1337 (now on display in Munich, as part of the Palatine Collection). The mounting, of enamelled gold, was commissioned by King Henry VIII of England, designed by Hans Holbein the Younger, and probably executed in France in about 1540. The richly ornamented setting is decorated with rubies, emeralds, pearls and diamonds, including five Single Diamond Rosettes. The bowl is 15cm high and 19cm in diameter. Careful investigations made using a needle confirmed that the adjacent stones were, in fact, the small fan-shaped petals of a diamond Rosette.

On a large cross in an oil painting on parchment attributed to Hans Mielich there are thirty four diamond rosettes. That admirable goldsmith and jewelry engraver, Etienne Delaune, also known as ‘Stephanus’, is said to have conceived his designs, not only to scale and in three dimensions, but with a totally professional understanding of the jeweler’s technique. The pendant probably dates from the period when he was working in Paris (possibly under Cellini) since he did not move to Strasbourg until 1573. These facts are relevant, because the components of this seven-petalled Single Rosette are exceptionally large and of a cut entirely different from that normally found. This suggests either that the diamonds actually existed or—more likely—that they were not diamonds at all but amethysts or some other colored stones.

The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

7. Enamels and Mosaics

Jewelry-making in Egypt reached its highest level toward the close of the third millennium. In craftsmanship and creative design the work of the Twelfth Dynasty was never surpassed by the Egyptian goldsmith.

During this period jewelry became more colorful than ever before because, in addition to precious stones and metals, another substance—whose infinite variety of uses is still being explored today—was employed by the goldsmith. That substance was glass. Heretofore it had been used in only two ways—as a vitreous glaze for covering objects made of clay or stone and for solid glass beads. Such a thing as an entire vase or goblet of glass was as yet unheard of.

In earlier times when the goldsmith wished to add color to his jewelry he inlaid the gold with bits of sard, turquoise or lapis lazuli. These tiny pieces of stone had to be ground into the proper shape and size by rubbing them one against another before fitting them into their metal base—a long and tedious process. Glass, on the contrary, when used as enamel in place of insets of stone, required no such expenditure of laborious grinding, and when it was set in patterns rimmed with gold the effect of jewel-like color was scarcely distinguishable from that of stone inlay.

Glass enamel and paste (artificial glass gems) are made in much the same manner. Enamel is glass that has been pulverized, mixed with gum until it forms a paste which may be applied with a brush, and then hardened by firing. It must, of course, be a type of glass which is fusible at a moderate heat, that is, lower than the melting point of the metal base on which the enamel is used. The base, usually gold or bronze, is prepared in one of two ways, either Cloisonné or Champlevé.

The Cloisonné method calls for building up, on the metal surface, a series of small fences made of fine wire or thin strips of metal, and soldered into place. The resulting little compartments or cells—cloisons—are then filled with the glass paste which, after firing, becomes hard glassy bits of enamel. The little divisions or fences separating the jewel-like dots of color remain in evidence and are an essential part of the beauty of the design.

The Champlevé method differs from Cloisonné in that instead of little metal divisions being soldered to the surface, the solid base is itself scooped out, thus forming little compartments which hold the tiny pools of paste, each enclosed by thin dividing walls of metal.

Egyptian enamels were rich and colorful. They might be turquoise blue, cobalt, emerald green, purple, or milk white; but never colorless and transparent, for all glass, at that time and for centuries to follow, was opaque.

Another form in which the Egyptian of the Twelfth Dynasty used glass to ornament his jewelry was similar to that made famous in the Middle Ages by the glass-men of Venice and known to us by its Italian name, millefiori, which means ‘million flowers’.

The flower-like mosaics were composed of many tiny bits of glass put together in this manner: First, numbers of little glass rods, each of different color, were arranged so that their ends formed the desired pattern; then the bundle was fired and while still hot and pliable was drawn out lengthwise. This greatly reduced its diameter but did not alter the arrangement of colors. The composite bundle had now become a tiny rod of mosaic glass from which thin slices were cut crosswise, polished, and mounted in rings of pale gold.

The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt (continued)

Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

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Jan van der Meer, commonly known as Vermeer of Delft (1632-75), is one of the Old Masters whom modern research has rescued from unmerited neglect. Houbraken, a historian who wrote only forty years after his death, does not even mention him, and for two centuries his name was almost forgotten and his paintings were sold as works by De Hooch, Terborch, Metsu, or even Rembrandt. Then in the middle of the nineteenth century a French exile named Thoré spent three years (1858-60) studying records and archives in Holland and patiently searching out Vermeer’s paintings. Since Thoré published his account of his studies, the fame of Vermeer has rapidly spread and increased. Today he is one of the most costly and one of the most popular of the old masters.

