Object ID is an international standard for describing cultural objects + it has been developed through the collaboration of the museum community, police and customs agencies, the art trade, insurance industry, and valuers of art and antiques.
Useful link:
www.object-id.com
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Natural Color Diamond Update
The Natural Color Diamond Association + The Nielsen Company has launched a unique program called Marketscope, which I think may be an effective medium to share market research + demographic data for the members of the association + the concept may initiate effective marketing and increased sales + I wish them good luck with the new concept.
Useful links:
www.ncdia.com
www.nielsen.com
Useful links:
www.ncdia.com
www.nielsen.com
The Mind Of Wall Street
The Mind of Wall Street by Leon Levy + Eugene Linden is about two loves of Leon Levy's life -- the stock market and psychology + there are nuggets of wisdom garnered over a lifetime of investing that one finds in the book + I liked it.
Patrick O'Brian
I think all of the books by Patrick O'Brian in the Aubrey/Maturin series contain insights about economics that are timeless and valuable.
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
- Curative Rings
Since ideas of religion, magic and medicine were still so entangled one with the other that there were no clearly defined boundaries between them, it naturally follows that this confusion is shown in the rings of the period. Belief in the curative powers of gemstones and the efficacy of inscriptions and devices engraved thereon had survived the Middle Ages and flourished as mightily during the Renaissance as it had it earlier times. To be sure, by now, a few scholars voiced skepticism concerning certain supersititions, while stoutly maintaining that others were facts. But on the whole, everybody believed that the right kind of ring would cure ills of body, soul, or estate according to need. Some details concerning these beliefs have already been given in former chapters.
There is one type of curative rings, however, that seems to have gained particular prominence during the Renaissance, namely, the ‘cramp ring’. It was supposed to be a protection, as the name indicates, against cramps. Tradition says these rings were made from gold coins given by successive kings of England at the offertory at Westminster Abbey on Good Friday. But a cramp ring was not always made of gold. During the sixteenth century, when its fame had spread from England to other countries of Europe, the great demand was met by rings of baser metal. Cellini refers to a cramp ring made of lead and copper, worth tenpence.
The toadstone, highly prized as a ring-charm, has been immortalized by Shakespeare:
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
But unfortunately for this poetic conception, the toadstone is not a stone (being the fossilized tooth of a fish) nor—quite obviously—does it come from the head of a toad. Nevertheless such stones were believed to be carried in the heads of large old toads and were recommended for curing dropsy and the spleen. Directions for procuring a toadstone are set forth in the Kyranides, a work of Gnostic tendencies, thought to have been written at Alexandria:
The earth-toad, called saccos, whose breath is poisonous, has a stone in the marrow of its head. If you take it when the moon is waning, put it in a linen cloth for forty days, and then cut it from the cloth and take the stone, you will have a powerful amulet.
The toadstone possessed great sensitivity. If brought in contact with poison it was said to change color and to sweat. And whether or not your toadstone was genuine could be most easily proved. All that was necessary was to place the stone in front of a toad and if the toad straightway snatched up the stone, then it was a real toadstone, but if the toad remained indifferent then your stone was not genuine.
One of the first illustrated books on drugs, the Hortus Sanitatis, written in 1483, has hand-illuminated pictures, one of which shows the proper way to extract a curative toadstone from your toad. Another picture illustrates the manner in which a bloodstone should be applied to the nose in order to prevent nosebleed.
