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 gem industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
To have been actively engaged over a period of years in the gem trade and yet never to have met with tourmalines is something not to be proud of. It was in this period of my life that I dealt for once in tourmalines, jargoons, marcasite and the other lesser fry of the gem world. Perhaps if I had stuck to them I should have made more money out of them than I ever did out of pearls and that noble three, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.
Tourmalines, a composition of silica with varying quantities of oxides of magnesium and aluminum, present such a variety of beautiful colors and shades that they come as a revelation to the tyro. The crystals are translucent, take on a good polish and are often of surprising luster. The colorless variety is known as achroite and the green as andalusite, from its occurrence in Andalusian Spain.
Tourmalines remind me of a little hunchbacked German, a working jeweler in the West End, who had been persuaded by a patron to start trading in gems on his own. Despite all the credit this patron gave him, the little man was soon in deep water, for the pitfalls in the game are many and various. Instead of telling his benefactor (who was his biggest creditor) of his troubles, for the man really had intended to befriend him, he finally ran away to Paris. It was there and not in London that I met him again.
Handicapped by his fear of the police (unfounded, as it happened), he asked me to market his goods for him, but I had no clients for tourmalines in Paris, although I was able to recommend him to a broker who in the end did help him to part with his stones at a ruinous discount. For he was in a hurry to realize; the man in a hurry always bargains to sell. So far he was on the right side of the fence. But he now took it into his head to justify himself in the eyes of his benefactor, to which end he bought a large number of beautifully engraved but worthless mining shares from a bucket-shop keeper on the run, and sent them back to London under cover of a piteous note to say that he had been speculating not wisely but too well.
The big man in London, unfortunately for him, saw through the trick at once and was justly incensed. He put Scotland Yard on the track and that was the end of another little man.
There is a semi-precious stone, attractive in its own right, much fancied by those who value its resemblance to diamonds. This is the jargoon, or more properly the zircon. The zircon occurs in a greater variety of colors than any other gem. Besides the white kind, it is found brown, yellow, blue, pink, red and green. The red variety is called jacinth or hyacinth. There is a much esteemed peacock-blue zircon which is very rare indeed. Examples of it are called ‘specimen stones’ and command a good price in the market.
As for the white zircons, the jargoons, they have a very fair resemblance to diamonds, for this is a hard stone and often of a good brilliance. Very often it is called the Matura diamond, after the district in Ceylon where it is obtained. But one peculiarity of the stone is that when exposed to heat, or even to strong sunlight, it is apt to deteriorate in color, and may indeed fade badly.
To simulate diamonds, jargoons have been cut ‘full cut’ like diamonds; that is, with fifty-eight facets. Another mineral which ‘more in the past than today’ has been used in jewelry of the cheaper sort to obtain the diamond effect is that called marcasite (pyrites). Like the rose-cut diamonds they were intended to represent, they also were cut rose fashion; that is, with triangular facets. For there is an absolute system and logic in the way stones are faceted. Types and individuals demand special cutting, whether it be in the number of facets, the shape of the facets or their arrangement.
In my journeyings to and fro from Scotland I saw many jeweler’s shop windows crammed with trinkets in which were set stones of even lower status than those name above, by some considered so common that they should not be mentioned in the same breath as the distinguished company of gems. But they suited my state and status at that time of my life, and this is the place if anywhere for them in my private cavalcade of gems.
One, the cairngorm, however, does make most attractive settings and can look very effective. It is one of the several crystalline forms of silica. Other prominent members of the family of crystalline silicas are the rock crystal and the citrine. You will remember that the non-crystalline members of the family of silica are the opal and the chalcedony, which shows that very minute differences in the molecular structure of a substance make all the difference to its appearance and its value in the market. Of course, if the eyes of Cleopatra had been just the merest trifle crossed, that would have made all the difference in the world, too.
Cairngorms are found plentifully in Scotland and Cornwall. They are therefore, unlike many gems, native gems of Britain. They occur much to the benefit of local lapidaries and the delight of tourists, who are ever on the lookout for something that can be picked up ‘cheap’. Many a lady wears a cairngorm proudly because it reminds her of her honeymoon or some other sentimental occasion. It is quite pretty enough, too, to sustain an affection of that kind.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Heard On The Street
Nervous Market: Gem/Art analysts call it contagion + spillover + volatility + controlled confusion. The fear level rises with each dose of bad news, while at the same time market participants keep looking for reassurance (s). The experts say keep the turmoil in perspective and move on. The market needs a correction. Why should 2007 be any different?