Of his private life very little is known. Vermeer was three years younger than De Hooch, and fifteen years younger than Teborch. We know that as soon as he came of age in 1653 he married Catherine Bolenes and by her had eight children. He was evidently esteemed in his native city, for in 1662 and again in 1670 he was elected one of the principal officers of the Guild of St Luke of Delft. But fame is one thing and fortune is another. When Vermeer died in 1675 he had nothing to leave his wife and family but twenty six unsold pictures. If these were put into the market today they might fetch anything over a quarter of a million pounds—not a penny less—but there were no American millionaires in the seventeenth century; so poor Vermeer was judged to have died insolvent and his widow’s affairs had to be put in the hands of a liquidator, who happened to be the naturalist Leeuwenhoek.

To explain in words the incomparable charm of Vermeer’s painting is as simple and as difficult as to explain the beauty of light. The illumination in his pictures is as perfect as it is in the best works of De Hooch; and if the pictures of Vermeer are still more beautiful than those of De Hooch it is because Vermeer was a still finer and more subtle colorist. He was, indeed, one of the greatest colorists the world has ever known. He excelled in all subjects. His ‘Head of a Young Girl’ is one of the loveliest portraits in the world. This young girl is not strikingly beautiful in herself. She has a sweet face, and Vermeer has brought out the sweetness of her disposition and the charm of her youth; but he has done more than this: by the loveliness of his color—particularly by the contrast of the blue and lemon-yellow of which he was so fond—Vermeer has made her a joy for ever. Color of this lyrical beauty sings its own sweet song.

Vermeer’s ‘View of Delft’, also at The Hague, is the loveliest street scene or town view in art. It has the crystal purity of color and limpid atmosphere of Delft itself, which a living writer has described as ‘the cleanest city in Europe, looking as if all the houses were thoroughly scrubbed down and polished each day before sunrise.’ Nothing could be more natural, more true to the thing seen, than this painting, yet nothing could be more perfect in every quality that goes to the making of a work of art.

These two pictures are exceptional even among the paintings of Vermeer, and we come to consider his more numerous paintings of small figures in interiors, the richness he offers us makes selection embarrassing. It would be perilous to say ‘The Pearl Necklace’ is better than ‘The Milkmaid’ or other pictures one could mention; but it is certainly one of the best and shows how Vermeer could compete with De Hooch in ‘bottling sunlight’ and beat that master even at his own favorite game.

Vermeer’s art undoubtedly affected his contemporaries, those of his own age as well as those who were his juniors. Gabriel Metsu (1630-67) sometimes comes near to Vermeer, and the color of ‘The Letter Writer Surprised’ in the Wallace Collection has a tenderness which is apt to make even Terborch look a little hard. Metsu knows how to set his stage decoratively; his pictures are always sprightly; but his observation is less subtle, and his research into light and shade is not carried to the point of perfection reached by De Hooch and Vermeer.

Nicolas Maes (1632-93), another pupil of Rembrandt, though less gifted than Metsu, used to be thought of chiefly as a portrait-painter, but is now much esteemed for the anecdotal pictures he painted in his youth. ‘The Idle Servant’ is an amusing example of his work in this style, and shows both his own powers of observation and what he learnt from Rembrandt in the way of using lighting to enhance a dramatic effect. But if we look critically at the picture, say at the cat stealing the plucked bird, or at the whole area of the tiled floor, we shall have to admit that in drawing Maes was inferior to Dou, and in illumination far inferior to De Hooch or Vermeer. All these subject pictures were painted between 1655 and 1665 after which date circumstances drove Maes into ‘pot-boiling’ portraiture.

Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)

2008 Tucson Show Information

The Tucson gem and mineral show is really a big gem show + here is the info @ http://www.tucsonshowguide.com/tsg/show_index.cfm

People Often Think An Opinion Heard Repeatedly From The Same Person Is Actually A Popular Opinion

I found the article via Science Daily @ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070520183447.htm educational + insightful. It could be applicable to gem/jewelry/art trading.

Useful link:
www.apa.org

In Search Of The Precious Stone

Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:

Man’s interest in gems has not been confined solely to their use as medium of ornament. The ancients invested them with certain talismanic qualities, a belief which has spanned the intervening centuries and which even modern science has failed to dispel entirely, as attested by the popularity of birth stones.

Jewels have been found in the tombs of pre-historic peoples, extinct long before the civilization of the Incas, of the Pharaohs or of the Montezumas prospered, and ever since, men have toiled and fought,stolen and lied for them.

