(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
By the time the Academy of 1850 opened the existence and doctrines of the Brotherhood had become more widely known, and this year there was no opportunity to complain of any want of public attention. The three pictures aroused a storm of criticism which fell with particular fury on the head of Millais. The true meaning of ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ was not very well understood, and the popular view was that a group of young painters had set themselves up to be ‘better than Raphael’ and deserved to be trounced for their vanity and impudence. And trounced they were. ‘Their ambition,’ wrote one newspaper critic, ‘is an unhealthy thirst which seeks notoriety by means of mere conceit. Abruptness, singularity, uncouthness, are the counters by which they play the game.’
The tile ‘The Carpenter’s Shop,’ by which Millais’s picture is now generally known, was contemptuously applied to it by enemies of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The artist originally exhibited it at the Academy with no other title than an extract from Zachariah (xiii.6):
And one shall unto Him, What are these wounds in Thine hands? Then He shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends.
The very humanity which endears the picture to us today and makes it irresistibly winning was that time a cause of offence. Millais was accused of dragging down the Saviour to ‘the lowest of human levels, to the level of craving human pity and assistance.’ The picture was described as ‘a pictoral blasphemy’ from which right-minded people would ‘recoil with disgust and loathing.’ Even Charles Dickens took part in the general attack, and denounced the picture in Household Words as follows:
In the foreground of the carpenter’s shop is a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering red-haired boy in a nightgown, who appears to have received a poke in the hand from the stick of another boy with whom he had been playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for the contemplation of a kneeling woman so horrible in her ugliness that (supposing it were possible for a human creature to exist for a moment with that dislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as a monster in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England.
Since the famous novelist’s abuse was directed far more at the persons than the painting, it is interesting to recall that the ‘blubbering boy’ was little Noel Humphreys, the son of an architect, while the ‘monster horrible in ugliness’ was Mrs Henry Hodgkinson. Not one of the people in the picture was painted from a professional model, and though the body of St Joseph is that of the carpenter the head is a portrait of the father of Millais.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continued)
Monday, March 03, 2008
The New World
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
As English rule began to grow intolerable to American colonies and the Revolution approached, it was considered a fitting sign of American patriotism to discontinue to use foreign importations. Men and women were expected to leave off wearing the finery which came from abroad and to patronize their own manufacturers and craftsmen.
One of these craftsmen was Paul Revere, of the famous Midnight Ride. The poet failed to mention what Paul Revere did by day. According to records he was both silversmith and goldsmith, with a somewhat startling, sideline which, expressed with conscientious particularity, we find advertised in The Boston Gazette, December 19, 1768:
Whereas many persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore-Teeth by Accident, and otherwise, to their great Detriment, not only in looks, but speaking both in Public and Private:- This is to inform all such that they may have them replaced with artificial ones, that looks as well as the Natural, and answers the end of speaking to all Intents by Paul Revere, Goldsmith, near the head of Dr Clark’s Wharf, Boston.
All Persons who have had false teeth fixt by Mr John Baker, Surgeon-Dentist, and they have got loose (as they will in time) may have them fastened by the above who learnt the Method of fixing them from Mr Baker.
Surely that advertisement must have brought results. Here is another, inserted by an importer:
Imported in the Neptune (Capt.Binney) and to be sold by Daniel Paker, Goldsmith. At his Shop near the Golden Ball, Boston. An Assortment of Articles of the Goldsmith’s and Jeweller’s Way, viz. brilliant and cypher’d Button and Earing Stones of all Sorts, Locket Stones, cypher’d Ring Stones, Garnetts, Amethysts, Topaz and Sapphire Ring Stones, neat Stone Rings sett in Gold, some with Diamond Sparks, Stone Buttons in Silver, by the Card, black ditto in Silver, best Sword Blades, Shoe and Knee Chapes of all sizes.
Let the modern jeweler try to match that advertisement!
During the Revolution, of course, the jeweler’s trade did not meet with much encouragement in America, yet the custom of distributing mourning rings survived even that upheaval. At the death of Washington the country was flooded with a deluge of lockets, rings and brooches, each bearing a lugubrious little painting of Grief, symbolized by a dejected damsel mourning over his tomb. In his will Washington himself left directions for the giving of memorial rings:
To my sister-in-law, Hannah Washington and Mildred Washington, to my friends, Eleanor and Elizabeth Washington of Hayfield, I give each a mourning ring of the value of one hundred dollars.
At an earlier date, the mourning rings worn on this side of the Atlantic were as ornamentally gruesome as those of Europe, but by this time skeletons and death’s heads had been discarded in favor of less grim designs. Gold rings inscribed with the name and date of death were in general use. Sometimes a miniature or a lock of the deceased’s hair decorated the bezel.
For the most part such rings, buttons, buckles, etc. as were actually made in this country were made to order by the freelance goldsmith. It was not until after the war of ’76 that the manufacturing of jewelry as a business, with shops where one could buy ready-to-wear jewels, was established. At least we find no earlier records of them.