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Birth, Death And Shopping
Economist writes about the shopping mall's story + the gradual decline of the concept in the country (America) that pioneered them + changing suburbs + ethnic drift + the new amateur shopping-mall history + the mix-and-match appearance of the 'lifestyle centres' + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278717
There is a lesson for all. I wonder what may happen to the gem and jewelry stores in the shopping malls + the impact. If you look at the emerging markets in Asia, Middle-East, South America, and Africa today shopping malls continue to multiply in amazing numbers + they want to follow the American business model. I don't think the concept is going work in all regions. I hope business leaders will learn from their mistakes.
Useful links:
www.icsc.org
http://deadmalls.com
http://labelscar.com
www.lakehurstmall.net
www.carusoaffiliated.com
There is a lesson for all. I wonder what may happen to the gem and jewelry stores in the shopping malls + the impact. If you look at the emerging markets in Asia, Middle-East, South America, and Africa today shopping malls continue to multiply in amazing numbers + they want to follow the American business model. I don't think the concept is going work in all regions. I hope business leaders will learn from their mistakes.
Useful links:
www.icsc.org
http://deadmalls.com
http://labelscar.com
www.lakehurstmall.net
www.carusoaffiliated.com
Sunshine And Shadow In Spain
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
These, then, were the principal influences alive in Spanish art when Diego de Silva y Velazquez was born at Seville in 1599. His family was not of Sevillian or even of Spanish origin, for his grandfather Diego Rodriguez de Silva came from Oporto, the home of the Silva family. The name which he made world famous he took from his mother, Gernima Velazquez, who belonged to an old Seville family. His father Juan de Silva raised no objections when his son desired to study art, and when he was thirteen or fourteen Velazquez was placed in the studio of Francisco de Herrera (1576-1654), who showed something of the fanaticism of El Greco in the flashing eyes and majestic gestures of the saints in his religious pictures. Herrera is said to have been bad-tempered, and after enduring his roughness for about a year Velazquez changed masters and entered the studio of Francisco Pacheco (1571-1654). There he remained five years, and though his master had no great originality or power, he was probably a good teacher, for he was himself a careful draughtsman, a scholar, and the author of a book on painting. Presumably there was also another attraction, for on April 23, 1618, Velazquez married Pacheco’s daughter Juana de Miranda. Henceforward Pacheco did everything he could to advance the interests of his son-in-law.
Within three years occurred the opportunity of a lifetime. Philip III died on March 31, 1621, and the young king Philip IV dismissed the Duke of Lerma and made Count Olivarez his prime minister. Now Olivarez, a son of the Governor of Seville, had lived in that city till 1615 and had made himself popular there as a patron of painters and poets. Several of his protégés at Seville united to praise to the new minister the extraordinary talent of their young fellow townsman. Velazquez went to Madrid and, after some vexations delays, in 1623 Olivarez persuaded the young king to give Velazquez a sitting. He conquered at his first brush stroke. The equestrian portrait he painted is now lost, but it pleased Philip so much that forthwith the painter of twenty four was appointed Court Painter to a king of eighteen.
From the beginning Philip treated Velazquez in the most friendly manner. The king is said by a contemporary to have come to his studio ‘almost every day,’ by ‘those secret passages, hung with pictures, which led from the king’s rooms to every part of the old Alcazar.’ The monotony of the stiff routine of the Court was broken in the autumn of 1628 by the arrival of Rubens, who, as stated in the last chapter, came to Madrid on a diplomatic mission, and for nine months was constantly with the king and Velazquez. According to Pacheco and others, Rubens thought highly of Velazquez, and delighted in his society, while his views of the king appears in a letter Rubens wrote to a friend:
He evidently takes quite a special pleasure in painting, and, in my opinion, this prince is endowed with the finest qualities. I already know him from personal intercourse, as I have a room in the palace, so that he almost daily visits me.
Philip IV appears to have been genuinely interested in painting, a result probably of his intimacy with Velazquez, and after Ruben’s visit, and undoubtedly on his advice, the King permitted Velazquez to go to Italy with the great soldier and statesman Spinola, who was to be the Spanish governor of Milan and commander-in-chief in Italy. Velazquez arrived at Milan in the early autumn of 1629 and soon went to Venice, where he made a special study of the work of Tintoretto, who died, it will be remembered, five years before Velazquez was born. From Venice he went to Rome—missing Florence—and after some months there passed on to Naples, where he met Ribera, and returned to Madrid early in 1631. At Naples he painted Philip’s sister, Mary of Hungary, and this portrait he brought back with him together with his painting ‘The Forge of Vulcan.’
