Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Much has been written about the Hope diamond, mainly with the intent to stress the fact that it has brought bad luck to all successive owners. But I do not wish to enlarge upon the aspect. I remember seeing a telegram forty two years ago addressed to my principal in Paris advising him that his father (my uncle) had purchased the Hope diamond at Christie’s sale rooms and that he had already received an offer for it from a New York firm of diamond merchants. It is true that my uncle died at a comparatively early age in the prime of his life and the New York merchant met with financial disaster, and also that another merchant into whose hands the stone had passed, an Armenian named Habib, was drowned in the ill-fated La Seine whilst on his way to Java. His wallet contained amongst other precious stones the Hope diamond. I myself narrowly missed traveling by the same steamer, having missed my connection at Singapore on my way from Australia, so the tragic event is still sharp on my memory. Subsequently an ex-naval deep sea diver whom I met on that occasion in Singapore was instrumental in recovering Habib’s wallet, and with it the Hope diamond.
The later history of the stone is well known can be found in many accounts. I may quote in passing a news item from the London Evening News of May 4th, 1938, which says: ‘Boston, Wednesday—May Yohe, international stage star of the ‘nineties, one-time wearer of the ill-fated Hope diamond, and friend of royalty, now rises at six every morning to do a job of relief work at £3 6s per week. She is working as a research clerk for the Works Progress Administration, and she is living in a four-room flat alongside the railway lines in Boston.’
But although within my own ken the several persons who have had anything to do with that noble gem ended their days in a manner different from that which they might have chosen for themselves, I should be lacking in sincerity if for the sake of playing up to the reader’s desire for a spot of goose-flesh I were to refrain from saying bluntly: ‘Bosh!’ A piece of crystallized pure carbon cannot in itself have baneful influence upon man.’
Before I mention the other stone, the green diamond noted above, you may like to know something about Tavernier, whose name has been given several times already in these pages. This intrepid traveler, gem expert, trader and adventurer in the best sense of the word, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, was born in 1605 at Antwerp. His father, Gabriel Tavernier, was by profession a geographer—a maker of maps and an engraver. Perhaps it was this paternal factor which in some way created in the young Jean Baptiste a desire to travel. Having journeyed much in Europe, Tavernier seized an opportunity which presented itself to travel in the company of two French priests, possibly missionaries, to Constantinople and thence to Persia. That was in 1631. In 1638 he made a second journey, this time visiting Persia and India, trading in jewels and precious stones wherever he went. He must have been what nowadays is called a good mixer, for he seems to have experienced no great difficulty in bringing himself and his wares to the notice of the most eminent persons. Then he made a third journey, which took him to Java, whence he returned to Europe via the Cape. During so much traveling and trading he must have acquired an immense fund of practical knowledge on matters connected with precious stones, and aided by a natural flair, he became a foremost authority on all that concerned gems. At any rate, the splendor-loving Louis XIV became one of his patrons, and it was said that by the sale of jewels to the King alone Tavernier made a profit of £100000. To wealth was added, in 1669, a title of nobility, and he purchased in 1670 the Barony of Aubanne near Geneva. But like many another man, he had a son who could get rid of money faster than the old man had made it, and the young man brought about his father’s financial ruin. After selling his estates to discharge his debts, Tavernier again, at the great age of 84, went in search of fortune. But he did not reach India, the object of his journey. In 1689, while on the way to Persia, he met his end at Moscow. Amongst other writings he left a work in two volumes, Les Six Voyages de J.B.Tavernier, which was published in Paris in 1676.
The green brilliant has a history like a mere postscript to the story of the great blue stone. But it, too, was of unique color, though not in the first rank for size, being only 160 grains (forty carats). It was worn by the King of Saxony when in Court dress. Brilliant cut, it was set ájour, in a plume to be worn as a hat ornament.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Thursday, December 06, 2007
45 Social Entrepreneurs
(via Fastcompany): Make a profit + Make a difference = Social Capitalist. I liked the concept. http://www.fastcompany.com/social/2008
Connecting The Dots
(via Fastcompany): Mark Dziersk writes about design + its impact on indusry/commerce if properly delivered + other viewpoints @ http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/design/dziersk/connecting-the-dots-112807.html
Useful links:
www.sirkenrobinson.com
www.fitch.com
Useful links:
www.sirkenrobinson.com
www.fitch.com
Children of Paradise
Children of Paradise (1945)
Directed by: Marcel Carné
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert
Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault
(via YouTube): Children Of Paradise - Trailer (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpmADgSQaxM
Children of Paradise (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUIFRtvUU2A
One-of-a-kind story from a different period + its artistic angle + the love story--I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Marcel Carné
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert
Cast: Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault
(via YouTube): Children Of Paradise - Trailer (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpmADgSQaxM
Children of Paradise (1945)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUIFRtvUU2A
One-of-a-kind story from a different period + its artistic angle + the love story--I enjoyed it.
