Glittering Gold, Dazzling Diamond

Commodityonline writes about the status of gold and diamond in India + year-over-year growth in value + other viewpoints @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4892

Heard On The Street

Some food for thought:

- Avoid the so-called inside information.
- Never buy gemstones/jewelry/art on excitement.
- Use your own judgment.
- Don't put too much reliance on advertisements.
- Don't lose confidence.

Diamdel Auctions Rough Diamonds

Diamdel has launched a new website @ www.diamdel.com where registered companies will be able to participate and bid for rough + it's a subsidiary of De Beers that supplies the secondary market.

Rolling Stones

You Can't Always Get What You Want is a song by the Rolling Stones released on their 1969 album Let It Bleed + written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was named as the 100th greatest song of all time by Rolling Stone in its 2004 list of '500 Greatest Songs of All Time.'

Useful link:
www.rollingstones.com

White Heat

White Heat (1949)
Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Screenplay: Virginia Kellogg (story); Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts
Cast: James Cagney, Margaret Wycherly, Virginia Mayo

(via YouTube): White Heat Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx8Eq0GbZ2o

A wonderfully vicious movie + breathless gangster genre. I enjoyed it.

Jewelers Of Italy

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

1. Etruscan Craftsmen

The early history of the jewelry-makers of Italy is not unlike the early history of the goldsmiths of Greece.

Something less than three thousand years ago there lived in Italy, north of the Tiber, an olive-skinned people known as Etruscans. They were sea-roving race with a keen taste for plunder-pirates rather than merchants. Raiding, however, was a dangerous method of acquiring goods and not always profitable; so the Phoenician traders with their colorful jewelry and other products of the Orient were welcomed by the Etruscans, who had raw materials and metals to exchange for manufactured articles. One may suppose that if a merchant ship of the East was booked to market her wares at Etruria she carried an extra large stock of bright beads, scarabs, precious stones and metal ornaments, for the people of Etruria seem to have had a very passion for glittering jewelry.

Etruria, like other foreign markets touched by Oriental influence, did in time learn the craft of the goldsmith for herself; and although she always continued to borrow designs, first from the East and then from Greece, she nevertheless carried their execution to a point ‘never since’, says one authority, ‘equaled in the jeweler’s art.’ Cellini, in his Memoirs, tells of an Etruscan necklace of exquisite workmanship which had just been unearthed. Said he, ‘Alas, it is better not to imitate these Etruscans, for we should be nothing but their humble servants. Let us rather strike out a new path which will, at least, have the merit of originality.’

Both men and women of Etruria wore quantities of rings. Many of these rings were set with copies of the little sacred beetle of the Nile elaborately mounted on swivels. Dull red carnelian from their won river beds was the stone most commonly used for the scarabs, but they were also expertly carved with amazing realism in fine sard, sardonyx and even such precious stones as the emerald, imported from Egypt.

The women wore elaborate head ornaments, fillets and diadems, or wreaths of leaves, all made of gold, with long gold hairpins topped with acorns or balls. They loved amber, which was set in silver, gold, or that moonlight-tinted gold called ‘electrum,’ an alloy of gold and silver.

The wearing of amulets was universal, and a conspicuous part of the Etruscan necklace was the hollow pendant in which the magic token was carried. The pendant, or bulla, was often made of two or more gold plates thin enough to take on a pattern when pressed against a stone mold into which the pattern had been cut. Sometimes several pieces of the molded gold were soldered together to form tiny vases, little heads of gods or goddesses, or small apes, or lions.

The Phoenicians method of decorating the surface of gold ornaments with fine grains was developed by the Etruscans to a point never equaled even by the Greeks. The tiny globules of gold were soldered, grain by grain, onto the metal surface, thus producing a rich and intricate design built with individual dots almost too small to distinguish with the naked eye. It is for this marvelous granular work, so frost-like in appearance, that the jewelry of Etruria is particularly famous. But in the course of the next few centuries her craftsmen, no longer conspicuously skillful, were producing work that was both coarse and poor.