It is customary to divide the art of Velazquez into three periods, of which the first ends with this visit to Italy. Most critics agree that the finest and most typical painting of his first period is the bacchanalian scene known as ‘The Topers’. In the strongly laid shadows of this painting we see the influence of Caravaggio, and while we admire the virile rendering of form and the well-balanced grouping of the figures, yet we feel that the scene, as R A M Stevenson, the cousin of ‘R.L.S’ wrote in his classic book on Velazquez, ‘was never beheld as a whole vision in the mind’s eye.’ The painter’s complete mastery of his art was yet to come.
Sunshine And Shadow In Spain (continued)
2
These, then, were the principal influences alive in Spanish art when Diego de Silva y Velazquez was born at Seville in 1599. His family was not of Sevillian or even of Spanish origin, for his grandfather Diego Rodriguez de Silva came from Oporto, the home of the Silva family. The name which he made world famous he took from his mother, Gernima Velazquez, who belonged to an old Seville family. His father Juan de Silva raised no objections when his son desired to study art, and when he was thirteen or fourteen Velazquez was placed in the studio of Francisco de Herrera (1576-1654), who showed something of the fanaticism of El Greco in the flashing eyes and majestic gestures of the saints in his religious pictures. Herrera is said to have been bad-tempered, and after enduring his roughness for about a year Velazquez changed masters and entered the studio of Francisco Pacheco (1571-1654). There he remained five years, and though his master had no great originality or power, he was probably a good teacher, for he was himself a careful draughtsman, a scholar, and the author of a book on painting. Presumably there was also another attraction, for on April 23, 1618, Velazquez married Pacheco’s daughter Juana de Miranda. Henceforward Pacheco did everything he could to advance the interests of his son-in-law.
Within three years occurred the opportunity of a lifetime. Philip III died on March 31, 1621, and the young king Philip IV dismissed the Duke of Lerma and made Count Olivarez his prime minister. Now Olivarez, a son of the Governor of Seville, had lived in that city till 1615 and had made himself popular there as a patron of painters and poets. Several of his protégés at Seville united to praise to the new minister the extraordinary talent of their young fellow townsman. Velazquez went to Madrid and, after some vexations delays, in 1623 Olivarez persuaded the young king to give Velazquez a sitting. He conquered at his first brush stroke. The equestrian portrait he painted is now lost, but it pleased Philip so much that forthwith the painter of twenty four was appointed Court Painter to a king of eighteen.
From the beginning Philip treated Velazquez in the most friendly manner. The king is said by a contemporary to have come to his studio ‘almost every day,’ by ‘those secret passages, hung with pictures, which led from the king’s rooms to every part of the old Alcazar.’ The monotony of the stiff routine of the Court was broken in the autumn of 1628 by the arrival of Rubens, who, as stated in the last chapter, came to Madrid on a diplomatic mission, and for nine months was constantly with the king and Velazquez. According to Pacheco and others, Rubens thought highly of Velazquez, and delighted in his society, while his views of the king appears in a letter Rubens wrote to a friend:
He evidently takes quite a special pleasure in painting, and, in my opinion, this prince is endowed with the finest qualities. I already know him from personal intercourse, as I have a room in the palace, so that he almost daily visits me.
Philip IV appears to have been genuinely interested in painting, a result probably of his intimacy with Velazquez, and after Ruben’s visit, and undoubtedly on his advice, the King permitted Velazquez to go to Italy with the great soldier and statesman Spinola, who was to be the Spanish governor of Milan and commander-in-chief in Italy. Velazquez arrived at Milan in the early autumn of 1629 and soon went to Venice, where he made a special study of the work of Tintoretto, who died, it will be remembered, five years before Velazquez was born. From Venice he went to Rome—missing Florence—and after some months there passed on to Naples, where he met Ribera, and returned to Madrid early in 1631. At Naples he painted Philip’s sister, Mary of Hungary, and this portrait he brought back with him together with his painting ‘The Forge of Vulcan.’
It is customary to divide the art of Velazquez into three periods, of which the first ends with this visit to Italy. Most critics agree that the finest and most typical painting of his first period is the bacchanalian scene known as ‘The Topers’. In the strongly laid shadows of this painting we see the influence of Caravaggio, and while we admire the virile rendering of form and the well-balanced grouping of the figures, yet we feel that the scene, as R A M Stevenson, the cousin of ‘R.L.S’ wrote in his classic book on Velazquez, ‘was never beheld as a whole vision in the mind’s eye.’ The painter’s complete mastery of his art was yet to come.
Sunshine And Shadow In Spain (continued)
London, And So On: Low Company!