It is believed that the first shop of the kind was opened in Newark, New Jersey, sometime between 1790 and 1795 by a man named Hinsdale. There one could buy stock rings already inscribed with the words ‘In memory of,’ followed by a blank space where the name of the departed could readily be added according to order.
The New World (continued)
As English rule began to grow intolerable to American colonies and the Revolution approached, it was considered a fitting sign of American patriotism to discontinue to use foreign importations. Men and women were expected to leave off wearing the finery which came from abroad and to patronize their own manufacturers and craftsmen.
One of these craftsmen was Paul Revere, of the famous Midnight Ride. The poet failed to mention what Paul Revere did by day. According to records he was both silversmith and goldsmith, with a somewhat startling, sideline which, expressed with conscientious particularity, we find advertised in The Boston Gazette, December 19, 1768:
Whereas many persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore-Teeth by Accident, and otherwise, to their great Detriment, not only in looks, but speaking both in Public and Private:- This is to inform all such that they may have them replaced with artificial ones, that looks as well as the Natural, and answers the end of speaking to all Intents by Paul Revere, Goldsmith, near the head of Dr Clark’s Wharf, Boston.
All Persons who have had false teeth fixt by Mr John Baker, Surgeon-Dentist, and they have got loose (as they will in time) may have them fastened by the above who learnt the Method of fixing them from Mr Baker.
Surely that advertisement must have brought results. Here is another, inserted by an importer:
Imported in the Neptune (Capt.Binney) and to be sold by Daniel Paker, Goldsmith. At his Shop near the Golden Ball, Boston. An Assortment of Articles of the Goldsmith’s and Jeweller’s Way, viz. brilliant and cypher’d Button and Earing Stones of all Sorts, Locket Stones, cypher’d Ring Stones, Garnetts, Amethysts, Topaz and Sapphire Ring Stones, neat Stone Rings sett in Gold, some with Diamond Sparks, Stone Buttons in Silver, by the Card, black ditto in Silver, best Sword Blades, Shoe and Knee Chapes of all sizes.
Let the modern jeweler try to match that advertisement!
During the Revolution, of course, the jeweler’s trade did not meet with much encouragement in America, yet the custom of distributing mourning rings survived even that upheaval. At the death of Washington the country was flooded with a deluge of lockets, rings and brooches, each bearing a lugubrious little painting of Grief, symbolized by a dejected damsel mourning over his tomb. In his will Washington himself left directions for the giving of memorial rings:
To my sister-in-law, Hannah Washington and Mildred Washington, to my friends, Eleanor and Elizabeth Washington of Hayfield, I give each a mourning ring of the value of one hundred dollars.
At an earlier date, the mourning rings worn on this side of the Atlantic were as ornamentally gruesome as those of Europe, but by this time skeletons and death’s heads had been discarded in favor of less grim designs. Gold rings inscribed with the name and date of death were in general use. Sometimes a miniature or a lock of the deceased’s hair decorated the bezel.
For the most part such rings, buttons, buckles, etc. as were actually made in this country were made to order by the freelance goldsmith. It was not until after the war of ’76 that the manufacturing of jewelry as a business, with shops where one could buy ready-to-wear jewels, was established. At least we find no earlier records of them.
It is believed that the first shop of the kind was opened in Newark, New Jersey, sometime between 1790 and 1795 by a man named Hinsdale. There one could buy stock rings already inscribed with the words ‘In memory of,’ followed by a blank space where the name of the departed could readily be added according to order.
The New World (continued)
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Selling Colored Gemstones
I think the most important factors are product knowledge + good service + disclosure + documentation, which may provide adequate confidence to the consumer who may/may not know enough about colored stones.
Innumeracy
Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos is an easy to read book + he points out what lack of number intimacy can do to a person + I liked the anecdotes.
Art Market Update
Souren Melikian writes about record sale (s) of contemporary art at Sothebys + other viewpoints @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/28/arts/melik29.php
David Hockney
David Hockney is an English artist, based in Los Angeles, California, United States + he has been an important contributor to the British Pop art movement of the 1960s + he is considered one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century + I like his realistic narrative style/vibrant colors in portraiture works.
Useful links:
www.hockneypictures.com
www.davidhockney.com
Useful links:
www.hockneypictures.com
www.davidhockney.com
The New World
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
As Colonial America rapidly grew, wealth did indeed come from the land, but not at first in the guise of gold mines. All luxuries and many necessities were shipped from overseas. The arts and crafts of skill, even when and if, practised on American soil, were considered inferior to foreign work. Fine furniture, mirrors, glassware in general, clothing and jewelry were imported for the use of the rich.
In the South especially, the wealthy planter, selling his cotton and indigo abroad, spent money with a free hand, importing for his own use gems, jewelry adn silverplate. Many an old will lists, ‘My diamond rings and other jewelry.’ In most cases the jewelry itself has disappeared or, more likely, has suffered the same fate as so many jewels of the past and been reset in unrecognizable forms. We are therefore largely dependent for information concerning it on old records.