Jewelers Of Italy (continued)

Fancy Rosettes

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

Other types of diamond Rosette seem to have existed but since they are known only from paintings (some of which have been listed and discussed by Fritz Falk) it is impossible to give accurate descriptions of the gems used in their composition. I have come to believe that the Rosettes Falk lists and those which I have examined myself in paintings were all exceptional designs resulting from deliberate experiments or from attempts to emulate top quality Rosettes produced by well-established cutters.

On a small domestic altar dating from the early seventeenth century, made in the Imperial Court Workshop in Prague, there is a nine-petalled Double Rosette—the only one of its kind I have ever come across. It is about 22cm in diameter, with components of a standard type, but each stone is individually set. The usual ‘pistil’ in the center of the ‘flower’ is replaced by a group of thin wires terminating in small enamel globes. The composition is apparently made up of stones from an ordinary Rosette which was broken up, and the diamonds are badly soiled. The stones are colorless but appear quite yellow because of the heavy mounting.

Concerning Gems

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

Few things that man has made use of in his evolution from barbarity to civilization have so much of romance, superstition and fascination woven about them as have precious stones. It is probable that the same subtle lure of a beautiful gem, which even the most matter-of-fact man or woman knows, led Adam and Eve, when the world was young, while they inhabited the Garden of Eden, when not busy with its fruits, to gather certain bright pebbles, which saved and prized, became the first precious stones of history.

As far back toward this date as written accounts take us, we find jewels playing an important part in the history of the world. There were the twelve stones, each the symbol of a tribe of Israel; also the twelve stones of the High Priest’s breast-plate. In Ezekiel, the covering of the King of Tyre was described as containing nine precious stones. Each of the Apostles was associated with a precious stone. In Revelation, John describes twelve precious stones in connection with the Heavenly City. The histories of Egypt. Greece, and Rome, and more modern countries, often refer to some important crown jewel, or otherwise famous gem.

The Rise Of French Painting

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Lancret, who lived on till 1743, continued Watteau’s Italian comedy manner, and had considerable success with his theatrical portraits, two of which are in the Wallace Collections. He is seen at his best in the portrait of an actress known as ‘La Belle Grecque’, which has a vivacious charm of its own and is full of life. The pose of the figure is particularly happy and conveys admirably a sense of movement. But while they could imitate more or less cleverly the superficial appearance of Watteau’s pictures, neither Lancret nor Pater were able to give their paintings that undercurrent of pathos which lifts Watteau’s work high above the trivial.

Only a very superficial observer of Watteau’s pictures would accuse him of being a painter of frivolities, a chronicler of picnics. Watteau lived in an artificial age, and being a true artist he could not help reflecting something of its artificiality. The French Court life of his day had the splendor of autumn leaves about to fall. Watteau, himself a dainty rose with canker in the bud, shows us the hectic charm of a civilization already being consumed by mortal malady; but his honesty and intellectual insight prevented him from pretending that the happiness of his puppets was anything more than a passing moment of self-deception. His pictures haunt us, not because of their gaiety, but by reason of their gentle, uncomplaining melancholy; and the late Sir Frederick Wedmore penetrated to the secret of Watteau when he laid stress on ‘the reflective pathos, the poignant melancholy, which are among the most appealing gifts of him who was accounted the master of the frivolous, of the monotonously gay.’

Watteau is unique in his qualities of drawing and color. There have been many painters who were great draughtsmen, and a number of painters who have been great colorists; but those who were supreme both in drawing and color we can count on the fingers of one hand. Watteau is among them. If we look at the little figures in a typical Watteau like ‘The Conversation’, we perceive that the drawing rivals that of Raphael in its perfection of form and that of Rembrandt in its expressiveness. Watteau’s powers of drawing many be studied still further in his chalk drawings in the British Museum Print Room.

As for his paint, hardly among his predecessors will you find anything so exquisite in color and so jewel-like in quality. The brightness of his palette, and the little touches with which he laid on his color, make his pictures vibrate and sing as those of no other artist had done before. Watteau was not only a great master; he was one of those pioneer artists whose original research and brilliant achievements have given a new impetus to the art of painting.