The Evolution Of The Taille en Seize
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The Taille en Seize can be seen in early seventeenth-century drawings of jewels by Arnold Lulls, Thomas Cletscher and occasionally others. Designers were still using it a hundred years later, but only in a restricted form—that is, as far as one can ascertain, with never more than sixteen facets, whereas Legare, with his special liking for this design, often used thirty-two.
It seems that the Taille en Seize and the Rose Cut had an influence on each other. Drop-shaped, flat-bottomed diamonds are clearly hybrids. Two such cuts can still be seen in the Imperial Austrian Sceptre, and three in the shoulder knot commissioned by Augustus the Strong. Jeffries depicts this as a standard for Rose Cut Pendeloques. Only a few of them are known actually to have carried—most of the illustrations represent ‘patterns’ of the kind widely distributed among jewelers all over Europe. All they indicate now is the period during which this particular cut was available. The drawings are so numerous that it seems incredible that no actual diamonds of this kind should have survived. All we know is that it was extremely simple to refashion a large Taille en Seize into a Brilliant Cut, and that it involved even less labor to transform a small one into a sixteen-facet cut with a square table facet. Was the Taille en Seize perhaps a premature cut which fascinated the professional but not the consumer?
Ecce Homo
This medallion contains thirty four variously faceted diamonds: ten of them are Tailles en Seize, and the remaining twenty-four are normal Rose Cuts.
The Taille en Seize can be seen in early seventeenth-century drawings of jewels by Arnold Lulls, Thomas Cletscher and occasionally others. Designers were still using it a hundred years later, but only in a restricted form—that is, as far as one can ascertain, with never more than sixteen facets, whereas Legare, with his special liking for this design, often used thirty-two.
It seems that the Taille en Seize and the Rose Cut had an influence on each other. Drop-shaped, flat-bottomed diamonds are clearly hybrids. Two such cuts can still be seen in the Imperial Austrian Sceptre, and three in the shoulder knot commissioned by Augustus the Strong. Jeffries depicts this as a standard for Rose Cut Pendeloques. Only a few of them are known actually to have carried—most of the illustrations represent ‘patterns’ of the kind widely distributed among jewelers all over Europe. All they indicate now is the period during which this particular cut was available. The drawings are so numerous that it seems incredible that no actual diamonds of this kind should have survived. All we know is that it was extremely simple to refashion a large Taille en Seize into a Brilliant Cut, and that it involved even less labor to transform a small one into a sixteen-facet cut with a square table facet. Was the Taille en Seize perhaps a premature cut which fascinated the professional but not the consumer?
Ecce Homo
This medallion contains thirty four variously faceted diamonds: ten of them are Tailles en Seize, and the remaining twenty-four are normal Rose Cuts.
Who Buys Old Masters?
Economist writes about a new class of buyers: Russian oligarchs and their acolytes(“market freshness”: a phrase referring to a good painting that has not been on the market for a long time) + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10235514
The Incredible Growing Art Museum
Blake Eskin writes about museums around the globe erecting new structures or expanding their current homes + the global phenomenon + the concept of bringing art and people together + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=988
The Road To Venice
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
To enumerate all the artists who were influenced by Mantegna and the School of Squarcione would be to give a list of a hundred names, and to attempt a task beyond the scope of the Outline; but brief mention must be made of one whose life, and particularly whose death, is of unusual and romantic interest. Franceso Francia (1450-1517) was a goldsmith of Bologna who achieved great fame as an engraver of medallion portraits long before the example of Mantegna inspired him to become a painter also. Francia was one of the first artists to make prints from an engraved plate, and served literature by designing the famous italic type for the press of Aldus Manutius. As a painter, Francia began with portraits and proceeded to altar-pieces, in which he displayed a remarkable psychological insight. Both in ancient times and in modern his lunette of the Dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin has been regarded as a most beautiful work, poignant in the intensity of its expression. The half-moon shaped picture is the upper part of a famous alter piece originally painted for the Church of St. Frediano at Lucca, and now in the National Gallery, London. The main picture below shows the Madonna and Child, with the following saints: St. Sebastian, St. Paul, St. Anne, St. Lawrence, and St. Benedict, while in front of the throne is the figure of the young St. John the Baptist; and the wan, expressive face of the young Virgin seems to suggest that she is already forewarned of the tragedy commemorated by the picture.
