According to Giving USA, U.S charitable giving in 2006 totaled $295 billion, up from $183 billion in 2003 + the total non-profit sector has grown faster than the business sector in terms of dollars and the number of organizations + as they say the best teachers are practitioners + talk to people you know.
Useful links:
www.aafrc.org
www.bridgespangroup.org
www.gatesfoundation.org
www.hewlett.org
www.clarkfoundation.org
www.robinhood.org
www.tigerfoundation.org
www.philanthropyroundtable.org
www.foundationstrategy.com
www.givingforum.org
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Saffront Art Online Auction
The Saffronart spring online auction of modern Indian art works will take place March 12-13, 2008 and feature 140 works by 55 artists + paintings of Surendran Nair/Atul Dodiya /A Balasubramaniam/Subodh Gupta ++++
Useful link:
www.saffronart.com
Useful link:
www.saffronart.com
Contemporary Art In The Mekong Region
Kamol Sukin writes about a historic contemporary-art event in Bangkok, a two-year process to introduce the art-curator profession into Mekong countries + the process of selecting artists and art pieces in their home towns and discussing each piece with the others, both online and in person + other viewpoints @ http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/02/10/headlines/headlines_30064932.php
Friday, February 22, 2008
Gold Market
According to World Gold Council + Shanghai Gold Exchange, China has overtaken the United States to become the second biggest market in the world for gold and gold jewelry + the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) report shows sales of gold and gold products on the Chinese mainland, a record high in 2007 at 316.49 trillion yuan (£22.68 trillion) + it's the world's top gold producer, ending South Africa's 102-year reign.
Useful links:
www.gold.org
www.sge.sh
www.gfms.co.uk
Useful links:
www.gold.org
www.sge.sh
www.gfms.co.uk
The Three Gorges Dam
Find out more about The Three Gorges Dam @ www.ctgpc.com + it's one of the great official modernisation projects in China, for the sake of energy +++++
The Power Laws
The Power Laws by Richard Koch is simply brilliant + I think that his solutions are not only for businesses, but also for life in general + I liked it.
Random Thoughts
It is clear the future holds opportunities—it also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to seize the opportunities, avoid the pitfalls and get back home by 6 o'clock.
- Woody Allen
I liked this one.
- Woody Allen
I liked this one.
The Scissor Cut
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
It is not always easy to choose the best name for a particular cut from the variety of names given to it in diamond literature. The term Cross Cut has been quite widely used for design which I prefer to call the Scissor Cut. Cross Cut is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because it does not look like a cross, and secondly because the term ‘cross work’ is used today to describe the placing of the table, culet and first four main facets on the crown and pavilion. This preparatory operation produces what used to be called a Table Cut but is now termed a ‘four square’ or ‘cross’. More elaborately faceted Scissor Cuts have sometimes been given fancy names such as Maltese Cross (there is a variety in which the cross can actually be seen). To avoid confusion, I hope that the term Scissor Cut will eventually be accepted everywhere and for all gems.
In the case of diamonds, this cut dates back to the early sixteenth century; it gradually vanished in favor of the Brilliant Cut into which most Scissors had been fashioned by 1700 or so. It is logical to assume that the Scissor Cut originally developed from Pyramidal Cuts with trihedral faceting; the apexes of these obsolete Gothic cuts were replaced by table facets, very much in the way in which French Cuts were created from spheroid crystals.
No significant references to the Scissor Cut have so far been found, either in inventories (in which they appear to have been described simply as Table Cuts or ‘faceted diamonds’), or in diamond literature or old pattern books. The low-relief faceting of the Scissor Cut could not improve on the light effects of a Table Cut, so the design was soon abandoned. But it was gradually adopted for colored gems such as beryls, quartzes, etc., whose lower refracting power favored such faceting. Caire recommeded the Scissor Cut for purple and violet sapphires.