An elaborate full-page drawing represents the interior of a lapidary-apothecary’s shop. At the back is a doctor instructing his pupil in the medicinal virtues of stones, while in the front of the shop six customers at once are buying ‘medicine rocks.’ It takes two clerks to wait on them, and apparently no medicine except ‘rocks,’ judging form the display on the five tables, is carried in stock by this shop, although of course doctors did not confine their nostrums entirely to the mineral kingdom. They used both vegetable and animal ingredients, often cooking up the most revolting messes, the worse the better, for their long-suffering patients to swallow.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
- Curative Rings
Since ideas of religion, magic and medicine were still so entangled one with the other that there were no clearly defined boundaries between them, it naturally follows that this confusion is shown in the rings of the period. Belief in the curative powers of gemstones and the efficacy of inscriptions and devices engraved thereon had survived the Middle Ages and flourished as mightily during the Renaissance as it had it earlier times. To be sure, by now, a few scholars voiced skepticism concerning certain supersititions, while stoutly maintaining that others were facts. But on the whole, everybody believed that the right kind of ring would cure ills of body, soul, or estate according to need. Some details concerning these beliefs have already been given in former chapters.
There is one type of curative rings, however, that seems to have gained particular prominence during the Renaissance, namely, the ‘cramp ring’. It was supposed to be a protection, as the name indicates, against cramps. Tradition says these rings were made from gold coins given by successive kings of England at the offertory at Westminster Abbey on Good Friday. But a cramp ring was not always made of gold. During the sixteenth century, when its fame had spread from England to other countries of Europe, the great demand was met by rings of baser metal. Cellini refers to a cramp ring made of lead and copper, worth tenpence.
The toadstone, highly prized as a ring-charm, has been immortalized by Shakespeare:
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
But unfortunately for this poetic conception, the toadstone is not a stone (being the fossilized tooth of a fish) nor—quite obviously—does it come from the head of a toad. Nevertheless such stones were believed to be carried in the heads of large old toads and were recommended for curing dropsy and the spleen. Directions for procuring a toadstone are set forth in the Kyranides, a work of Gnostic tendencies, thought to have been written at Alexandria:
The earth-toad, called saccos, whose breath is poisonous, has a stone in the marrow of its head. If you take it when the moon is waning, put it in a linen cloth for forty days, and then cut it from the cloth and take the stone, you will have a powerful amulet.
The toadstone possessed great sensitivity. If brought in contact with poison it was said to change color and to sweat. And whether or not your toadstone was genuine could be most easily proved. All that was necessary was to place the stone in front of a toad and if the toad straightway snatched up the stone, then it was a real toadstone, but if the toad remained indifferent then your stone was not genuine.
One of the first illustrated books on drugs, the Hortus Sanitatis, written in 1483, has hand-illuminated pictures, one of which shows the proper way to extract a curative toadstone from your toad. Another picture illustrates the manner in which a bloodstone should be applied to the nose in order to prevent nosebleed.
An elaborate full-page drawing represents the interior of a lapidary-apothecary’s shop. At the back is a doctor instructing his pupil in the medicinal virtues of stones, while in the front of the shop six customers at once are buying ‘medicine rocks.’ It takes two clerks to wait on them, and apparently no medicine except ‘rocks,’ judging form the display on the five tables, is carried in stock by this shop, although of course doctors did not confine their nostrums entirely to the mineral kingdom. They used both vegetable and animal ingredients, often cooking up the most revolting messes, the worse the better, for their long-suffering patients to swallow.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
In 1840, when Turner was sixty five, he met a young man of twenty one, fresh from Oxford, who, from the time he first saw the illustrations to Roger’s Italy, had worshipped the genius of Turner, and was destined to become his persistent and most eloquent champion. This was John Ruskin, who in 1843—the year in which Turner painted ‘The Approach to Venice’ – published the first volume of his Modern Painters, an epoch-making book, the real subject of which was the superiority of Turner to all painters past and present. Henceforward, however others might laugh at and ridicule his magical color visions, Turner now had an enthusiastic defender whose opinions yearly became more authoritative and more widely respected. It is no exaggeration to say that to the constant eulogy of Ruskin is due in no small measure the universal esteem in which Turner is held today.
