Diamond Market Update

Industry analysts believe 2008 will be a tough year for the trade + jewelry sector due to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, elsewhere + the credit crunch caused by a major downturn in the housing market + Diamond Trading Company’s (DTC) just revised sightholder list + the high gas/metal prices + high labor costs + demographics shift + I think the ones that are going to survive are the ones with good brands/customer base + cash flow.

Full Table Cuts With Blunt, Missing Or Broken Corners

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

In 1530, a large Table Cut diamond set in a pendant, with drop-shaped pearl hanging below it, was included in the French Crown inventory. The jewel is thought originally to have been among the personal possessions of Queen Claude of France, wife of Francis I and mother of Henry II. In 1531 it was renamed Table de Gêne on the occasion of the marriage of Catherine de Medici to the future Henry II. In 1560 it was listed again, this time as part of a headband belonging to Mary Stuart, wife of their son Francis II. Besides the Table de Gêne, the headband contained six other diamonds, all of approximately the same size, among them the Pointe de Bretagne and the Pointe de Milan, and a thin Table Cut diamond with a lozenge-shaped table facet—a French Cut in modern terminology.

The Table de Gêne was originally described as a High Table Cut (une grande table de dyament haultz de bizeaux). In 1570 the phrase ‘longuet et escornée ďun coing’ was added, indicating that it had a slightly elongated rectangular outline and one blunt corner. Finally, in a hatband made for Elizabeth of Austria, wife of Charles IX of France, the further addition ‘à deux fons’ was made, implying that the pavilion was step cut. In 1576 the whole jewel was pawned to Cardinal Farnese and has never been recovered.

In Thomas Cletscher’s sketchbook there is an illustration of the 36 ct Table Cut diamond known as The Great Pindar or simply as ‘The Great Diamond’. The dimensions of the stone are 19 x 17.5 mm which, according to Jeffries’ chart for a diamond of that weight, indicates that it was a stone of perfect proportions with 45° angles both above and below the girdle. The diamond was considered perfect in every other respect: ‘Heeft en botten hoack, is suijver, schoon water’. Cletscher tells us, and this is confirmed by Gans, that his father-in-law Niccolo Ghysberti (Nicolaes Ghijsbertij), representative of the United Provinces in Constantinople, purchased this stone for Paul Pindar (Pawels Pinder).

Sir Paul Pindar (1565?-1650) was a businessman and a diplomat. In a British warrant of indemnity dated 7 July 1623, there is an entry which clearly refers to the Pindar diamond: ‘A great dyamond sett open, without foyle (this indicates that it had perfect proportions and symmetry) to which is added the least of the three pearles pendante, which did hang at the Portugall dyamond.’ A receipt dated 2 May 1626 states: ‘Received by me Sir Paulo Pindar Knight by ways of defalcation out of the rent of the allomworks payable by me and William Curno Esquire the sum of £9440 in part of payment of a greater sum due to me for a great diamond by me sold to His Majesty. I say received by virtue of His Majesty’s Letters Patents under the great seal of England dated the 10th of August 1625.’ There seems to be some doubt as to the full price agreed, or possibly there were two different stones, but in any case there is no record that Sir Paul ever received the balance due. Clearly Charles I had no hesitation in acquiring jewels for which he had neither the means nor the intention of paying!

It can be fairly confidently assumed that this gem eventually became number two of Mazarin’s famous collection of eighteen diamonds, which he bequeathed to the French Crown. A diamond of the size and splendor of Mazarin’s second could hardly have ‘sprung suddenly upon the world without a history.’ It is more than likely that the Great Pindar was one of the three diamonds, said to have weighed 36 ct each, which Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, pawned in Amsterdam in 1646. It has been documented that the Sancy and the Mirror of Portugal, both from the English Crown Jewels, were acquired by Cardinal Mazarin, and it is evident that a few more stones in the Cardinal’s collection came from England, too. For obvious reasons their origin was never officially disclosed. At any rate, no other diamond corresponding to the description of The Great Pindar has ever been registered since. Mazarin’s second diamond was recut into a Brilliant in 1774 and became one of the large gems in ‘a white Golden Fleece’ belonging to the French Crown. The large Brilliant was almost certainly The Great Pindar. The jewel was stolen in 1848 and none of the stones has ever been recovered.

Opinions differ as to whether the sitter is Margaret de Medici, daughter of Cosimo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Maria Magdalena of Austria, or Claudia de Medici, daughter of Ferdinand I and Christine of Lorraine. Apart from her magnificent string of pearls, this princess is modest enough to wear no other jewelry except a diamond brooch. The brooch is interesting in that all its gems are Table Cut, even the very smallest. Sustermans painted two other very similar portraits of the same sitter in which she wears a profusion of jewels, all with quite small diamonds which also appear to be Table Cuts. All three portraits are in Florence.