All the Scissor Cuts in designs by, for example, Morison, Albini and Dinglinger were large, and none is believed to have been a diamond. Fortunately there are a number of Scissor Cut diamonds in authentic jewels in the Schatzkammer der Residenz in Munich. They are quite small and therefore insignificant as jewels, but are interesting from a historical point of view. There are almost one hundred Scissor Cut Hogbacks (some of them flat-bottomed) on the heraldic double crowned eagle in Anne of Austria’s collection, dating from about 1550. On the splendid necklace acquired by Duke Albrecht V in about 1575 there are two tiny square Scissors. There is also one on hand seal made around 1690 and later owned by the Empress Amalie, daughter of Joseph I. She married Charles Albert, who became Emperor of Germany in 1742.
In the Cheapside Hoard (found in 1913 under a house in London) is a 3ct Scissor Cut. The cut, with two distinctly blunt corners, is rather poorly proportioned. Most disturbing is the incongruity of both the table and the culet. The stone measures about 8.4 x 8mm. It is set in an enamelled finger ring and apparently dates from the sixteenth century. The ‘scissors’ are in very low relief and not easily discerned.
It is not always easy to choose the best name for a particular cut from the variety of names given to it in diamond literature. The term Cross Cut has been quite widely used for design which I prefer to call the Scissor Cut. Cross Cut is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because it does not look like a cross, and secondly because the term ‘cross work’ is used today to describe the placing of the table, culet and first four main facets on the crown and pavilion. This preparatory operation produces what used to be called a Table Cut but is now termed a ‘four square’ or ‘cross’. More elaborately faceted Scissor Cuts have sometimes been given fancy names such as Maltese Cross (there is a variety in which the cross can actually be seen). To avoid confusion, I hope that the term Scissor Cut will eventually be accepted everywhere and for all gems.
In the case of diamonds, this cut dates back to the early sixteenth century; it gradually vanished in favor of the Brilliant Cut into which most Scissors had been fashioned by 1700 or so. It is logical to assume that the Scissor Cut originally developed from Pyramidal Cuts with trihedral faceting; the apexes of these obsolete Gothic cuts were replaced by table facets, very much in the way in which French Cuts were created from spheroid crystals.
No significant references to the Scissor Cut have so far been found, either in inventories (in which they appear to have been described simply as Table Cuts or ‘faceted diamonds’), or in diamond literature or old pattern books. The low-relief faceting of the Scissor Cut could not improve on the light effects of a Table Cut, so the design was soon abandoned. But it was gradually adopted for colored gems such as beryls, quartzes, etc., whose lower refracting power favored such faceting. Caire recommeded the Scissor Cut for purple and violet sapphires.
All the Scissor Cuts in designs by, for example, Morison, Albini and Dinglinger were large, and none is believed to have been a diamond. Fortunately there are a number of Scissor Cut diamonds in authentic jewels in the Schatzkammer der Residenz in Munich. They are quite small and therefore insignificant as jewels, but are interesting from a historical point of view. There are almost one hundred Scissor Cut Hogbacks (some of them flat-bottomed) on the heraldic double crowned eagle in Anne of Austria’s collection, dating from about 1550. On the splendid necklace acquired by Duke Albrecht V in about 1575 there are two tiny square Scissors. There is also one on hand seal made around 1690 and later owned by the Empress Amalie, daughter of Joseph I. She married Charles Albert, who became Emperor of Germany in 1742.
In the Cheapside Hoard (found in 1913 under a house in London) is a 3ct Scissor Cut. The cut, with two distinctly blunt corners, is rather poorly proportioned. Most disturbing is the incongruity of both the table and the culet. The stone measures about 8.4 x 8mm. It is set in an enamelled finger ring and apparently dates from the sixteenth century. The ‘scissors’ are in very low relief and not easily discerned.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
5. The Flower Motive
Although the glitter and sparkle of the diamond gave it first place as a jewel in the French Court, enamel had by no means lost its vogue. It was employed in graceful designs, carried out in silhouettes of white on a black ground; or the enamel might by polychrome; or again, a surface of monochrome enamel was painted with fusible colors.
French jewelers had turned for inspiration to the vegetable kingdom. Leaves and flowers were made of gold and gems, or painted on enamel, crowded the market. One design in particular, based on the pea-pod (genre cosse de pois), was especially characteristic of the times.