One record, dated 1733, contains an inventory of goods belonging to Cesar Ghiselin, evidently a jeweler who actually made jewelry in America. At the time of his death he possessed:
85 pwt. And 10 grs.of gold at 6s. = £25-13-0
24 Gold rings and six links of Gold Buttons = 20-5-8
5 pcs.of Corol = 10-0-0
6 necklaces = 15-0-0
In the course of the next few years records increase. Orders for gold lockets, silver buckles for shoes, and gold ones for girdles and stocks are listed; most frequent of all is the mention of gold buttons. ‘Three dozen Gold Wrought Vest Buttons’ cost one customer over a hundred dollars, but doubtless they served to fasten not only his own vests but after his death the vests of his next of kin, for buttons did not accompany an old garment into the ragbag. They were carefully preserved to be sewed to the new vest or coat.
Much of the Colonial metalwork was patterned after that made in France. One treasured gold girdle buckle of 1752 is embellished with shellwork and scrolls in the true rococo fashion of the period. However, it was not France alone that set the fashions of Colonial American jewelry. For example, colonists had followed the English custom of distributing gifts at a funeral. Gloves, scarves (said to be a length of cloth sufficient to make a shirt) and memorial rings. These particular gifts had early become the customary and expected consolations to mourners.
Rings, to be worn in token of respectful and affectionate memory of the dead, are in some degree understandable, but gloves (several pairs) and scarves seem curiously irrelevant.
With unconscious humor, Mr Pepys in his innocently candid diary gives us the English version of the custom; and on this side of the water, Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston, who likewise kept a diary, was equally literal minded concerning profits to be gained from the thrifty practice of attending funerals. His entries are eminently matter-of-fact.
Novermber 12, 1687. Mrs Eliza Scoffin is intombed. Rings given at the house after coming from the grave.
July 15, 1698. John Ive—a very debauched atheistical man—buried today. I was not at his funeral—Had Gloves sent me—I staid at home and by that means lost a ring—but hope had no loss.
The good judge writes a list of thirty-one funerals at which he has been a bearer, but only thirteen funerals yielded him rings, gloves and scarves. The rest nothing better than scarves, or scarves and gloves. Very inadequate returns he seems to have thought them.
Judge Sewall should have been born later, for the custom of giving funeral rings grew to such extravagant proportions that finally, here as well as in England, it became necessary to curb it by law.
The New World (continued)
As Colonial America rapidly grew, wealth did indeed come from the land, but not at first in the guise of gold mines. All luxuries and many necessities were shipped from overseas. The arts and crafts of skill, even when and if, practised on American soil, were considered inferior to foreign work. Fine furniture, mirrors, glassware in general, clothing and jewelry were imported for the use of the rich.
In the South especially, the wealthy planter, selling his cotton and indigo abroad, spent money with a free hand, importing for his own use gems, jewelry adn silverplate. Many an old will lists, ‘My diamond rings and other jewelry.’ In most cases the jewelry itself has disappeared or, more likely, has suffered the same fate as so many jewels of the past and been reset in unrecognizable forms. We are therefore largely dependent for information concerning it on old records.
One record, dated 1733, contains an inventory of goods belonging to Cesar Ghiselin, evidently a jeweler who actually made jewelry in America. At the time of his death he possessed:
85 pwt. And 10 grs.of gold at 6s. = £25-13-0
24 Gold rings and six links of Gold Buttons = 20-5-8
5 pcs.of Corol = 10-0-0
6 necklaces = 15-0-0
In the course of the next few years records increase. Orders for gold lockets, silver buckles for shoes, and gold ones for girdles and stocks are listed; most frequent of all is the mention of gold buttons. ‘Three dozen Gold Wrought Vest Buttons’ cost one customer over a hundred dollars, but doubtless they served to fasten not only his own vests but after his death the vests of his next of kin, for buttons did not accompany an old garment into the ragbag. They were carefully preserved to be sewed to the new vest or coat.
Much of the Colonial metalwork was patterned after that made in France. One treasured gold girdle buckle of 1752 is embellished with shellwork and scrolls in the true rococo fashion of the period. However, it was not France alone that set the fashions of Colonial American jewelry. For example, colonists had followed the English custom of distributing gifts at a funeral. Gloves, scarves (said to be a length of cloth sufficient to make a shirt) and memorial rings. These particular gifts had early become the customary and expected consolations to mourners.
Rings, to be worn in token of respectful and affectionate memory of the dead, are in some degree understandable, but gloves (several pairs) and scarves seem curiously irrelevant.
With unconscious humor, Mr Pepys in his innocently candid diary gives us the English version of the custom; and on this side of the water, Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston, who likewise kept a diary, was equally literal minded concerning profits to be gained from the thrifty practice of attending funerals. His entries are eminently matter-of-fact.
Novermber 12, 1687. Mrs Eliza Scoffin is intombed. Rings given at the house after coming from the grave.
July 15, 1698. John Ive—a very debauched atheistical man—buried today. I was not at his funeral—Had Gloves sent me—I staid at home and by that means lost a ring—but hope had no loss.
The good judge writes a list of thirty-one funerals at which he has been a bearer, but only thirteen funerals yielded him rings, gloves and scarves. The rest nothing better than scarves, or scarves and gloves. Very inadequate returns he seems to have thought them.