The Rise Of French Painting (continued)

A Diamond-based Computer

Physicists at Harvard University have shown that diamonds can be used to create stable quantum computing building blocks at room temperature + the goal is a quantum supercomputer that could be much faster and more powerful than anything available with conventional electronics. Here is a link to the abstract.

Tavalite Enhanced Gemstones

Here is what Tavalite’s site @ http://www.tavalite.com/category_s/17.htm says about treated stones.

Sevan Bicakci

Turkish designer Sevan Bicakci rose to fame when he won Town & Country Couture Design awards in 2006 and 2007 + he is renowned for creating difficult to replicate unique designs that represent the beauty of Turkey + he describes his jewelery: 'Byzantine emperor or the Ottoman sultan meets Alice in Wonderland.'

Useful link:
www.sevanbicakci.com

First Books

Economist writes about the auction trade’s busiest bookseller: Bloomsbury Auctions + collector’s dedication + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10518600

Useful link:
www.bloomsburyauctions.com

Unique Gifts For George Bush

Here is an interesting story from the Middle East: In Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed presented George Bush with a necklace consisting of a number of increasingly large solid gold stars encrusted with scores of diamonds + rubies + emeralds + Saudi Arabia went even further with a jewel-laden gold medallion dangling from a chain encrusted with rubies + emeralds + other viewpoints @ http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1703515,00.html

Swing Time

Swing Time (1936)
Directed by: George Stevens
Screenplay: Erwin S. Gelsey, Howard Lindsay, Allan Scott
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers

(via YouTube): Swing Time - Rogers and Astaire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxPgplMujzQ

Swing Time Trailer (1936)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNOMw2W-o8o

The musical + those dances + Astaire's grace + that otherness makes the film so natural.

A Modern Double Rosette

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

Few Diamond Rosettes have been preserved, but I have managed to examine most of the surviving examples in great detail. The one in the pendant kept in the Grϋnes Gewölbe in Dresden was exhibited in Helsinki in the late 1960s, and inspired a large reproduction—12cm in diameter—in acrylic plastic. This reproduction was symmetrized according to what seemed, from a study of most of the surviving Double Rosettes, to be ideal proportions. It was then sent to a skilled cutter of fancy shapes, who was asked to produce the necessary components in high grade, precision cut diamonds.

Various problems faced the cutter. The first was to find enough flawless fine white rough in the right sizes and shapes. The cutter then had to find the grain in each little piece, and if the grain turned out to be unsuitable, the piece had to be rejected and a new piece found. It took six months for the job to be completed. The finished diamonds, together with a large bill, were accompanied by a firm refusal ever to repeat the task. To avoid tarnishing the metal and to enable the diamonds to be kept clean with a small brush and suitable fluid, it was decided to make the mounting of platinum and the setting open. The work of setting the stone proved to be immensely difficult and took a highly skilled and experienced master setter a whole week. How much simpler it must have been when the diamonds were first set in a bed of pitch!

The light effects of this diamond Rosette are spectacular, because the gems are clean. It seems that the reason that the slightest soiling ruins the extraordinary and subtle beauty of a diamond Rosette is because the crown and pavilion angles are so near the critical angles for reflection and refraction. When the experiment was made of soiling the stones of this jewel with grease and dirt, the magnificent light effects were almost completely lost.

From the models in acrylic plastic it can be seen how the narrow central facets of the lozenge-shaped components could be mistaken for fissures between the stones. Mielich and other artists may have been misled in this way into depicting Double Rosettes with one shape of stone only. They also often confused light and shadow. In fact, they not infrequently depicted cuts which, for one reason or another, could not possibly have existed. In his book, Gregorietti reproduces a detail of Lucrezia Panciatichi’s pendant containing a ten-petalled Rosette. The artist, Agnolo Bronzino, has made the same mistake as Mielich, since this must have been a Double Rosette with twenty stones—ten each of two different cuts.

Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece

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

3. Cameo Portraits

In Alexander’s reign there appeared the first true cameo, but not until later, during the supremacy of Rome, did this type of gem cutting gain the popularity which at various periods it has held since then, sometimes rising to prominence in the world of fashion, sometimes almost forgotten by it.