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 gem industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
I always think it is a pity that whereas men of such lax morals frequently prove as sympathetic and generous as H F when appealed to on behalf of their distressed fellows, many upright men in affluent circumstances show themselves as hard as flint whenever an attempt is made to lay them under contribution in a case of genuine hard luck. Not long ago one who considers himself an ornament to the trade to which I have been privileged to belong for at least twenty years longer than he, reproached me for speaking to a one-time respected dealer who a few days before had come out of gaol after serving a short sentence for having brought stolen jewelry.
‘If I had been younger man,’ I said, ‘with an unformed character and the need to proclaim my business virtue, perhaps I should have hesitated to go near him. But at my age and enjoying the reputation I do, I felt that I could risk my morals if, by talking to a man for a few minutes, I could help to re-establish him in his self-respect. Besides, wasn’t it John Wesley who said, when he saw some malefactor led to executions: ‘There but for the grace of God goes John Wesley? That was how I felt today.’
But to return to my beginnings.
I soon found my money getting low. Then came the old story, new to me, looking for a job. Numberless calls, scores of unanswered letters posted at the expense of many square meals, clean shirt and collar and a pressed suit at all costs. I gave up my boarding-house and found a room under the roof in Great Russell Street at five shillings a week. What qualifications must a man have, I asked myself in bewilderment, that would give him a living wage in this strange and mighty city of London? I was master of three languages, a fluent correspondent, a good bookkeeper, a graduate of the University of Vienna, an expert in metals, and knew as much about gems as any ordinary dealer did. And yet nobody could use my services.
Luckily, however, I had kept in with Mrs Francis my first landlady. She was a motherly person and a lady who had come down in the world. One day I called in to see her and she said: ‘I have good news for you. Father Reilly has lost his job with Pitman’s.’
Father Reilly was the unfrocked Catholic priest who was one of her boarders. His job had been teaching English to foreigners. Mrs Francis, who knew that I was a foreigner who could speak English, thought I would fit the bill. In point of fact, I got the job at a salary of two pounds fifteen shillings a week.
Most of my pupils were older than I was. I remember one, Herr Meltner, mainly because I got him into a continental new service, my intuition having enabled him to qualify as a translator of news items translated from the London dailies. He showed his appreciation by making me free of the bachelor establishment of his new boss. There his chief lived in perfect amity with his paste-and-scissors men in a kind of Bohemian communism which knew no boundary between meum and tuum. Neckties, hats, coats, umbrellas and handkerchiefs were interchangeable property in that queer house of bachelors, but you could always be sure of a good meal there if your tastes included an unvarying passion for herrings doused, herrings fried, herrings marinated, pickled herrings, or herrings stewed with potatoes boiled in their jackets. When funds were ample one feasted on jellied eels, oyster patties, liver sausages, Pomeranian goose breast and iced Munich lager fetched by the pail from a nearby German hotel. It was no uncommon thing for Herr Meltner, long after he had ceased to be my student, to send me a scribbled message by hand saying: ‘Come tonight, great eats.’
Another of my pupils was a German doctor with a liquil ozone treatment as a cure for cancer. I used to translate his lectures and pamphlets for him and on several occasions stood on a platform for him translating his message word for word before the assembled medicos. One of these doctors had a father who ran a scholastic agency in the West End, and this old gentleman was the cause of my leaving London. He got me a job as manager of a language school in Newcastle-on-Tyne.
I spent five years on Tyneside as a professional man, and they were happy years. I made friends, I studied, I met and married the mother of my children (who made an honest Britisher of me) and I discovered as few aliens discover that London is not England. To this day my English has a touch of North Country burr about it, so that I am sometimes flattered to be thought a Scot.
But gems were calling me back. I sold my language schools and was cheated of my money. Now I was a married man and had to start life all over again. Well, back to London and into the trade to which I belonged by early training and natural taste. A hundred pounds was not much money, but it furnished me an office and bought me a safe. It so happened that I made, this time, an extremely lucky start and within a matter of weeks had found my bearings.
London, And So On: Low Company! (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
I always think it is a pity that whereas men of such lax morals frequently prove as sympathetic and generous as H F when appealed to on behalf of their distressed fellows, many upright men in affluent circumstances show themselves as hard as flint whenever an attempt is made to lay them under contribution in a case of genuine hard luck. Not long ago one who considers himself an ornament to the trade to which I have been privileged to belong for at least twenty years longer than he, reproached me for speaking to a one-time respected dealer who a few days before had come out of gaol after serving a short sentence for having brought stolen jewelry.