Tulips also held a prominent place in design. Then, even as now, current events influenced fashion, and it was during the first half of the seventeenth century that Holland went mad over tulips. At this time occured one of the most curious epidemic crazes of history. A single tulip bulb brought $5200. Men bought and sold bulbs not yet existing or divided the value of individual bulbs into shares. Of course with such a trumpheting of publicity the tulip was bound to be featured in the fashions.
Painted enamel was especially adapted to the naturalistic representation of flowers. Not only tulips, but roses, lilies, hyacinths and other flowers conventionally woven into garlands and festoons were exquisitely pictured on background of uniform color. One scarcely knows whether the craftsmen should be called a painter or a jeweler.
As the flower motive was developed in England the very setting of a gem was composed of massed flowers wrought in gold or gold and enamel.
5. The Flower Motive
Although the glitter and sparkle of the diamond gave it first place as a jewel in the French Court, enamel had by no means lost its vogue. It was employed in graceful designs, carried out in silhouettes of white on a black ground; or the enamel might by polychrome; or again, a surface of monochrome enamel was painted with fusible colors.
French jewelers had turned for inspiration to the vegetable kingdom. Leaves and flowers were made of gold and gems, or painted on enamel, crowded the market. One design in particular, based on the pea-pod (genre cosse de pois), was especially characteristic of the times.
Tulips also held a prominent place in design. Then, even as now, current events influenced fashion, and it was during the first half of the seventeenth century that Holland went mad over tulips. At this time occured one of the most curious epidemic crazes of history. A single tulip bulb brought $5200. Men bought and sold bulbs not yet existing or divided the value of individual bulbs into shares. Of course with such a trumpheting of publicity the tulip was bound to be featured in the fashions.
Painted enamel was especially adapted to the naturalistic representation of flowers. Not only tulips, but roses, lilies, hyacinths and other flowers conventionally woven into garlands and festoons were exquisitely pictured on background of uniform color. One scarcely knows whether the craftsmen should be called a painter or a jeweler.
As the flower motive was developed in England the very setting of a gem was composed of massed flowers wrought in gold or gold and enamel.
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
Constable was not the first nor was he the last English painter whose art was appreciated in France long before his talent was duly recognized in his own country, and it may be argued that his triumph at Paris in 1824 was to some extent anticipated by the warm welcome which he Parisians had already given to his young compatriot Richard Parkes Bonington. The father of Bonington was an extraordinary man who had originally succeeded his father as governor of the Nottingham county gaol, but he lost this appointment through his irregularities and then set up as the real mainstay of the family. His son Richard was born at Arnold, a village near Nottingham, on October 25, 1801, and at an early age showed a talent for drawing which made him another infant prodigy, like Lawrence.
Meanwhile his father’s love of low company, intemperate habits, and violent political opinions had broken up his wife’s school, and about the time of the fall of Napoleon the family fled to France, first to Calais and then to Paris. Henceforward Richard Parkes Bonington, though still a boy, was the chief breadwinner for the family. In 1816 he obtained permission to copy pictures at the Louvre, where he was said to be the youngest student on record, and he also worked in the studio of Baron Gros, where his improvement was so rapid that his master soon told him he had nothing more to learn from him, and advised him to go out into the world and paint from Nature on his own account. This advice Bonington took, traveling extensively in France and also visiting Italy in 1822. His oil paintings and water colors, which were exceedingly rich in color and full of vitality, were quickly appreciated and the reputation of Bonington rapidly increased in Paris. In 1824, when Constable received his gold medal, another gold medal was also awarded to Bonington for the two coast scenes which he had sent to the Salon.
Though he had visited England now and again, Bonington was quite unknown here till 1826, when he exhibited at the British Institution two views on the French coast which surprised the English painters and at once gave him a name among his own countrymen. In the following year he exhibited another marine subject at the Academy, and in 1828—though still residing in Paris—he sent to the Academy a view on the Grand Canal, Venice, and a small historical painting of ‘Henri III of France.’ Though but twenty seven years of age, Bonington for some time had been greatly esteemed in France, and now commissions flowed upon him from England also. Anxious to fulfil them, the artist worked feverishly during the hot summer, and after a long day sketching under a scorching sun in Paris he was attacked by brain fever, followed by a severe illness. When his health had slightly improved he came over to London for medial advice, but it was too late. He had fallen into galloping consumption, and the brilliant promise of his career was cut short by his death on September 23, 1828. He was buried in the vaults of St Jame’s Church, Pentonville.