The cameo, which has been called a great technical innovation, is the reverse of an intaglio. The design, instead of being hollowed out so that it lies below the surface of the stone, is carved in relief—that is, it rounds above its background like a miniature bas-relief. It could not be used as a seal but was purely ornamental. Cameos were cut not only in sardonyx—the design carved in the upper white layer of the stone with its underlying red-brown layer serving as a background—but they were frequently cut in stones of a single color, such as sard, and even the transparent garnet, peridot, ruby and, more rarely, emerald.

Portraiture, in ancient Egypt, had been carried to a high point, but it was the sculptor not the lapidary who was called upon to make likeness in stone. In Greece, the engraver of gems at first depicted gods and goddesses, often full-length figures, but never portraits of real people. During the reign of Alexander, however, the engraver of gems ventured into the field of portraiture. Trained to portray the surpassing beauty of the gods, he perhaps found it difficult, in the beginning, to relinquish the ideals of proportion and contour required in deities. At any rate, his first efforts at human portraiture were rather too godlike to be good likeness. One looks upon those all too perfect Greek profiles with some doubt as to their truth. It took many years and the fall of Greece to bring gem portraiture down to the hard facts of realism.

The young Alexander was a beautiful youth—a fact fully appreciated by himself. And when, in due course, his beard began to grown he refused to allow the classic contours of cheek and chin to be thus hidden from view, so he shaved, and thereby set a fashion in Greece and Italy which lasted hundreds of years. Although he lived to the age of thirty-three his portraits on coins and gems always show him as an ageless, beardless youth.

His ‘engraver in ordinary’ was Pyrgoyteles—he alone was permitted to cut the royal likeness. ‘If any other artist should be discovered to have cut the most sacred image of the sovereign, the same punishment should be inflicted upon him as was appointed for sacrilege.’

After the death of Alexander, the gem cutter, no longer forbidden to ‘cut the most sacred image of the sovereign,’ engraved many stones with the divine profile. They were for the most part deep cut intaglios. In spite of the fact that cameo cutting was especially suited to portraiture, intaglios long continued to outnumber cameos. The great popularity of the little gems bearing the portrait of Alexander is believed to have originated in the idea that since he had been such a favorite of fortune his likeness on a precious stone must bring good luck to its owner.

In the period between the death of Alexander and the conquest of the East by Rome, the work of the Greek goldsmith underwent great changes. Gems from far places were now at the disposal of the jewelry maker. Precious stones traveled in company with ginger, pepper, and Chinese cinnamon up the Persian Gulf in galleys and then across the Arabian desert on camel back to the many Mediterranean ports which were a part of the Hellenistic world. Now, for the first time, was introduced the true topaz, the color clear, yellow wine; also the amethyst, long known in Egypt but new to the Greeks; and there was a new stone so exactly the color of sea water that it was said to become invisible if submerged in it, so transparent was the gem—hence its name, ‘aquamarine’. Another new stone was the Syrian garnet, deep red purple in color; and since it was a soft stone it was very popular with the engraver. He gave it a flat base and a strongly convex top, and on this arched surface he engraved figures and portraits.

In its new form the ring stone retained only a trace of the original scarab shape. Any transparent red stone cut in this manner was known as ‘carbuncle.’ Today, only one stone is referred to as a carbuncle and that is a fine garnet cut, as the French say, en cabochon. Large carbuncles were mounted in large rings which were hollow shells, not solid bands of gold.

Rings, necklaces, bracelets and other products of the jewelry shop were an important item of Greek export trade, and Italy was one of the chief trade centers. But all too soon, from the standpoint of Greece, Italy’s position shifted from that of customer to that of master. The Greek craftsman became the Roman slave. Fortunately, however, he was still permitted to make fine jewelry.

The Cutting And Polishing Of Gems

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

The art of cutting precious stones can be traced back through the centuries. In 1285 a guild of gem cutters existed in Paris; about a century later there were lapidaries at work in Nuremburg and it is likely that the craft was followed long before this time. To Ludwig Van Berguen, of Bruges, is given the credit of first cutting diamonds with a symmetrical arrangement of facets. This was about 1460.