Judge Sewall should have been born later, for the custom of giving funeral rings grew to such extravagant proportions that finally, here as well as in England, it became necessary to curb it by law.
The New World (continued)
The Pre-Raphaelites
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The trouble with Rossetti, owing to his teeming, poetic imagination, had been that he had always wanted to paint things ‘out of his head’ a time when his hand and eye needed to be educated by an endeavor to paint truly what was before him. With infinite tact Holman Hunt let him set to work on a romantic subject, the choice of his heart, but he took care that every detail in this imaginative scene should be painted truly and carefully from facts. In Madox Brown’s studio Rossetti had rebelled at painting so prosaic an object as a pot. Holman Hunt led him to paint the same object with delight because it held the symbolical lily needed by his subject. For the first time in his life Rossetti became passionately interested in things, because he had been made to see that they helped him to express his ideas. He borrowed big books from his father and window curtains from his parents’ house in Charlotte Street. His sister Christina sat for the Virgin, and his mother for St Anne. He borrowed a child’s nightgown and painted that on a small lay-figure, which probably explains why the figure of the little angel is not so convincing as the head; but when we remember that Rossetti was painting every object in the picture for the very first time we are compelled to stop fault-finding to marvel at the wonder of his achievement.
‘Rienzi’ and ‘Lorenzo and Isabella’ were exhibited in the Academy of 1849; ‘The Girlhood of Mary Virgin’ in the Hyde Park Gallery known as the ‘Free Exhibition’; but somewhat to the disappointment of their authors they attracted very little public attention. Even the ‘P.R.B’ after Rossetti’s signature on his picture appears to have escaped comment. Undismayed, if a trifle disappointed, the young revolutionaries set about more vigorous propaganda by means of new pictures, and a periodical, The Germ, in which they could ventilate their opinions and doctrines.
It was with the idea of writing a journal for this magazine that during the summer Hunt and Rossetti made a tour in France and Belgium, and this journal was duly written, though later it was considered too personal to be published in The Germ. In their judgments of the pictures they saw abroad the young artists were terribly severe. Van Eyck and the early Flemings they admired intensely, but the works of the later painters from Rembrandt to Rubens were dismissed in two words as ‘filthy slosh’.
After what they had seen abroad they held more firmly than ever before that it was not enough for a picture to be correctly drawn and well painted, it must also enshrine a worthy idea. In accordance with this doctrine, now added to the rules of the Brotherhood, Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti all chose serious subjects for the pictures they intended to exhibit in 1850. Hunt painted ‘An Early Christian Missionary escaping from Druids,’ Millais his famous ‘Christ in the House of His Parents,’ and Rossetti ‘The Annunciation’ or ‘Ecce Ancilla Domini’ as it was originally called. Curiously enough Rossetti, who in the previous year had been the most, was now the least Pre-Raphaelite of the three. His strangely beautiful work is not a vision of things seen, but a reverie, the romantic rendering of a mood. Again his sister Christina sat for the Virgin, and Thomas Woolner posed for the head of the Archangel.
Millais, on the other hand, had now thoroughly grasped the principle of Pre-Raphaelitism, and no longer giving a clever imitation of an Italian Primitive, he outdid Hunt himself in the thoroughness with which each detail in his picture was studied from Nature. In order to get absolute truth, Millais took his canvas to a carpenter’s shop to paint the details; he painted the figure of Joseph from the carpenter because that was, he said, ‘the only way to get the development of the muscles right.’ He was not able to get sheep, but he purchased two sheep’s heads from a butcher and painted the flock from them; and it will be observed that the sheep in the picture only show their heads, the bodies being tactfully concealed by wickerwork.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continued)
The trouble with Rossetti, owing to his teeming, poetic imagination, had been that he had always wanted to paint things ‘out of his head’ a time when his hand and eye needed to be educated by an endeavor to paint truly what was before him. With infinite tact Holman Hunt let him set to work on a romantic subject, the choice of his heart, but he took care that every detail in this imaginative scene should be painted truly and carefully from facts. In Madox Brown’s studio Rossetti had rebelled at painting so prosaic an object as a pot. Holman Hunt led him to paint the same object with delight because it held the symbolical lily needed by his subject. For the first time in his life Rossetti became passionately interested in things, because he had been made to see that they helped him to express his ideas. He borrowed big books from his father and window curtains from his parents’ house in Charlotte Street. His sister Christina sat for the Virgin, and his mother for St Anne. He borrowed a child’s nightgown and painted that on a small lay-figure, which probably explains why the figure of the little angel is not so convincing as the head; but when we remember that Rossetti was painting every object in the picture for the very first time we are compelled to stop fault-finding to marvel at the wonder of his achievement.
‘Rienzi’ and ‘Lorenzo and Isabella’ were exhibited in the Academy of 1849; ‘The Girlhood of Mary Virgin’ in the Hyde Park Gallery known as the ‘Free Exhibition’; but somewhat to the disappointment of their authors they attracted very little public attention. Even the ‘P.R.B’ after Rossetti’s signature on his picture appears to have escaped comment. Undismayed, if a trifle disappointed, the young revolutionaries set about more vigorous propaganda by means of new pictures, and a periodical, The Germ, in which they could ventilate their opinions and doctrines.