The early deaths of Girtin and Bonington were the two greatest blows British art had received, and had they lived it seems probable that Bonington might have gone even further than Girtin. His range for his years was remarkably wide, and he was as skillful in painting figures as he was in landscapes and marine subjects. His art was picturesque, romantic, and often dramatic, while he had an opulent sense of color and was able to imbue his figure paintings with a wonderful sense of life. In the Louvre, Paris, where the artist studied as a boy, the examples of Bonington’s art are more numerous and important than those at the National Gallery, London, which possesses two only, a Normandy landscape, bequeathed by Mr George Salting, and ‘The Column of St Mark, Venice.’ Happily Bonington’s work is well represented in the Wallace Collection, where there are ten of his paintings and twenty four water colors, among the former being the picture of ‘Henri IV and the Spanish Ambassador,’ which so long as 1870 fetched the considerable price of £3320 in a sale at Paris.
Natural Landscape (continued)
2
Constable was not the first nor was he the last English painter whose art was appreciated in France long before his talent was duly recognized in his own country, and it may be argued that his triumph at Paris in 1824 was to some extent anticipated by the warm welcome which he Parisians had already given to his young compatriot Richard Parkes Bonington. The father of Bonington was an extraordinary man who had originally succeeded his father as governor of the Nottingham county gaol, but he lost this appointment through his irregularities and then set up as the real mainstay of the family. His son Richard was born at Arnold, a village near Nottingham, on October 25, 1801, and at an early age showed a talent for drawing which made him another infant prodigy, like Lawrence.
Meanwhile his father’s love of low company, intemperate habits, and violent political opinions had broken up his wife’s school, and about the time of the fall of Napoleon the family fled to France, first to Calais and then to Paris. Henceforward Richard Parkes Bonington, though still a boy, was the chief breadwinner for the family. In 1816 he obtained permission to copy pictures at the Louvre, where he was said to be the youngest student on record, and he also worked in the studio of Baron Gros, where his improvement was so rapid that his master soon told him he had nothing more to learn from him, and advised him to go out into the world and paint from Nature on his own account. This advice Bonington took, traveling extensively in France and also visiting Italy in 1822. His oil paintings and water colors, which were exceedingly rich in color and full of vitality, were quickly appreciated and the reputation of Bonington rapidly increased in Paris. In 1824, when Constable received his gold medal, another gold medal was also awarded to Bonington for the two coast scenes which he had sent to the Salon.
Though he had visited England now and again, Bonington was quite unknown here till 1826, when he exhibited at the British Institution two views on the French coast which surprised the English painters and at once gave him a name among his own countrymen. In the following year he exhibited another marine subject at the Academy, and in 1828—though still residing in Paris—he sent to the Academy a view on the Grand Canal, Venice, and a small historical painting of ‘Henri III of France.’ Though but twenty seven years of age, Bonington for some time had been greatly esteemed in France, and now commissions flowed upon him from England also. Anxious to fulfil them, the artist worked feverishly during the hot summer, and after a long day sketching under a scorching sun in Paris he was attacked by brain fever, followed by a severe illness. When his health had slightly improved he came over to London for medial advice, but it was too late. He had fallen into galloping consumption, and the brilliant promise of his career was cut short by his death on September 23, 1828. He was buried in the vaults of St Jame’s Church, Pentonville.