Springing from a line of lapidaries as I do, the attraction which precious stones hold for me, unlike my fondness for olives, is a matter of heredity rather than an acquired taste. At the age when my playmates were reading fairy tales i was vividly devouring volumes about gems. I clung with breathless interest to every word of the tales of privation, adventure and romance which my uncle wove about the dull-colored little stones he brought home. As, under my brother’s masterful hand, they shed their rough coats and were transformed into scintillating globules of crystallized color, my admiration of the miracle was tempered by my envy of the skill which had made it possible. I impatiently awaited the time when I too might take my place at the wheel and conjure forth the charm and beauty which nature had so subtly concealed within the lifeless pebbles. At last the fated day arrived, when I was twelve years of age. Under the guidance of my uncle, I cut my first opal.

The initial estimate I formed of my ability as a cutter was destined to a depreciatory revision when I had learned more about the intricacies of the craft. A gem in the rough is to a lapidary what a plot is to a writer—both must be treated in the manner best calculated to accentuate their good points. The skilled artisan should not only be capable of recognizing the inherent possibilities of a stone but he must also be able to bring them out. The fact that each stone has its own peculiarities leads to a appreciation of the versatility which is necessarily one of the qualifications of an expert lapidary.

My experience and the years progressed apace and I became proficient in my chosen calling. In the application of my profession that spark of romance which had been responsible for my childhood interest in stories of travel was fanned into a consuming flame by the opportunities for adventure which the search for the gems I handled daily would afford. The stones which intrigued me most were the black opal, the sapphire, the star sapphire, the ruby, the cat’s eye and the emerald, all of which are accorded prominent niches in the fashion salon of the present day.

The black opal had been discovered but a short time previous in Australia and the popularity which greeted it was the last straw. I could resist the lure no longer and accordingly set out upon a quest and ultimately carried me to Australia, Siam, Burma, Ceylon and many other far and unfrequented corners of the globe.

Embarking in England I had an interesting and eventful voyage, nearly around the globe, to Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, on the southeastern coast of the island continent. Walgett, four hundred miles to the northward, was an outpost of civilization, and there the railroad ended. From that point it was necessary to proceed on horseback. The sixty mile journey to Lightning Ridge, where the black opal mines are located, was made amid the myriad wonders of the Australian bush. The horses picked their way with difficulty through the tangled undergrowth which clutched viciously with thorny fingers at man and steed. The plume-like fronds of the fern trees quivered and the cabbage palms swayed listlessly in the gentle breeze. Scattered over the terrain, beeches and cedar stood out above the surrounding brush like beacons above a rolling sea. Rabbits and other small game scurried frantically to cover and birds rose in flocks from beneath the horse’s hoofs, uttering shrill cries of protest against our incursion. At rare intervals man’s battle to wrest a living from the land was evidenced by sheep farms, nestling amid the dense tropical scrub. This district, one of the most delightful in Australia, was still untrammeled by the march of the empire.

In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)

The Four- Petalled Diamond Rosette

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

The earliest type of Rosette was a very simple combination of stones intended to give the impression of a large, pointed diamond. It was composed of four Shield Cut fan-shaped diamonds placed close together like a four-leaf clover and held in place by small prongs. The four triangular facets, with their pointed ends meeting in the center, might well be mistaken for the four main facets of a single, low, Point Cut diamond. These Rosettes are almost impossible to identify in portraits—in most cases the painters have confused them with low Pyramid Cuts.

Detailed analysis of components of Rosettes of this kind show that the cut, though in fact fashioned from any flat irregular rough, was originally inspired by a ‘was’ type of cleavage. Loss of weight, even from perfectly developed ‘wases’, seems to have been at least 50 per cent, but neither this fact nor the long hours of precise fashioning involved appear to have bothered the cutters, for the resulting ‘flowers’ were soon in great demand. Each of the four fan-shaped diamonds was fashioned as follows: the crown was given one semi-circular and one triangular facet, usually separated by a very narrow facet, or even by a ridge. The result was an impressive mirroring square enclosed inside an attractive narrow border. In the pavilion, the triangular culet was enclosed by a semi-circular facet with truncated corners at the broad end, and on either side by rhomboid facets meeting at the point.

There is evidence from an inventory of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, that four-petalled Rosettes existed as early as 1411. Another inventory mentions that in 1414 Jean, Duke of Berry, received from the Paris jeweler, Constantin de Nicolas, a ring with ‘une flour de diamant’. It is possible that Rosettes may even have originated from Paris.

The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

6. The Lapidary And His Tools
The name given to the craftsman who cuts and engraves small stones is ‘lapidary,’ from lapis, the Latin word for stone. The Egyptian jeweler and his fellow craftsman in Babylonia were highly skilled in engraving minute figures on extremely hard stones. Their tools were simple but effective. Splinters of flint and fragments of emery stone were used on the softer stones, the design being scratched freehand on the surface. For engraving the harder gems, rotary tools were necessary, and those used were quite similar to some of the wheel-tools of today. There were drills ending in rounded points, disks, etc., which were made to rotate by means of a wheel or bow. The actual cutting of the gem was not done by the metal drill, however, but by the emery powder that was ground against the stone by the revolving tip.