Francis was at the height of his reputation in Bologna when the young Raphael was working in Rome. The two artists never met, for Raphael was too busy to leave the Vatican and Francia was too old to travel. But they heard much of one another, and Francia as the elder, offered to help his junior in any way he could. He had never seen a picture of Raphael, and longed to view some work by the young man of whom everybody was talking. At last the opportunity came. Raphael was commissioned to paint a panel of ‘St. Cecilia’ for a Bolognese chapel, St. Giovanni in Monte; and when he had finished the painting he sent it to Francia at Bologna with a courteous letter begging the older artist to ‘correct any errors found in it,’ and then set it up on the altar for which it was intended.
When Francia drew the masterpiece from its case and viewed it in a good light, he was filled with amazement and with chagrin, so Vasari says, at his presumption in offering to help so great a genius:
‘Francia, half dead at the overwhelming power and beauty of the picture, which he had to compare with his own works lying around, though thoroughly discouraged, took it to St. Giovanni in Monte, to the chapel where it was to be. Returning home he took to his bed in an agony, feeling that art could offer him no more, and died, some suppose of grief and melancholy, due to his contemplation of the living picture of Raphael.’
That is the story told by Vasari, and though it may seem incredible to us that any artist should be so fatally affected by seeing the work of another, the fact that so strange a cause of death was related in good faith reveals to us how seriously art was taken in Italy in 1518.
The Road To Venice (continued)
2
To enumerate all the artists who were influenced by Mantegna and the School of Squarcione would be to give a list of a hundred names, and to attempt a task beyond the scope of the Outline; but brief mention must be made of one whose life, and particularly whose death, is of unusual and romantic interest. Franceso Francia (1450-1517) was a goldsmith of Bologna who achieved great fame as an engraver of medallion portraits long before the example of Mantegna inspired him to become a painter also. Francia was one of the first artists to make prints from an engraved plate, and served literature by designing the famous italic type for the press of Aldus Manutius. As a painter, Francia began with portraits and proceeded to altar-pieces, in which he displayed a remarkable psychological insight. Both in ancient times and in modern his lunette of the Dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin has been regarded as a most beautiful work, poignant in the intensity of its expression. The half-moon shaped picture is the upper part of a famous alter piece originally painted for the Church of St. Frediano at Lucca, and now in the National Gallery, London. The main picture below shows the Madonna and Child, with the following saints: St. Sebastian, St. Paul, St. Anne, St. Lawrence, and St. Benedict, while in front of the throne is the figure of the young St. John the Baptist; and the wan, expressive face of the young Virgin seems to suggest that she is already forewarned of the tragedy commemorated by the picture.
Francis was at the height of his reputation in Bologna when the young Raphael was working in Rome. The two artists never met, for Raphael was too busy to leave the Vatican and Francia was too old to travel. But they heard much of one another, and Francia as the elder, offered to help his junior in any way he could. He had never seen a picture of Raphael, and longed to view some work by the young man of whom everybody was talking. At last the opportunity came. Raphael was commissioned to paint a panel of ‘St. Cecilia’ for a Bolognese chapel, St. Giovanni in Monte; and when he had finished the painting he sent it to Francia at Bologna with a courteous letter begging the older artist to ‘correct any errors found in it,’ and then set it up on the altar for which it was intended.
When Francia drew the masterpiece from its case and viewed it in a good light, he was filled with amazement and with chagrin, so Vasari says, at his presumption in offering to help so great a genius:
‘Francia, half dead at the overwhelming power and beauty of the picture, which he had to compare with his own works lying around, though thoroughly discouraged, took it to St. Giovanni in Monte, to the chapel where it was to be. Returning home he took to his bed in an agony, feeling that art could offer him no more, and died, some suppose of grief and melancholy, due to his contemplation of the living picture of Raphael.’
That is the story told by Vasari, and though it may seem incredible to us that any artist should be so fatally affected by seeing the work of another, the fact that so strange a cause of death was related in good faith reveals to us how seriously art was taken in Italy in 1518.
The Road To Venice (continued)
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