The early deaths of Girtin and Bonington were the two greatest blows British art had received, and had they lived it seems probable that Bonington might have gone even further than Girtin. His range for his years was remarkably wide, and he was as skillful in painting figures as he was in landscapes and marine subjects. His art was picturesque, romantic, and often dramatic, while he had an opulent sense of color and was able to imbue his figure paintings with a wonderful sense of life. In the Louvre, Paris, where the artist studied as a boy, the examples of Bonington’s art are more numerous and important than those at the National Gallery, London, which possesses two only, a Normandy landscape, bequeathed by Mr George Salting, and ‘The Column of St Mark, Venice.’ Happily Bonington’s work is well represented in the Wallace Collection, where there are ten of his paintings and twenty four water colors, among the former being the picture of ‘Henri IV and the Spanish Ambassador,’ which so long as 1870 fetched the considerable price of £3320 in a sale at Paris.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Forbes Greatest Investing Stories
Forbes Greatest Investment Stories by Richard Phalon tracks the stories of some of the most successful investors in the history of Wall Street + fundamental lessons + anecdotes + contains valuable lessons + a great read + I liked it.
The Scissor Cut
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
It is not always easy to choose the best name for a particular cut from the variety of names given to it in diamond literature. The term Cross Cut has been quite widely used for design which I prefer to call the Scissor Cut. Cross Cut is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because it does not look like a cross, and secondly because the term ‘cross work’ is used today to describe the placing of the table, culet and first four main facets on the crown and pavilion. This preparatory operation produces what used to be called a Table Cut but is now termed a ‘four square’ or ‘cross’. More elaborately faceted Scissor Cuts have sometimes been given fancy names such as Maltese Cross (there is a variety in which the cross can actually be seen). To avoid confusion, I hope that the term Scissor Cut will eventually be accepted everywhere and for all gems.
In the case of diamonds, this cut dates back to the early sixteenth century; it gradually vanished in favor of the Brilliant Cut into which most Scissors had been fashioned by 1700 or so. It is logical to assume that the Scissor Cut originally developed from Pyramidal Cuts with trihedral faceting; the apexes of these obsolete Gothic cuts were replaced by table facets, very much in the way in which French Cuts were created from spheroid crystals.
No significant references to the Scissor Cut have so far been found, either in inventories (in which they appear to have been described simply as Table Cuts or ‘faceted diamonds’), or in diamond literature or old pattern books. The low-relief faceting of the Scissor Cut could not improve on the light effects of a Table Cut, so the design was soon abandoned. But it was gradually adopted for colored gems such as beryls, quartzes, etc., whose lower refracting power favored such faceting. Caire recommeded the Scissor Cut for purple and violet sapphires.
All the Scissor Cuts in designs by, for example, Morison, Albini and Dinglinger were large, and none is believed to have been a diamond. Fortunately there are a number of Scissor Cut diamonds in authentic jewels in the Schatzkammer der Residenz in Munich. They are quite small and therefore insignificant as jewels, but are interesting from a historical point of view. There are almost one hundred Scissor Cut Hogbacks (some of them flat-bottomed) on the heraldic double crowned eagle in Anne of Austria’s collection, dating from about 1550. On the splendid necklace acquired by Duke Albrecht V in about 1575 there are two tiny square Scissors. There is also one on hand seal made around 1690 and later owned by the Empress Amalie, daughter of Joseph I. She married Charles Albert, who became Emperor of Germany in 1742.
In the Cheapside Hoard (found in 1913 under a house in London) is a 3ct Scissor Cut. The cut, with two distinctly blunt corners, is rather poorly proportioned. Most disturbing is the incongruity of both the table and the culet. The stone measures about 8.4 x 8mm. It is set in an enamelled finger ring and apparently dates from the sixteenth century. The ‘scissors’ are in very low relief and not easily discerned.
It is not always easy to choose the best name for a particular cut from the variety of names given to it in diamond literature. The term Cross Cut has been quite widely used for design which I prefer to call the Scissor Cut. Cross Cut is unfortunate for two reasons: first, because it does not look like a cross, and secondly because the term ‘cross work’ is used today to describe the placing of the table, culet and first four main facets on the crown and pavilion. This preparatory operation produces what used to be called a Table Cut but is now termed a ‘four square’ or ‘cross’. More elaborately faceted Scissor Cuts have sometimes been given fancy names such as Maltese Cross (there is a variety in which the cross can actually be seen). To avoid confusion, I hope that the term Scissor Cut will eventually be accepted everywhere and for all gems.