Jewelers Of The Middle Ages

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

2. Pagan Gems And Christian Symbols

And now came about one of the most curious juxtapositions of gems in all history. Bands of Crusaders were constantly going forth to rescue the Holy Land (or perhaps whatever else they came upon) from the infidel. When they returned they brought back, among other loot, vast numbers of precious stones and engraved gems. Religion was militant with a vengeance and the Church benefited by the spoils of war. Gems by the bushel, after being ‘rescued’, found devotional uses in the churches. Yet we should not view these facts with lofty condemnation. To the people of the Middle Ages, it seemed right, and in no way incongruous, that God should be glorified by such offerings. The vestments of the clergy were heavy with gems, and whether or not the beauty of some devotional object was enhanced (generally it was not) by the addition of gems, it was sure to be stuck as full of them as a plum pudding with fruit, and their placement was about as hit or miss.

The bizarre element in this juxtaposition of pagan gems and Christian symbols was that many of the stones brought home by the Crusaders were cameos or intaglios representing a god of Greek or Roman mythology, which was all Greek to the clergy who were ignorant of such matters. Monks and bishops wore rings whose gems bore the likeness of some mythological god or goddess-Hercules, Hermes, Cupid, or even Venus. With a clear conscience the holy men wore their gems to the glory of God and interpreted the carved figures according to their own ideas.

Any figure with wings, such as Cupid or Victory, was an angel. A veiled female was the Madonna or the Magdalene. Figures with crooks were bishops, and the rest were saints. Just how the infidels happened to carve Christian saints and angels in not explained. The age was not too curious. It accepted the most fantastic inventions of imaginations and swallowed them whole.

In the Metropolitan Museum there are some good examples of the ritual paraphernalia of Christian devotion all pranked out (one cannot say ornamented) with cameos. Each cameo is beautiful by itself but in such loud discord both in idea and in style of work with the thing it embellishes that beauty is not achieved. But never mind beauty for the moment; these things are records of the hearts and minds of a bygone age. Their naive incongruity is more subtly expressive than a page from written history.

Among such treasures at the Metropolitan Museum is a triptych about fifteen inches high. Its central panel bears an oblong picture of the Virgin. This is executed in enamel and has the quaint charm of Medieval design. But the Virgin, intended as the focus of attention, is quite overwhelmed and outdone by large crystals cut en cabochon and ancient cameos representing a host of alien deities, including a delightful little Cupid. Crystals and cameos surround the central picture and are set prodigally in both wings of the triptych.

During the crusades, while the high tide of gems pouring in from overseas deluged the Church, there was plenty of overflow for the laity. The costumes of the rich were gorgeous with gold and magnificent jewels; and much of the jewelry was devotional in character. Small diptychs (two leaves closing like a book) with pictured saints inside were encrusted with engraved gems and worn as pendants. There were portable reliquaries of various and sometimes extraordinary shapes also bejeweled with Greek gems.

Relics of saints, spikes from the Crown of Thorns and fragments of the Cross were eagerly sought by pilgrims who came to the Church of St Croce-in-Gerusalemme in Rome; and when, on an Easter Sunday, the True Cross was solemnly exposed to the people ‘their curious devotion was rewarded,’ says Gibbons, ‘by the gift of small pieces, which they encased in gold or gems and carried away in triumph to their respective countries.’

These hollow gems were often bean-shaped and hinged together, forming a case.

Jewelers Of The Middle Ages (continued)

Eighteenth Century British Portraiture

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

3

The greatest portrait painter that Scotland has ever produced, Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A., belonged to a younger generation than any of the artists whose lives we have so far recounted. Raeburn was born at Stockbridge, a suburb of Edinburgh, on March 4, 1756, and so was thirty three years younger than Reynolds, twenty nine years younger than Gainsborough, and twenty two years younger than Romney. His father, a well-to-do manufacturer, died when young Henry was six, and his elder brother then looked after him, had him educated at Heriot’s School—where he showed his leaning by making caricatures of his masters and school fellows—and apprenticed him at the age of fifteen to an Edinburgh goldsmith. There he also began to paint miniatures, and these gradually attracted attention till Raeburn broadened out into oil portraits and landscapes.

Like Gainsborough, he loved to ramble about the countryside sketching, and in one of his open-air sketches he introduced the figure of a charming young lady whom he had seen crossing the meadow. Some time later this young lady presented herself at Raeburn’s studio to have her portrait painted. She was the widow of a wealthy Frenchman, Count Leslie, but herself a Scottish girl, her maiden name having been Ann Edgar. During their sittings the artist and his model fell deeply in love with each other; there was no one to hinder their union, so they were quickly married, and at the age of twenty two young Raeburn found himself the possessor of a charming wife, a fine house at Edinburgh, and a comfortable income which made ‘potboiling’ unnecessary.