It was with the idea of writing a journal for this magazine that during the summer Hunt and Rossetti made a tour in France and Belgium, and this journal was duly written, though later it was considered too personal to be published in The Germ. In their judgments of the pictures they saw abroad the young artists were terribly severe. Van Eyck and the early Flemings they admired intensely, but the works of the later painters from Rembrandt to Rubens were dismissed in two words as ‘filthy slosh’.
After what they had seen abroad they held more firmly than ever before that it was not enough for a picture to be correctly drawn and well painted, it must also enshrine a worthy idea. In accordance with this doctrine, now added to the rules of the Brotherhood, Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti all chose serious subjects for the pictures they intended to exhibit in 1850. Hunt painted ‘An Early Christian Missionary escaping from Druids,’ Millais his famous ‘Christ in the House of His Parents,’ and Rossetti ‘The Annunciation’ or ‘Ecce Ancilla Domini’ as it was originally called. Curiously enough Rossetti, who in the previous year had been the most, was now the least Pre-Raphaelite of the three. His strangely beautiful work is not a vision of things seen, but a reverie, the romantic rendering of a mood. Again his sister Christina sat for the Virgin, and Thomas Woolner posed for the head of the Archangel.
Millais, on the other hand, had now thoroughly grasped the principle of Pre-Raphaelitism, and no longer giving a clever imitation of an Italian Primitive, he outdid Hunt himself in the thoroughness with which each detail in his picture was studied from Nature. In order to get absolute truth, Millais took his canvas to a carpenter’s shop to paint the details; he painted the figure of Joseph from the carpenter because that was, he said, ‘the only way to get the development of the muscles right.’ He was not able to get sheep, but he purchased two sheep’s heads from a butcher and painted the flock from them; and it will be observed that the sheep in the picture only show their heads, the bodies being tactfully concealed by wickerwork.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continued)
State Of The Market
You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out.
- Warren Buffett
- Warren Buffett
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Stunning Design
The construction of Beijing Capital International Airport, Terminal 3 started on March 28, 2004 + it opened for trial operations on February 29, 2008 and will be fully operational on March 26, 2008 + it will also become the largest airport in Asia in land size + one of the worlds' largest in capacity and land size + the designs are stunning with many traditional Chinese elements.
Amazing!
Useful links:
http://en.bcia.com.cn
www.fosterandpartners.com
www.naco.nl
Amazing!
Useful links:
http://en.bcia.com.cn
www.fosterandpartners.com
www.naco.nl
Brook Silva-Braga
Brook Silva-Braga traveled the world for a year + videotaped parts of his experience + produced a documentary of the trip + I wish I could do the same + Bravo!
Useful links:
www.amapforsaturday.com
www.budgettravel.com
Useful links:
www.amapforsaturday.com
www.budgettravel.com
Improv Everywhere
The group Improv Everywhere is really stunning + I thoroughly enjoy their stunts + it's like a work of art + I love it + if I have the time I would volunteer.
Useful link:
http://improveverywhere.com
Useful link:
http://improveverywhere.com
For Consumers
The Jewelers Vigilance Committee (JVC) has developed a new consumer brochure to help shoppers understand the difference between natural diamonds + laboratory-created diamonds + simulated diamonds + I think its educational and useful.
Useful links:
www.jvclegal.org
www.moissanite.com
Useful links:
www.jvclegal.org
www.moissanite.com
European Fine Art Fair
The painting L'Enfant a l'Orange - or The Child With An Orange-- created in 1890, a month before Van Gogh shot himself at the age of 37, will go on sale next month at the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands + the interesting highlight is that the joyful portrait contrasts with his other angst-ridden paintings + analysts have valued it at US$30 million, but expect more surprises.
Useful links:
www.tefaf.com
www.simondickinson.com
Useful links:
www.tefaf.com
www.simondickinson.com
Justice Delayed, Justice Denied
Chaim Even Zohar writes about Certifigate files + the ongoing investigations + behind the scene events + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
GIA Certificate fraud is probably the largest consumer and trade fraud ever perpetrated in the diamond business + I think Chaim Even Zohar is right and he is the only person--the voice-- in the industry who has the courage and knowledge to write about it.
I really admire him.
GIA Certificate fraud is probably the largest consumer and trade fraud ever perpetrated in the diamond business + I think Chaim Even Zohar is right and he is the only person--the voice-- in the industry who has the courage and knowledge to write about it.
I really admire him.
The New World
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
1. Colonial America
Before taking up the consideration of American jewelry, let us look at a ‘flash back’ in time and history and begin before the beginning. That is to say, first we will set the scene and recall something of the character of life in the earliest Colonial days.
America, in 1607, was a wilderness inhabited by savages. Where great cities now stand, multitudes of wild beasts roamed at will; where aircraft now traverses our skies, birds flew in flocks so dense as to throw great shadows like the shadows of passing clouds upon the land below.