‘If I had been younger man,’ I said, ‘with an unformed character and the need to proclaim my business virtue, perhaps I should have hesitated to go near him. But at my age and enjoying the reputation I do, I felt that I could risk my morals if, by talking to a man for a few minutes, I could help to re-establish him in his self-respect. Besides, wasn’t it John Wesley who said, when he saw some malefactor led to executions: ‘There but for the grace of God goes John Wesley? That was how I felt today.’
But to return to my beginnings.
I soon found my money getting low. Then came the old story, new to me, looking for a job. Numberless calls, scores of unanswered letters posted at the expense of many square meals, clean shirt and collar and a pressed suit at all costs. I gave up my boarding-house and found a room under the roof in Great Russell Street at five shillings a week. What qualifications must a man have, I asked myself in bewilderment, that would give him a living wage in this strange and mighty city of London? I was master of three languages, a fluent correspondent, a good bookkeeper, a graduate of the University of Vienna, an expert in metals, and knew as much about gems as any ordinary dealer did. And yet nobody could use my services.
Luckily, however, I had kept in with Mrs Francis my first landlady. She was a motherly person and a lady who had come down in the world. One day I called in to see her and she said: ‘I have good news for you. Father Reilly has lost his job with Pitman’s.’
Father Reilly was the unfrocked Catholic priest who was one of her boarders. His job had been teaching English to foreigners. Mrs Francis, who knew that I was a foreigner who could speak English, thought I would fit the bill. In point of fact, I got the job at a salary of two pounds fifteen shillings a week.
Most of my pupils were older than I was. I remember one, Herr Meltner, mainly because I got him into a continental new service, my intuition having enabled him to qualify as a translator of news items translated from the London dailies. He showed his appreciation by making me free of the bachelor establishment of his new boss. There his chief lived in perfect amity with his paste-and-scissors men in a kind of Bohemian communism which knew no boundary between meum and tuum. Neckties, hats, coats, umbrellas and handkerchiefs were interchangeable property in that queer house of bachelors, but you could always be sure of a good meal there if your tastes included an unvarying passion for herrings doused, herrings fried, herrings marinated, pickled herrings, or herrings stewed with potatoes boiled in their jackets. When funds were ample one feasted on jellied eels, oyster patties, liver sausages, Pomeranian goose breast and iced Munich lager fetched by the pail from a nearby German hotel. It was no uncommon thing for Herr Meltner, long after he had ceased to be my student, to send me a scribbled message by hand saying: ‘Come tonight, great eats.’
Another of my pupils was a German doctor with a liquil ozone treatment as a cure for cancer. I used to translate his lectures and pamphlets for him and on several occasions stood on a platform for him translating his message word for word before the assembled medicos. One of these doctors had a father who ran a scholastic agency in the West End, and this old gentleman was the cause of my leaving London. He got me a job as manager of a language school in Newcastle-on-Tyne.
I spent five years on Tyneside as a professional man, and they were happy years. I made friends, I studied, I met and married the mother of my children (who made an honest Britisher of me) and I discovered as few aliens discover that London is not England. To this day my English has a touch of North Country burr about it, so that I am sometimes flattered to be thought a Scot.
But gems were calling me back. I sold my language schools and was cheated of my money. Now I was a married man and had to start life all over again. Well, back to London and into the trade to which I belonged by early training and natural taste. A hundred pounds was not much money, but it furnished me an office and bought me a safe. It so happened that I made, this time, an extremely lucky start and within a matter of weeks had found my bearings.
London, And So On: Low Company! (continued)
On The Waterfront
On The Waterfront (1954)
Directed by: Elia Kazan
Screenplay: Malcolm Johnson (suggested by articles); Budd Schulberg
Cast: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Eva Marie Saint
(via YouTube): On the Waterfront
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BflTajAbf6M
Marlon Brando's Famous ‘On the Waterfront’ Speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prXXOxCPNek
On The Waterfront
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0aNo5IqF4U
I think it was a powerfully realistic film + Marlon Brando gave one of his best performances. I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Elia Kazan
Screenplay: Malcolm Johnson (suggested by articles); Budd Schulberg
Cast: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Eva Marie Saint
(via YouTube): On the Waterfront
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BflTajAbf6M
Marlon Brando's Famous ‘On the Waterfront’ Speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prXXOxCPNek
On The Waterfront
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0aNo5IqF4U
I think it was a powerfully realistic film + Marlon Brando gave one of his best performances. I enjoyed it.
Marilynmania
David Kirby writes about Marilyn Monroe's personal property (approximately 1,000 items) + the investment concept along with the Beatles and Babe Ruth + her historical significance + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=787
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