In the case of diamonds, this cut dates back to the early sixteenth century; it gradually vanished in favor of the Brilliant Cut into which most Scissors had been fashioned by 1700 or so. It is logical to assume that the Scissor Cut originally developed from Pyramidal Cuts with trihedral faceting; the apexes of these obsolete Gothic cuts were replaced by table facets, very much in the way in which French Cuts were created from spheroid crystals.
No significant references to the Scissor Cut have so far been found, either in inventories (in which they appear to have been described simply as Table Cuts or ‘faceted diamonds’), or in diamond literature or old pattern books. The low-relief faceting of the Scissor Cut could not improve on the light effects of a Table Cut, so the design was soon abandoned. But it was gradually adopted for colored gems such as beryls, quartzes, etc., whose lower refracting power favored such faceting. Caire recommeded the Scissor Cut for purple and violet sapphires.
All the Scissor Cuts in designs by, for example, Morison, Albini and Dinglinger were large, and none is believed to have been a diamond. Fortunately there are a number of Scissor Cut diamonds in authentic jewels in the Schatzkammer der Residenz in Munich. They are quite small and therefore insignificant as jewels, but are interesting from a historical point of view. There are almost one hundred Scissor Cut Hogbacks (some of them flat-bottomed) on the heraldic double crowned eagle in Anne of Austria’s collection, dating from about 1550. On the splendid necklace acquired by Duke Albrecht V in about 1575 there are two tiny square Scissors. There is also one on hand seal made around 1690 and later owned by the Empress Amalie, daughter of Joseph I. She married Charles Albert, who became Emperor of Germany in 1742.
In the Cheapside Hoard (found in 1913 under a house in London) is a 3ct Scissor Cut. The cut, with two distinctly blunt corners, is rather poorly proportioned. Most disturbing is the incongruity of both the table and the culet. The stone measures about 8.4 x 8mm. It is set in an enamelled finger ring and apparently dates from the sixteenth century. The ‘scissors’ are in very low relief and not easily discerned.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Otolith Jewelry
Fish ear bones, called otoliths are complex polycrystalline structures composed of calcium carbonate and organic material + the native people in North Amercia have a history of using the material in a variety of designs for jewelry + they are unique.
Useful links:
www.artfulenergy.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otolith
Useful links:
www.artfulenergy.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otolith
Uranium Find In China
According to an official statement from China’s Mineral Ministry, Chinese geologists have discovered 10,000-ton level leaching sandstone-type uranium deposit at Yili basin, which is in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region + the deposit would produce more than $40 billion worth of uranium, coal and associated minerals, with coal resources totaling more than 4 billion tons.
Useful links:
www.mlr.gov.cn
www.chinamining.org
Useful links:
www.mlr.gov.cn
www.chinamining.org
Heard On The Street
No religion + no emotion + no ego + no rules + accept with open heart and mind that the only constant is change + the urge to learn is a journey, not a destination + do something you love.
Banksy Collections
I am a Banksy fan + his new collections will be shown at The Andipa Gallery @ www.andipamodern.com from Feb 29 - Mar 29, 2008
Zeng Fanzhi
I think Zeng Fanzhi is one of the major artists shaping Chinese culture of today + I liked his recent works which are more calligraphic and landscape-focussed with Chinese cultural color and character.
Useful links:
www.shanghartgallery.com
www.nhb.gov.sg
Useful links:
www.shanghartgallery.com
www.nhb.gov.sg
Walter Kistler + His Ideas
I found the Foundation for the Future + their works interesting because Walter Kistler’s idea of utilizing scientists and scholars from various fields of expertise + synthesizing their ideas for common good are delightfully stimulating and rewarding in the long term + I really liked it.
Useful link:
www.futurefoundation.org
Useful link:
www.futurefoundation.org
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
4. Precious Stones And Spices
Trading in diamonds was one of the most popular forms of investment. In his inimitable Diary, Samuel Pepys entered, under the date November 16, 1664, the following:
To Eriffe; where Madame Williams did give me information of Wm. How’s having brought eight bags of precious stones, taken from about the Dutch Vice Admiral’s neck; of which there were eight diamonds which cost him four thousand pounds sterling, in India; and hoped to have made twelve thousand pounds here for them. So, I on board; where Sir Edmund Pooly carried me down into the hold of the India ship, and there did show me the greatest wealth lie in confusion that a man can see in the world—pepper scattered through every chink, you trod upon it; and in cloves and nutmegs I walked above the knees; whole rooms full.