It is difficult to get precise information concerning the tools of the early gem cutters, but inasmuch as those of modern lapidaries are so very simple, it is probable that there has been little change in the instruments used in the trade. But while few changes mark the equipment of the modern lapidary, yet great strides have been taken toward greater skill and finesse on the part of the workers in the craft and the display of judgment that makes for getting the utmost in beauty and value from the rough gems.

In no other craft is the mental quality of judgment as important as in that of the lapidary. In the cutting of a valuable gem from the rough stone the slightest error in judgment may mean a vast difference in the beauty of the finished gem and a difference of many dollars in its value. Next to judgment the qualities that are of value in a lapidary are experience and skill and a trained delicacy of touch.

It will be interesting to the buyer of gems to know the routine of carrying the rough stone through the various processes that finally produce the finished polished gem as it is found at the jewelers. It may be well to explain here that the cutting and polishing of diamonds is a special craft—the lapidary who works in diamonds seldom concerns himself with other gems. It is also interesting to know that with the diamond to obtain brilliancy is the prime requisite, while with most other gems the matter of color is given precedence and brilliancy is a subservient quality.

The cutting and polishing of the diamond is very largely a mechanical, mathematical application of pressure and friction, while most other gems are manipulated with a human delicacy of touch and a perfection of technique which constitute the whole secret of success in gem cutting. The cutter of gems other than the diamond has a license for following his own ideas and he may alter or modify the cutting to bring out the peculiarities of any stone and depart as far as he wishes from the conventional. I shall describe here the various processes through which a rough gem stone passes.

The best judgment of the lapidary is called into play in his first consideration of the rough stone, for it is here that his experience and wisdom provides for getting the greatest measure of beauty and value from the uncut gem, and for minimizing waste and loss of weight. After passing upon the characteristic of a rough stone and deciding upon the method of getting the most from it, the lapidary, if the gem requires it, then puts it through the process known as ‘slitting,’ should this be required.

This process of dividing the rough stone is accomplished by holding it against the edge of a thin metal circular revolving plate. The biting edge of this plate is due to the diamond dust which it contains. The delicate operation of ‘slitting’ provides pieces of the stone in suitable sizes for further working. If the gem is to be faceted it is then further fashioned toward the shape it is destined to assume on a flat, horizontal or vertical revolving wheel. In order to facilitate handling each individual gem is then mounted with cement on the end of a tiny holder of wood. This holder looks very much like the ordinary pen holder. In this operation the extreme of judgment is required and considerable latitude is given the operator that he may bring out the individual characteristics and beauty of each gem.

After the faceting is complete the gem is still dull, colorless and uninteresting, and is now passed on to the polisher, whose work is to bring the utmost in brilliance and color to the surface of the gem. The polisher is usually a man who has no other connection with the gem than in polishing the work of the cutter. The work of the polisher is more mechanical than that of the cutter, but it is work of great delicacy nevertheless. The polisher must brighten and polish the facets, but in no way must he enlarge the tables or change the angles of the gem as designed by the cutter. The gem in the hands of the polisher may bring to light a number of faults—a tiny flaw may grow larger, an edge or angle may chip or a vein prove troublesome, and it requires a real craftsman, an operator with an exquisite nicety of touch, a man of infinite patience to carry the work of the cutter to completion and to do it with the least investment of time.

The discs used in polishing are similar to those used in cutting, except that instead of using an abrasive substance on the surface a variety of polishing materials, such as Tripoli or Rotten Stone is used. The discs used in both cutting and polishing are made of various materials, depending upon the peculiarities and hardness of the gem being handled. They are made of iron, brass, copper, lead, gun metal, bell metal, tin, pewter, etc. For polishing cabochon gems vertical wheels of copper, iron, wood, leather and felt are also used.