Less than three hundred and fifty years since then! It seems incredible. But history flatly states that it was the year of 1607 when England sent a group of men across the Atlantic to settle in this new and tractless continent.
One of the voyagers was John Smith, whose only unremarkable characteristic appears to have been his name.
Among the objects of the expedition was the search for a river which must bend northwest and lead to the ‘Other Sea’. That wishful belief in the existence of a northwest passage—and easy way to get by ship to the Orient, land of fabulous riches—had obsessed Europe for centuries. Without it, the history of America might have begun at even a later date than it did.
In those days of unchartered seas and unmapped lands, the exact spot where a ship came to port was determined rather by wind and wave than by the ship’s captain. At all events, after five tempestuous months at sea, the group of men from England landed in Virginia. It was springtime and the land must have looked very fair to them—at first. They decided to settle on a peninsula, and called the places Jamestown in honor of the king, naming their town before it existed and then trying to wring consent to their plans from the wilderness. But these men were ignorant of pioneering. The unaccustomed heat of Virginia’s summers, strange fevers, hunger, and hostile Indian beset them. By fall, out of the hundred and four men who came all but thirty eight were dead.
It was forbidden to send any account of these perilous conditions back to England lest it discourage new immigrants. And so, would-be colonists, entirely unfitted for the life that awaited them in this wild and savage country, continued to arrive at intervals. One of the earliest passenger lists included two goldsmiths, a jeweler, six tailors, a perfumer and various ‘gentlemen’.
Men might die, but the love of gold and gems in harder to kill. It persisted in the survivors who kept a weather eye out for any trace of treasure. In records made at the time we find a description of the ornaments worn by an Indian chief: ‘His ears all behung with bracelets of pearl.’ And again, mention is made of a chain of pearls sent as a gift from the great chief Powhatan to John Smith. Even the American Indians had gathered pearls, no one knows since when. Upon one occasion, during a barter with the Indians, certain blue beads brought over by the colonist were the means of saving them from starvation. The Indian chief had refused to give in exchange for other commodities any adequate quantity of corn, until he saw those beads and was told that only royalty might wear them. A few beads tipped the scales of the bargain and many bushels of the precious corn were paid by the redmen for their decorative sake.
Once disaster in the form of a fire fell upon the struggling colonists; the frail dwelling houses of Jamestown burnred to the ground. But every man, instead of rebuilding his house or planting corn, was intent on madly digging up the yellow sand of Virginia and lading it on English ships lately arrived. Someone had joyously declared that the sand was gold! John Smith wrote, ‘There was no talk, no work but dig gold, refine gold.’
The ships were due to sail back to England in two weeks but stayed on for fourteen weeks while their decks were being heaped with yellow sand, while when tested, on arrival in England, proved to be—yellow sand.
Well, at least, early America had seen a mirage of future treasure.
The New World (continue)
1. Colonial America
Before taking up the consideration of American jewelry, let us look at a ‘flash back’ in time and history and begin before the beginning. That is to say, first we will set the scene and recall something of the character of life in the earliest Colonial days.
America, in 1607, was a wilderness inhabited by savages. Where great cities now stand, multitudes of wild beasts roamed at will; where aircraft now traverses our skies, birds flew in flocks so dense as to throw great shadows like the shadows of passing clouds upon the land below.
Less than three hundred and fifty years since then! It seems incredible. But history flatly states that it was the year of 1607 when England sent a group of men across the Atlantic to settle in this new and tractless continent.
One of the voyagers was John Smith, whose only unremarkable characteristic appears to have been his name.
Among the objects of the expedition was the search for a river which must bend northwest and lead to the ‘Other Sea’. That wishful belief in the existence of a northwest passage—and easy way to get by ship to the Orient, land of fabulous riches—had obsessed Europe for centuries. Without it, the history of America might have begun at even a later date than it did.
In those days of unchartered seas and unmapped lands, the exact spot where a ship came to port was determined rather by wind and wave than by the ship’s captain. At all events, after five tempestuous months at sea, the group of men from England landed in Virginia. It was springtime and the land must have looked very fair to them—at first. They decided to settle on a peninsula, and called the places Jamestown in honor of the king, naming their town before it existed and then trying to wring consent to their plans from the wilderness. But these men were ignorant of pioneering. The unaccustomed heat of Virginia’s summers, strange fevers, hunger, and hostile Indian beset them. By fall, out of the hundred and four men who came all but thirty eight were dead.
It was forbidden to send any account of these perilous conditions back to England lest it discourage new immigrants. And so, would-be colonists, entirely unfitted for the life that awaited them in this wild and savage country, continued to arrive at intervals. One of the earliest passenger lists included two goldsmiths, a jeweler, six tailors, a perfumer and various ‘gentlemen’.