And so it was in Pepy’s time, even as in ancient times, precious stones and spices traveled side by side.
The last years of Louis’ reign brough misfortune to many, including the highly skilled craftsmen who were driven from France by religious persecution. Among the chief jewelers to leave Paris and settle in England was the celebrated Sir John Chardin. Like Tavernier, he had traveled extensively in the Orient, where he had collected many valuable gems.
The Court of Charles II welcomed Chardin and appointed him jeweler to the King. Charles could now be well supplied with jewelry in the ‘Grand Monarque style.’
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
4. Precious Stones And Spices
Trading in diamonds was one of the most popular forms of investment. In his inimitable Diary, Samuel Pepys entered, under the date November 16, 1664, the following:
To Eriffe; where Madame Williams did give me information of Wm. How’s having brought eight bags of precious stones, taken from about the Dutch Vice Admiral’s neck; of which there were eight diamonds which cost him four thousand pounds sterling, in India; and hoped to have made twelve thousand pounds here for them. So, I on board; where Sir Edmund Pooly carried me down into the hold of the India ship, and there did show me the greatest wealth lie in confusion that a man can see in the world—pepper scattered through every chink, you trod upon it; and in cloves and nutmegs I walked above the knees; whole rooms full.
And so it was in Pepy’s time, even as in ancient times, precious stones and spices traveled side by side.
The last years of Louis’ reign brough misfortune to many, including the highly skilled craftsmen who were driven from France by religious persecution. Among the chief jewelers to leave Paris and settle in England was the celebrated Sir John Chardin. Like Tavernier, he had traveled extensively in the Orient, where he had collected many valuable gems.
The Court of Charles II welcomed Chardin and appointed him jeweler to the King. Charles could now be well supplied with jewelry in the ‘Grand Monarque style.’
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
But few except other artists applied, and as he grew older his house became fuller and fuller of unsold pictures. After his sixtieth birthday, in 1836, his health became uncertain, and on March 30, 1837, he died suddenly in his house at Hampstead. Almost immediately after his death the world awoke to his genius, and in the same year a number of gentlemen who admired his work clubbed together and bought from the executors his picture ‘The Cornfield,’ which they presented to the nation. Strangely enough this artist, who was so little known during his own lifetime, has since his death become a familiar personality, thanks to the pious solicitude of his friend, the genre-painter C R Leslie (1794-1859, whose Memoirs of John Constable, R.A is one of the best biographies of a painter ever written. It is a classic which, for the intimate insight it gives us into the character of the man, may be compared wtih Boswell’s Johnson. All who met Constable were attracted by his simple, kindly, affectionate nature, and perhaps the most touching tribute to his memory was paid by a London cab-driver who, when he heard that he would never drive Constable again, told Leslie he was ‘as sorry as if he had been my own father—he was a nice man as that, sir.’
Leslie had always been a firm believer in the genius of Constable, and wrote of his works: ‘I cannot but think that they will attain for him, when his merits are fully acknowledged, the praise of having been the most genuine painter of English landscape that has yet lived.’ Subsequent generations have corroborated Leslie’s opinion, and another genre-painter, Sir J.D.Linton, who was born three years after Constable’s death, has testified to the genius of Constable and to the effect of his painting. ‘His art,’ wrote Linton, ‘ has had the widest and most lasting influence both at home and abroad....Although Turner is accepted as the greater master of landscape painting, and his work has not been without very great influence, Constable’s robust and massive manner has affected the modern schools more universally.’
While we admire Turner we love Constable the more dearly, perhaps because his art is so essentially English. Never did a landscape painter travel less than Constable in search of a subject. While Turner toured all over Europe, Constable opened his door and found beauty waiting to be painted. With exceptions so few that they do not bulk largely in his work, all Constable’s landscapes are drawn, either from his birthplace, that is to say the borders of Essex and Suffolk about the Stour, now known as ‘the Constable country,’ or at Hampstead, where his house yet stands. The hill with a clump of firs on it, close to the Spaniard’s, is to this day spoken of as ‘Constable’s Knoll.’ His only other sketching ground of real importance was Salisbury, whither he was doubtless drawn by his friendship with the Rev John Fisher. Of his many paintings of Salisbury Cathedral, one of the most beautiful is the painting in the South Kensington Museum, from which we see that had his bent been that way Constable could have painted architectural subjects as truly and beautifully as he did landscapes.