The fact that his material might be exceedingly hard and his tools so primitive that cutting stone must have taken countless hours and endless patience did not prevent the lapidary from making fine bowls from black diorite, one of the hardest of stones. The walls of these bowls he ground down to such a degree of thinness that they were translucent in sunlight.

Another task given to the lapidary, not exactly in the line of jewelry, was the making of artificial eyes, not, however, to be worn by human beings.

Portrait sculpture in Egypt was carried to a point of realism never since excelled. When the sculptor carved his lifelike heads from wood or stone, he painted them in full color, and between their unblinking lids the lapidary set eyes of rock crystal with pupils of black stone. The effect of these gleaming eyes was startling in the extreme. Sometimes the sculptor worked not with the stone or wood but with bronze, which he shaped by hammering over wooden forms. Today the royal portrait of King Peri of the Pyramid Age still glares serenely, the undimmed eyes of rock crystal set in a bronze face which time has encrusted with rust.

The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt (continued)

Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Here is may be well to pause in order to emphasize the fact that these Dutch painters were preoccupied with rendering the manners of their time. This characteristic, which gives their work a lasting historical value, has caused their little pictures of courtyards, interiors, tavern scenes, conversations, toilet-scenes, and the like to be known as ‘genre’ painting, from the French word genre (i.e. manner or style). A few, like Terborch, show us the manner of dress and living of the upper classes; others show us the middle classes, and still more concern themselves with the manners of the peasants and lower classes. Among these last the best known is Jan Steen (1626-79), who is often amusingly satirical in his outlook; other painters of a similar style were Adrian van Ostade (1610-85) and the Fleming David Teniers (1610-90).

These painters may amuse us for the moment, but they do not hold us spellbound as some of the others do. The greatest rival of Terborch was Peter de Hooch or de Hoogh (1629-77), who was only twelve years his junior. De Hooch’s figures may not be so aristocratic as those of Terborch, but they are seen as finely and have their being in the same clear light which both these masters observed and rendered so lovingly. This passion for the rendering of light began to show itself in the paintings of Brouwer; it becomes still more marked in the work of Terborch, and it approaches perfection in the pictures of De Hooch. His chief interest, as the late Sir Walter Armstrong remarked ‘is always absorbed by the one problem, that of capturing and bottling the sunlight.’ How supremely well he succeeded in his object is shown by ‘A Girl Reading’, a masterpiece of interior illumination, in which every object is not only perfectly rendered but keeps its proper distance within the room owing to the painter’s delicately exact notation of the relative degrees of lighting.

In his youth, as Armstrong has pointed out, De Hooch liked the broadest daylight, but with advancing years he preferred ‘merely to suggest the outside sun, as it creeps down tiled passages, through red curtains and half-open shutters.’ An interesting example of De Hooch’s earlier period when he chose the broadest daylight for his scene is the ‘Interior of a Dutch House’. Nothing could be more brilliant or more faithful to Nature than the bright sunlight which streams down on the group near the window. It is instructive to observe here that the standing figure by the fireplace was an afterthought, put in by the artist to improve his design. This woman forms the apex of a triangle of which the wall with the windows forms the base. We know that she was an afterthought because the artist had already painted the black-and-white tiled floor right up to the fireplace before he began the figure, and that it why we can still see the tiling through the woman’s skirt. This correction would not have been visible to De Hooch’s contemporaries, but it is a peculiar property of oil paint that an under-painting, invisible when the paint is fresh, will in time work its way up to the surface. Since De Hooch was consummate craftsman whose handling of pigment approached perfection, the fact that even he has been unable to disguise a correction is a useful lesson to a living painter that he must get his picture right from the start, or otherwise, however clever he may be, his errors will be found out after his death. In De Hooch’s interior, this emergence of what it was endeavored to hide is too trivial and unimportant to affect seriously the beauty and merit of the painting.

Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)

Synesthesia

I found an interesting recent research on synesthesia. I think it could be applicable to colored stone + diamond grading.

Useful link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Brain Interactions

An interesting article by Janice Dorn about brain interactions in the decision making process of trading (stocks) @ http://thetradingdoctor.com/pdf/ThisIsYourBrainOnTrading.pdf is insightful + valuable. I think the concept could be applicable to gem/art/jewelry trading.

Red Wine Drug Shows Proof That It Combats Aging

Alexis Madrigal writes about a derivative of an ingredient in red wine that combats some symptoms of aging + other viewpoints @ http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/news/2008/01/resveratrol

Useful link:
www.sirtrispharma.com

Ray Kroc

Press On: Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Useful link:
Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc