The Reasons Why People Like Synthetic Gemstones

I think lab-grown gemstone industry is evolving + it hasn’t impacted the natural colored gemstone and diamond market + many believe its threat has been greatly exaggerated + most synthetic gem materials are detectable via standard / advanced gemological tests + they are affordable + some people love technology, so like the product + consumers tend to like the stones if they are properly disclosed with less technical jargons + they are popular in fashion pieces + some buy it for themselves.

Peter Doig

Peter Doig is a Scottish painter + he's one of Europe's most expensive living painters + his pictures are landscapes + he uses unusual colour combinations + depicts scenes from unexpected angles giving his work a magic realist feel + I like it because they simulate inclusion-landscapes in gemstones + they are beautiful.

Useful links:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/peter_doig.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Doig
www.michaelwerner.com
www.victoria-miro.com

Bottle Shock

The film, Bottle Shock, by director Randall Miller revisits a 1976 blind tasting in which French experts hailed California wines over some of France's finest vintages + the movie was shown at the Sundance film festival this week + expect more fireworks from the French wine sector.

Useful links:
www.sundance.org
www.bottleshockthemovie.com
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914797

Smart Money Decisions

In a great book Smart Money Decisions by Max H. Bazerman, there are some insights on why some people lose at auctions + the examples deal with important decision problems everyone of us is confronted with at least once in her/his lifetime + I think gem dealers, jewelers, and art dealers should read it because it contains wealth of insights.

Here is what the description of Smart Money Decisions has to say (via Amazon):
When it comes to money matters, even the smartest of us can make some pretty dumb decisions. From falling in love at first sight with a house and hastily negotiating a price to blindly following the pack in investment dealings, life is fraught with financial choices that are settled on with gut instinct rather than a level head—moves that can, and often do, lead to costly mistakes. In order to sidestep major money blunders, resisting first impulses, though not easy to do, is absolutely crucial. This groundbreaking book gives you the tools necessary to think through fiscal issues practically so you don't continue making decisions rashly.

Written by Max Bazerman, a renowned expert in the field of decision making and negotiation, Smart Money Decisions illustrates both how and why we make the decisions we do. Offering an intriguing mental audit of people's psychological relationship with money, it provides the essential understanding you need to identify your own approach to finances, recognize any inherent problems, and determine ways to overcome them.

Bazerman guides you through these basic steps with the goal of permanently improving your financial decisions in a wide range of real-life scenarios, such as buying and selling a home or a car, making investments, and choosing careers. Highlighting the errors too often made in these and other situations, Smart Money Decisions presents the 10 most important money mistakes, including:

- Overconfidence—the engine that fuels other monetary missteps
- Being unprepared —'winging it' leads to mishaps that could easily be avoided
- Focusing on beating the other side—coming out on top shouldn't overshadow making a decision that will help you in the long run
- Ignoring alternatives—having your heart set on only one option isn't always the wisest strategy

Packed with sound advice and expert recommendations on how to make more reasoned monetary decisions, Smart Money Decisions is essential reading for anyone who wants to stop making costly financial errors.

Seeing Snowflakes

This is what I found interesting from Ken Libbrecht's website @ SnowCrystals.com + Ken Libbrecht is the chairman of the physics department @ the California Institute of Technology + he studies the physics of snow crystals.

Here is what he has to say about snowflakes:
A snow crystal forms up in the atmosphere + it starts with, say, a small water droplet which freezes into a very tiny piece of ice and then that grows and gets this hexagonal shape + then, as it gets larger, these corners of the hexagon sprout branches and they can become very elaborate as it grows larger + one thing you can do, as a physicist, is you can try to calculate how many ways there are to make a snowflake, and I've done that + it's a very large number + The number of ways to make a complex snowflake is far greater than the total number of atoms in the universe + with such large numbers, you can say fairly confidently that if you looked at all the snowflakes that grew on earth, you would never see one that looked exactly the same.

Full Table Cuts With Blunt, Missing Or Broken Corners

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

The Great Cross of Francis I, of about 1540, contained five Table Cut diamonds, one Burgundian Point Cut and three faceted Gothic Roses. In 1988, Morel presented a wrong faceting design of the three drop-shaped gems: the quasi rond diamond alone was a Burgandian Point Cut whereas the drops, described as taillés en face—i.e flat-bottomed—can only have been Gothic, trihedrally faceted Rose Cuts. Bapst, writing in 1888, simply indicated that the diamonds were faceted. The 1559 Crown inventory gave the following description: ‘Une grande croix composée de neuf grands dyamans, c’est a scavoir cinq grandes tables faisant la croix au plus hault , au dessoubs ung dyaman quasi rond et trois aultres dyamans en larmes ou fers de lances taillés en face faisant le pied de la croix auquel pied pend une perle en poire.’ The Cross was pawned several times before disappearing completely.

The ‘Elephant with a Tower’ pendant is one of the central pieces in the Schatzkammer der Residenz, Munich. It dates from between 1557 and 1559, and was made in Munich, probably by Hans Reimer; it is 5.6 cm high. The jewel is still in the former Royal Collection, though no longer in its original state. The fine large Table Cut diamond has unfortunately been replaced by a cheap Blister pearl, the suberb ruby by a spinel, and the exquisite pearl which originally hung from the pendant has disappeared and not been replaced. It was possible to reproduce, from a portrait of Duchess Anne among the miniatures painted by Hans Mielich, the cut of the original diamond, which was found to be perfectly fashioned High Table, 22.3 x 15.9 mm in size, with a table facet of ideal size. The small diamonds which now fill the corners round the Blister pearl are eighteenth century Rose Cuts.

The sitter in the portrait of Christine of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, by Scipione Pulzone, 1590 (Museo degli Argenti, Palazoo Pitti, Florence) is wearing jewels worthy of the wife of the powerful and wealthy Medici Grand Duke Ferdinand I. In contrast to those of other contemporary Florentine princesses, the Duchess Christine’s larger diamonds are all High Table and Mirror Cuts. Some are square and others rectangular, but they are all appear to be very well proportioned.

A three-dimensional St George pendant, with both the front and the back worked in great detail, is the best known, and artistically the finest, of all the Renaissance pendants in the Grϋnes Gewölbe. Here, we shall concentrate on the diamonds in the pedestal. Either the master goldsmith could not find a perfect set of gems, or the jewel was made to order and the jeweler was given only a very limited selection of Table Cut diamonds to work with. The stones themselves are of three types: in the center, blending with red cabochons, are two oblong Table Cuts; next to these are two well-matched Mirror Cuts, one on either side; at the ends, placed vertically because they are smaller than the other stones, are two more Table Cuts. These may have been all the jeweler had at his disposal, but it is also possible that he chose them and positioned them deliberately because they marked so clearly the end of the pedestal while maintaining the height of the rest of the diamonds in the row.

As long as the settings remained clean and the underlying foiling still reflected the incident light, the pedestal formed a bright base for the rest of the jewel. The fact that the cuts were mixed was noticeable only on close examination and did not disturb the integrity of the jewel as a whole. Today, the light entering the jewel is not reflected back at the viewer and the table facets themselves appear disturbingly dark, even black.

Full Table Cuts With Blunt, Missing Or Broken Corners (continued)

Early Jewelry Of The British Isles

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

2. Anglo Saxon Jewelry

It would seem that whatever a conquered people might feel toward the Romans who came as victors to settle in their country, they were always ready enough to do as the Romans did—in respect to jewelry. For more than three hundred years after the Roman invasion, British jewelry followed, to a great extent, the fashions set by Italy.

With the invading Teutonic tribes in the fifth century there came a new wave of influence, which was, of course, reflected in personal ornaments. Nevertheless, the established traditions of the Roman and Celtic arts were too deeprooted to be easily overthrown, and the work of the Anglo-Saxon goldsmith was never entirely free from their influence.

Both the skill and originality of the goldsmith-jeweler was stimulated by the constant demand for personal ornaments. He was called upon to fashion rings and bracelets intended to be given as rewards of valor; he made amulets of amber and necklaces of precious stones in settings of twisted gold. He made clever use of thin slices of garnet or millefiori glass or pastes of various colors, employing them like bits of mosaic in representations of birds, flowers, or geometrical designs. Many brooches were shaped like birds whose feathers and colorful markings were wrought in bright inlays of glass set within partitions of tiny wires soldered to a metal base.

Following the introduction of Christian art from Rome and Byzantium, Anglo-Saxon jewels took on new forms and character. The Byzantine school sought to combine exquisite treatment of detail with the Oriental love of color. Under this influence the Saxon goldsmith became a master in the use of colorful translucent cloisonńe enamel and delicate gold work.

The ring worn by the Anglo-Saxon at an earlier period had been very primitive indeed, usually a bit of wire twisted into a hoop or spiral. But the rings of the later period show considerable technical skill, especially in the use of neillo, a bluish black metallic inlay which was used extensively on both gold and silver. There can scarcely be a better description of its nature than that given in an ancient manuscript. Probably the author was one of those earnest monks bent on disseminating knowledge of the arts. Says he:

When you wish to make niello, take equal parts of quick-silver, copper and lead and put them in a vessel that they may cook together. Then take of sulphur, as much as is the total of the metals, mix it with them and stir it. When it has calcined, cast it anywhere, where there is clean water, mix it with borax and paint what you wish in the circles. The ‘circles’ are the design carved on the metal base, thus forming grooves to retain the niello inlay.

One of the finest examples of a ring enriched with niello is the massive Anglo-Saxon ring of the ninth century, now belonging to the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is thought to have been made for Alhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, and is composed of four circular and four lozenge-shaped pieces. The latter are ornamented with conventionalized animals, and on the roundels are the letters of the Bishop’s name. The most famous of all English rings belongs to the same period. It is also decorated with niello and bears the name Ethelwulf.

Often niello, enamel work, and inlaid stones were used in combination on a single piece of jewelry such as a brooch. A magnificent example is the Tara Brooch, found on the seashore about a hundred years ago near Bettystown, Cape Louth, Ireland. Aside from its interest as a beautiful and world-famous jewel, it is a fine example of the goldsmith’s art. The while bronze metal is hammered, chased, engraved and thickly gilded. In addition to niello, granulation and filigree, the brooch is further enriched with glass, amber, and blue and red enamels mounted like gems.

Counted among the most famous relics of England is the Alfred Jewel, believed to have been made under the personal direction of King Alfred himself. It was found at Newton Park near Somerset, in 1693, and was later presented to the Ashmoleon Museum at Oxford. No one is certain what the jewel was intended for. Possibly it formed the central ornament in a crown, or it may have been worn as a pendant. In general shape it is an oval elongated at the lower end, somewhat like a hand glass with a wide handle. The design represents a man, supposed by some to be Christ, holding a scepter in each hand; by others it is thought to be the figure of a saint. Legend has it that St Cuthbert appeared to the Saxon King during his stay on the Isle of Althelney, where, in 878, Alfred sought refuge from the Danes—hence the saint’s effigy on the jewel.

The combined arts of the goldsmith were lavished on that jewel. It is decorated with colorful semi-translucent enamels, filigree, and granular goldworks; and around its sloping sides, in letters of gold, runs the legend: Aelfred Mec Heht Gewyrcan (Alfred ordered me to be made).

The ancient practice of burying weapons and personal ornaments with the dead continued well into the eighth century, and to this custom is due the fact that many beautiful specimens of jewelry of that period are still preserved.

But with the coming of Charlemagne a new attitude toward articles of value was introduced. The Emperor forbade the burying of jewels. He considered it a pagan custom, out of keeping with Christian ideology. Furthermore, it was wasteful.

No doubt Charlemagne’s law was wise in its time, nevertheless jewels kept in circulation have far less chance of survival than those stowed safely underground, and we of today are the losers by reason of that law. A conspicuous dearth of surviving jewels marks the period from the reign of Charlemagne onward for some centuries.

However, we are not entirely without knowledge concerning the methods and techniques of the day because certain meticulous records of the goldsmith’s craft were made at the time and still exist.

Eighteenth Century British Portraiture

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

In his discourse to the Academy students in 1778, Reynolds observed that blue should not be massed together in a picture, whereupon Gainsborough proceeded subsequently to paint his famous ‘Blue Boy’ and, by his brilliant success with the boy’s blue dress, put Reynolds in the wrong. It is highly probably that the blues which figure so prominently in his beautiful portrait of ‘Mrs Siddons’ are another expression of Gainsborough’s disapproval of Sir Joshua’s dogmatic teaching. We have only to compare this Gainsborough portrait with Reynolds’s painting of the same actress as ‘The Tragic Muse’ to realize the difference between the two artists. Reynolds painted his picture in 1783, Gainsborough his in 1784, when Mrs Siddons was twenty eight; but, though actually a year younger, everyone will agree that the actress looks years older in Sir Joshua’s picture. Reynolds emphasized the intellectual qualities of the great tragedienne, his endeavor was to show the sublimity of her mind; Gainsborough was content to show the charm and vivacity of her person, and that is why Mrs Siddons looks younger in his portrait. Another temperamental difference between the two artists is shown in their hobbies; while Sir Joshua was interested in literature and delighted in conversing with the learned, Gainsborough’s ruling passion was music. He was not only a good musician himself but was completely carried away by the playing of others. Once when a talented amateur, a Colonel Hamilton, was playing the violin at his house, Gainsborough called out, ‘Go on, go on, and I will give the picture of ‘The Boy at the Stile’ which you have so often wished to buy of me.’ The Colonel ‘went on’ and eventually returned home with the coveted picture of his reward. This love of music makes itself felt in Gainsborough’s pictures, which are lyrical, the paintings of an artist who sings, while those of Reynolds are more philosophical, the pictures of a man who thinks in paint.

Of all the English eighteenth century portraitists Gainsborough is the lightest and airiest, and in freshness of color and in gracefulness without affectation his portraits more than rival those of Reynolds. His ‘Miss Haverfield’ is more of little lady than any of Sir Joshua’s children, and though her gentility may not be accounted of virtue, and while we must admit that Reynold’s ‘Age of Innocence’ has more psychological profundity, ye we cannot find another portrait in the world which excels this Gainsborough in rendering the flower-like charm of childhood.

Though by his portraits Gainsborough acquired so considerable a fortune that he could afford to have country houses at Richmond and in Hampshire as well as his town house, his landscapes rarely found buyers, and remained ‘admired and unsold till they stood ranged in long lines from his hall to his painting room.’ At his death his house was filled with his own landscapes. The end came with some suddenness. A pain in the neck, to which he had paid little attention, turned out to be due to a cancer, and when the physicians pronounced his case hopeless, he settled his affairs with composure and prepared to meet death. He was particularly anxious to be reconciled with Sir Joshua and begged him to visit him on his death bed. When Reynolds came an affecting reconciliation took place: ‘We are all going to heaven,’ said Gainsborough, ‘and Vandyck is of the party.’ Thomas Gainsborough died on August 2, 1788, and by his own desire was buried as privately as possible in Kew Churchyard. Sir Joshua Reynolds was one of the pall-bearers, and in his presidential address to the Academy in the following year he paid an eloquent tribute to the memory of his former rival.

Eighteenth Century British Portraiture (continued)