Under these happy circumstances he rapidly came to the front as a portrait painter. About 1785 he visited London and called on Sir Joshua Reynolds, who, himself now almost an Old Master, showed the young artist every possible kindness and gave him much good advice. Reynolds urged him to visit Rome and ‘saturate’ himself in Michael Angelo, generously offering to lend him money for the journey. This, however, Raeburn did not need, but he followed the advice of the veteran, and went to Rome, where he remained for nearly two years and greatly strengthened his art. In 1787 he returned to Edinburgh and soon after, inheriting some property from his brother, he built himself the splendid studio and picture gallery in York Place, which still stands and is known as ‘Raeburn House.’

From this time on till the day of his death in 1823, the career of Raeburn was an unbroken sequence of happiness and success. Acting, it is said, on the advice of Lawrence, he wisely preferred to be the best painter in Edinburgh rather than one of several good painters in London. But though he never resided in England, he exhibited regularly at the Academy from 1792 to the year of his death; he was elected an Associate in 1812 and made a full Academician three years later. He was knighted when George IV visited Edinburgh in 1822 and soon afterwards appointed His Majesty’s Limner for Scotland.

Raeburn was probably wise to remain in Scotland, for it is by no means certain that the rugged truthfulness which was the chief characteristic of his portraiture would have pleased London society. He was the most vigorous of all the eighteenth-century British portrait-painters, and none of them succeeded so well as he did in setting on canvas the splendid figure of a man. Though he has left us many noble and dignified paintings of women, Raeburn is held to have excelled himself in male portraitures, and his masterpiece, ‘Sir John Sinclair’, can hold its own for vitality, solidity, and dignity with any painted man in existence.

Raeburn was one of the most methodical and industrious of all the world’s great portrait-painters. He rose at seven, breakfasted at eight, entered his studio at nine, and worked there till five in the afternoon. It is said that he spent more time looking at his sitters than in painting them, for he would search the countenance before him till he had penetrated to the character of the person, and the beginning with forehead, chin, nose, and mouth, he would paint away rapidly, never making any preliminary drawing, and never using a mahl-stick to support his brush. His method was free and vigorous, and the results he obtained by it preserved the freedom and vigor of his process.

Though money is not everything in art, it is a rough-and-ready index to the estimation in which a painter is held, and therefore it may be mentioned here that the saleroom record for a British portrait was made in 1911 by a Raeburn, which fetched 22300 guineas at Christie’s.

Eighteenth Century British Portraiture (continued)

Free Music

Radiohead started the trend when they offered their album In Rainbows on the internet last year for whatever price listeners were willing to pay + now a host of new services, with the backing of major labels, are promising to revolutionise how music is distributed by offering millions of tracks for nothing (hard to believe!) + the move into a free service is a sea change for an industry which spent years fighting through the courts with companies offering free internet downloading and sharing of songs.

Free Music @
Qtrax.com
We7.com
Imeem.com
Last.fm

Ivanka Trump Collection

Ivanka Trump has a new jewelry line + a magic mix and match of old-Hollywood glamor with new concepts, with more emphasis on diamonds, pearls and black onyx + I think it may appeal to women of all ages who enjoy beautiful jewelry.

Useful link:
www.ivankatrumpcollection.com

Sense Of Smell

Retail jeweler (s) are on the scenting bandwagon because consumers are more likely to linger in a store that smells nice + increased browsing time raises the chances that consumers may make a purchase + I think the scenting evolution may be the tip of the iceberg--a unique tool to create customer loyalty.

A few interesting facts about our sense of smell:
- People recall smells with about 65% accuracy after a year, compared to 50% for visual recall of pictures after about three months.
- A woman's sense of smell is keener than a man's.
- Your sense of smell is least acute in the morning; ability to perceive odors increases as the day wears on.
- The average human being is able to detect about 10000 different odors.
- No two people smell the same odor the same way.

Useful link:
www.senseofsmell.org

Diamonds Class Action

If you purchased a gem diamond or diamond jewelry between January 1, 1994 and March 31, 2006, you may have a claim to receive benefits in a proposed class action settlement. The case is called Sullivan v. DB Investments, Inc., Civil Action Index No.04-2819 (SRC). These lawsuits are about gem diamond pricing, and the proposed settlement is with De Beers, a miner and seller of rough gem diamonds.

To get complete information about the Class Actions and your rights + to see if you qualify to receive a cash payment, you should visit www.diamondsclassaction.com