Men might die, but the love of gold and gems in harder to kill. It persisted in the survivors who kept a weather eye out for any trace of treasure. In records made at the time we find a description of the ornaments worn by an Indian chief: ‘His ears all behung with bracelets of pearl.’ And again, mention is made of a chain of pearls sent as a gift from the great chief Powhatan to John Smith. Even the American Indians had gathered pearls, no one knows since when. Upon one occasion, during a barter with the Indians, certain blue beads brought over by the colonist were the means of saving them from starvation. The Indian chief had refused to give in exchange for other commodities any adequate quantity of corn, until he saw those beads and was told that only royalty might wear them. A few beads tipped the scales of the bargain and many bushels of the precious corn were paid by the redmen for their decorative sake.
Once disaster in the form of a fire fell upon the struggling colonists; the frail dwelling houses of Jamestown burnred to the ground. But every man, instead of rebuilding his house or planting corn, was intent on madly digging up the yellow sand of Virginia and lading it on English ships lately arrived. Someone had joyously declared that the sand was gold! John Smith wrote, ‘There was no talk, no work but dig gold, refine gold.’
The ships were due to sail back to England in two weeks but stayed on for fourteen weeks while their decks were being heaped with yellow sand, while when tested, on arrival in England, proved to be—yellow sand.
Well, at least, early America had seen a mirage of future treasure.
The New World (continue)
The Pre-Raphaelites
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
Unknown to one another, Rossetti and Holman Hunt both had a passion for the poetry of Keats, and it was this that first really brought them together. It was in 1848 that Rosetti persuaded Madox Brown to have him as a pupil, and to the Academy of that year Hunt had sent a painting inspired by a poem of Keats. In the memoirs which he wrote in his old age, Mr Hunt gave an account of how he met the younger artist in a picture gallery and what ensued:
Rossetti came up to me (he wrote) loudly declaring that my picture of ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ was the best in the collection....Rossetti frankly proposed to me to come and see him. Before this I had been only on nodding terms with him in the schools, to which he came but rarely and irregularly. He had always attracted there a following of clamorous students who, like Millais’s throng, were rewarded with original sketches. Rossetti’s subjects were of a different class from Millais, not of newly culled facts, but of knights rescuing ladies. A few days more and Rossetti was in my studio.
The upshot of these meetings was that Rossetti left Madox Brown and shared a studio with Holman Hunt, under whose guidance he began painting his first picture, ‘The Girlhood of Mary Virgin.’ Intimacy with Hunt naturally led to intimacy with his friend Millais, and it is said that the immediate occasion of the founding of the Brotherhood was an evening spent by the three friends in the house of Millais’s parents looking at engravings of the early Italian wall-paintings in the Campo Santo at Pisa. According to Mr Hunt, it was Rossetti who insisted that their union should be a close one, and that it should be styled a ‘Brotherhood.’ The term ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ originated as a nickname, somebody exclaiming when they had expressed a preference for the painters before Raphael to those who succeeded him, ‘Why, then you must be Pre-Raphaelites.’ The title was adopted as an official label which fitly conveyed their aims. These aims were to paint Nature with minute fidelity and to regain the intense sincerity of the early Italian painters, but undoubtedly Rossetti held that the latter also implied intense poetic expression.
Thus the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was established, and in addition to the three founders, membership was extended to Dante Gabriel’s brother, W M Rossetti, and to three of their friends, Woolner, a sculptor, James Collinson, and F G Stephens. James Collinson was probably elected on the strength of his picture, ‘The Charity Boy’s Debut,’ in the Academy of 1847, and would doubtless have been a more important figure had he not ceased exhibiting after 1870 and retired to a monastery. His most important picture, ‘St Elizabeth of Hungary,’ painted in 1851, is now in the Johannesburg Gallery. William Rossetti and Stephens soon abandoned painting; both became art critics, and their eloquent and enthusiastic articles did much to convert the public to an appreciation of the work of the other Brothers.
It is no unusual thing for art students or young artists to form themselves into clubs and societies, to hold regular meetings, and to discuss their aims, methods, and ideals; but so often the talk leads to nothing. In the case of Millais and Hunt it led to something approaching a masterpiece at the first effort. In 1848 Millais had exhibited ‘Cymon and Iphigenia,’ another painting in the style of Etty; in 1849 he exhibited ‘Lorenzo and Isabella,’ now at Liverpool, and but for the conclaves of the brethren and the stimulating encouragement of comradeship he could never in one year have leapt the gulf which separates the two pictures. Holman Hunt’s ‘Rienzi’ was an equally sensational advance on his ‘St Agnes’s Eve,’ but in many respects the most remarkable achievement of all was Rossetti’s ‘Girlhood of Mary Virgin.’ Finely painted as ‘Lorenzo and Isabella’ is, it has not the touching simplicity of Rossetti’s first painting; it is more imitative, a skilful exercise in the manner of the early Italian masters. It was immensely clever, but it was not quite what the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood set out to do.