The Rise Of French Painting

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

It was on August 28, 1717, that Watteau was definitely admitted to the Academy. All successful candidates are required to deposit a diploma work after their election, and it was for this purpose that Watteau eventually painted his famous masterpiece, ‘L’Embarquement pour Cynthére,’ which is now in the Louvre. In this poetically conceived picture, which shows a crowd of gallant youths and fair maidens about to embark for the legendary isle of perfect love, Watteau revealed a science of color harmony which was one hundred and fifty years ahead of his day. He had already excited the admiration of his contemporaries by a method of painting which was as successful as it was original. He would cover his canvas copiously and, to all appearance, vaguely with a thick layer of pigment, and on this he would proceed, so to speak, to chisel out his detail. Figures, sky, and landscape background were then built up by a series of minute touches, which gave his pictures a peculiarly vibrating and scintillating effect. His division of tone and his wonderful orchestration of complementary colors make Watteau a forerunner of the prismatic coloring of the more scientific painters of the nineteenth century.

Unfortunately he was not destined to enjoy long the fame and fortune which now awaited him. The privation and hardship of his early manhood had undermined his always frail constitution and left him a prey to phthisis.

As if he knew the end was approaching, he worked feverishly during his last years. For a time he lived with a wealthy collector named Crozat, for whose dining room he painted a set of ‘The Four Seasons.’ Though very comfortable at M Crozat’s house, which was filled with precious things and with paintings and drawings by old masters he admired, a desire for more complete independence led Watteau to leave it and live with his friend Vleughels, who afterwards became Principal of the Academy at Rome. In 1718 he left Vleughels, and shut himself up in a small apartment alone with his dreams and his illness, displaying then that craving for solitude which is said to be one of the symptoms of phthisis. Later somebody having spoken well of England, he suddenly had an almost morbid longing to cross the Channel.

In 1719 he came to London, where he painted and had some success, till the climate made him ill and unable to work. He returned to France more exhausted and weaker in health than he had ever been before, but slightly recovered during a six month’s stay with his friend, the art dealer Gersaint, for whom he painted a sign, an exquisitely finished interior with figures, in the short space of eight mornings—he was still so weak that he could only paint half the day. Then, hoping that he might recover his strength in the country, a house at Nogent was lent to him, but there his health rapidly declined and he gave himself up to religion, his last picture being a Crucifixion for the curate of the parish. Still pathetically hopeful that change of air might do him good, he begged his friend Gersaint to make arrangements for him to journey to Valenciennes. But while waiting for strength to move to his native town the end came, and on July 18, 1721, he died suddenly in Gersaint’s arms. He was only thirty seven years old.

The real sweetness and generosity of Watteau’s nature is well illustrated by a touching incident during the last months of his life.His pupil Jean Pater (1696-1736) had offended him, as Lancret had also done, by imitating his own style and subjects too closely, and in a fit of ill-temper he dismissed him from his studio. But during his last illness Watteau remembered how he had suffered in his youth from the jealousy of his seniors, and he reproached himself with having been unjust as well as unkind to Pater. He besought his friend Gersaint to persuade Pater to return to him, and when the latter arrived the dying man spent a month giving Pater all the help and guidance that he could in order to atone for his former injustice.

Pater, though possessed of less individuality than Lancret, was in many respects the best of Watteau’s followers, and, like his master, he also died young. He was haunted by a fear that he would become old and helpless before he had saved enough to live upon, and he worked so incessantly and feverishly to gain his independence that eventually his health broke down and he died in harness at forty.

The Rise Of French Painting (continued)

Gamble

The American Heritage Dictionary lists the following four options for the definition of the word gamble:

1. To bet on an uncertain outcome, as of a contest.
2. To play a game of chance for stakes.
3. To take a risk in the hope of gaining an advantage or a benefit.
4. To engage in reckless or hazardous behavior: You are gambling with your health by continuing to smoke.

Can gambling only be done in a casino, online or otherwise? Why is it that no one considers entrepreneurs gamblers? I think there is a big gray area + gamblers could be perceived as willing losers who occasionally win.

I think the concept could be applicable to gem business. I know many who are engaged in the pursuit of speculative profits who, by their own lack of skill are really gambling + they are knowingly trading gemstones without an identifiable edge.