It was the supreme distinction of Constable to destroy Beaumont’s fallacy that a ‘brown’ landscape was a ‘good’ landscape, and to paint all the greenness in Nature. He loved to paint the glitter of light on trees after rain, and the little touches of white paint with which he achieved the effect of their sparkle were jocularly alluded to as ‘Constable’s Snow.’ No painter before him had painted with so much truth the actual color of Nature’s lighting, and since Constable the true color of Nature in light and shadow has increasingly become the preoccupation of the ‘natural’ landscape painter.
Natural Landscape (continued)
But few except other artists applied, and as he grew older his house became fuller and fuller of unsold pictures. After his sixtieth birthday, in 1836, his health became uncertain, and on March 30, 1837, he died suddenly in his house at Hampstead. Almost immediately after his death the world awoke to his genius, and in the same year a number of gentlemen who admired his work clubbed together and bought from the executors his picture ‘The Cornfield,’ which they presented to the nation. Strangely enough this artist, who was so little known during his own lifetime, has since his death become a familiar personality, thanks to the pious solicitude of his friend, the genre-painter C R Leslie (1794-1859, whose Memoirs of John Constable, R.A is one of the best biographies of a painter ever written. It is a classic which, for the intimate insight it gives us into the character of the man, may be compared wtih Boswell’s Johnson. All who met Constable were attracted by his simple, kindly, affectionate nature, and perhaps the most touching tribute to his memory was paid by a London cab-driver who, when he heard that he would never drive Constable again, told Leslie he was ‘as sorry as if he had been my own father—he was a nice man as that, sir.’
Leslie had always been a firm believer in the genius of Constable, and wrote of his works: ‘I cannot but think that they will attain for him, when his merits are fully acknowledged, the praise of having been the most genuine painter of English landscape that has yet lived.’ Subsequent generations have corroborated Leslie’s opinion, and another genre-painter, Sir J.D.Linton, who was born three years after Constable’s death, has testified to the genius of Constable and to the effect of his painting. ‘His art,’ wrote Linton, ‘ has had the widest and most lasting influence both at home and abroad....Although Turner is accepted as the greater master of landscape painting, and his work has not been without very great influence, Constable’s robust and massive manner has affected the modern schools more universally.’
While we admire Turner we love Constable the more dearly, perhaps because his art is so essentially English. Never did a landscape painter travel less than Constable in search of a subject. While Turner toured all over Europe, Constable opened his door and found beauty waiting to be painted. With exceptions so few that they do not bulk largely in his work, all Constable’s landscapes are drawn, either from his birthplace, that is to say the borders of Essex and Suffolk about the Stour, now known as ‘the Constable country,’ or at Hampstead, where his house yet stands. The hill with a clump of firs on it, close to the Spaniard’s, is to this day spoken of as ‘Constable’s Knoll.’ His only other sketching ground of real importance was Salisbury, whither he was doubtless drawn by his friendship with the Rev John Fisher. Of his many paintings of Salisbury Cathedral, one of the most beautiful is the painting in the South Kensington Museum, from which we see that had his bent been that way Constable could have painted architectural subjects as truly and beautifully as he did landscapes.
It was the supreme distinction of Constable to destroy Beaumont’s fallacy that a ‘brown’ landscape was a ‘good’ landscape, and to paint all the greenness in Nature. He loved to paint the glitter of light on trees after rain, and the little touches of white paint with which he achieved the effect of their sparkle were jocularly alluded to as ‘Constable’s Snow.’ No painter before him had painted with so much truth the actual color of Nature’s lighting, and since Constable the true color of Nature in light and shadow has increasingly become the preoccupation of the ‘natural’ landscape painter.
Natural Landscape (continued)
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