Rossetti’s maiden effort may appear childish in places when compared with the accomplishment of the Millais, but it is a much better example of true Pre-Raphaelitism in its absolutely honest and unconventional attempt to render what the painter saw. Mr Hunt has told us that every detail in this picture was painted directly from life under his supervision, and it says much for his patient influence that in the first year of the Brotherhood its most romantic member should have painted the most naturalistic picture.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continued)
2
Unknown to one another, Rossetti and Holman Hunt both had a passion for the poetry of Keats, and it was this that first really brought them together. It was in 1848 that Rosetti persuaded Madox Brown to have him as a pupil, and to the Academy of that year Hunt had sent a painting inspired by a poem of Keats. In the memoirs which he wrote in his old age, Mr Hunt gave an account of how he met the younger artist in a picture gallery and what ensued:
Rossetti came up to me (he wrote) loudly declaring that my picture of ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ was the best in the collection....Rossetti frankly proposed to me to come and see him. Before this I had been only on nodding terms with him in the schools, to which he came but rarely and irregularly. He had always attracted there a following of clamorous students who, like Millais’s throng, were rewarded with original sketches. Rossetti’s subjects were of a different class from Millais, not of newly culled facts, but of knights rescuing ladies. A few days more and Rossetti was in my studio.
The upshot of these meetings was that Rossetti left Madox Brown and shared a studio with Holman Hunt, under whose guidance he began painting his first picture, ‘The Girlhood of Mary Virgin.’ Intimacy with Hunt naturally led to intimacy with his friend Millais, and it is said that the immediate occasion of the founding of the Brotherhood was an evening spent by the three friends in the house of Millais’s parents looking at engravings of the early Italian wall-paintings in the Campo Santo at Pisa. According to Mr Hunt, it was Rossetti who insisted that their union should be a close one, and that it should be styled a ‘Brotherhood.’ The term ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ originated as a nickname, somebody exclaiming when they had expressed a preference for the painters before Raphael to those who succeeded him, ‘Why, then you must be Pre-Raphaelites.’ The title was adopted as an official label which fitly conveyed their aims. These aims were to paint Nature with minute fidelity and to regain the intense sincerity of the early Italian painters, but undoubtedly Rossetti held that the latter also implied intense poetic expression.
Thus the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was established, and in addition to the three founders, membership was extended to Dante Gabriel’s brother, W M Rossetti, and to three of their friends, Woolner, a sculptor, James Collinson, and F G Stephens. James Collinson was probably elected on the strength of his picture, ‘The Charity Boy’s Debut,’ in the Academy of 1847, and would doubtless have been a more important figure had he not ceased exhibiting after 1870 and retired to a monastery. His most important picture, ‘St Elizabeth of Hungary,’ painted in 1851, is now in the Johannesburg Gallery. William Rossetti and Stephens soon abandoned painting; both became art critics, and their eloquent and enthusiastic articles did much to convert the public to an appreciation of the work of the other Brothers.
It is no unusual thing for art students or young artists to form themselves into clubs and societies, to hold regular meetings, and to discuss their aims, methods, and ideals; but so often the talk leads to nothing. In the case of Millais and Hunt it led to something approaching a masterpiece at the first effort. In 1848 Millais had exhibited ‘Cymon and Iphigenia,’ another painting in the style of Etty; in 1849 he exhibited ‘Lorenzo and Isabella,’ now at Liverpool, and but for the conclaves of the brethren and the stimulating encouragement of comradeship he could never in one year have leapt the gulf which separates the two pictures. Holman Hunt’s ‘Rienzi’ was an equally sensational advance on his ‘St Agnes’s Eve,’ but in many respects the most remarkable achievement of all was Rossetti’s ‘Girlhood of Mary Virgin.’ Finely painted as ‘Lorenzo and Isabella’ is, it has not the touching simplicity of Rossetti’s first painting; it is more imitative, a skilful exercise in the manner of the early Italian masters. It was immensely clever, but it was not quite what the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood set out to do.
Rossetti’s maiden effort may appear childish in places when compared with the accomplishment of the Millais, but it is a much better example of true Pre-Raphaelitism in its absolutely honest and unconventional attempt to render what the painter saw. Mr Hunt has told us that every detail in this picture was painted directly from life under his supervision, and it says much for his patient influence that in the first year of the Brotherhood its most romantic member should have painted the most naturalistic picture.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continued)
Europe's Art Scene
I found the information on Europe's art scene by Benji Lanyado @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/feb/28/blogbyblogguide.europe.art?page=all useful + I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Larimar
At the Bangkok Gem & Jewelry Show, it was interesting to see both rough and cut specimens of Larimar for sale, a rare blue variety of pectolite found only in the Dominican Republic, in the Caribbean + its color varies from white, light-blue, green-blue to deep blue + the stone is often confused with turquoise + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Useful links:
www.larimarmuseum.com
www.larimar.de
Useful links:
www.larimarmuseum.com
www.larimar.de
The Science Of Experience
The article The Science of Experience by John Cloud @ http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1717927,00.html was fascinating + insightful because he was spot on + at the same time I was thinking of gem identification/color stone + diamond grading/ art analysis where experience (s) does matter, but as the experts say, great performance comes mostly from deliberate practice + regularly obtaining accurate feedback.
Useful links:
www.apa.org
www.cambridge.org
www.humankinetics.com
www.elsevier.com
www.ergonomics.org
Useful links:
www.apa.org
www.cambridge.org
www.humankinetics.com
www.elsevier.com
www.ergonomics.org
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