Though he never married, Turner had a natural liking for a quiet domestic existence, and after his father’s death he began to lead a double life. Under the assumed name of Booth he formed a connection with a woman who kept a house at 119 Cheyne Walk, where he had been accustomed occasionally to lodge, and ‘Puggy’ or ‘Admiral’ Booth became a well-known character in Chelsea, where he was reputed to be a retired mariner of eccentric disposition, fond of his glass, and never tired of watching the sun. On the roof of the house in Cheyne Walk there was a gallery, and here ‘Mr Booth’ would sit for hours at dawn and sunset. The secret of his double existence was not discovered till the day before his death, for he had been accustomed to absent himself from Queen Anne Street for long intervals and therefore was not missed. Suddenly those who knew him as Turner learnt that the great artist was lying dead in a little house at Chelsea, where his last illness had seized him, and where he died on December 19, 1851. The body was removed to the house in Queen Anne Street, and afterwards buried in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Turner left a fortune of £140,000, and after making a number of small annuities left the bulk of it for the benefit of art and artists; but his will, drawn by himself, was so vague and unskillfully framed that, after four years litigation, a compromise was arranged on the advice of the Lord Chancellor. The Royal Academy received £20000, which is set aside as the Turner Fund for the relief of poor artists not members of their body, and the National Gallery acquired the magnificent gift of 362 oil paintings, 135 finished water colors, 1757 studies in color, and thousands of drawings and sketches. The task of sifting, arranging, and cataloguing the water colors and sketches which Turner bequeathed to the nation was rightly placed in the sympathetic hands of his great advocate, John Ruskin.
The life of Turner, as we have seen, was full of strangeness and contradictions, and it is possible he may have inherited some of his eccentricities from his mother, a woman of fierce temper, who eventually became insane. There was little correspodence between his art and his life, for, as Mr E V Lucas has justly said: ‘Turner’s works are marvels of loveliness and grandeur; Turner was grubby, miserly, jealous, and squalid in his tastes. He saw visions and glorified even what was already glorious; and he deliberately chose to live in houses think with grime, and often to consort with inferior persons.’ The evidence before us compels us to believe that he was really happier as ‘Puggy Booth’ with a few cronies in a Chelsea bar-parlor than as ‘the famous Mr Turner’ in the company of his patron, Lord Egremont, or in the hospitable mansion of Mr Fawkes of Farnley Hall.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
In 1840, when Turner was sixty five, he met a young man of twenty one, fresh from Oxford, who, from the time he first saw the illustrations to Roger’s Italy, had worshipped the genius of Turner, and was destined to become his persistent and most eloquent champion. This was John Ruskin, who in 1843—the year in which Turner painted ‘The Approach to Venice’ – published the first volume of his Modern Painters, an epoch-making book, the real subject of which was the superiority of Turner to all painters past and present. Henceforward, however others might laugh at and ridicule his magical color visions, Turner now had an enthusiastic defender whose opinions yearly became more authoritative and more widely respected. It is no exaggeration to say that to the constant eulogy of Ruskin is due in no small measure the universal esteem in which Turner is held today.
Though he never married, Turner had a natural liking for a quiet domestic existence, and after his father’s death he began to lead a double life. Under the assumed name of Booth he formed a connection with a woman who kept a house at 119 Cheyne Walk, where he had been accustomed occasionally to lodge, and ‘Puggy’ or ‘Admiral’ Booth became a well-known character in Chelsea, where he was reputed to be a retired mariner of eccentric disposition, fond of his glass, and never tired of watching the sun. On the roof of the house in Cheyne Walk there was a gallery, and here ‘Mr Booth’ would sit for hours at dawn and sunset. The secret of his double existence was not discovered till the day before his death, for he had been accustomed to absent himself from Queen Anne Street for long intervals and therefore was not missed. Suddenly those who knew him as Turner learnt that the great artist was lying dead in a little house at Chelsea, where his last illness had seized him, and where he died on December 19, 1851. The body was removed to the house in Queen Anne Street, and afterwards buried in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Turner left a fortune of £140,000, and after making a number of small annuities left the bulk of it for the benefit of art and artists; but his will, drawn by himself, was so vague and unskillfully framed that, after four years litigation, a compromise was arranged on the advice of the Lord Chancellor. The Royal Academy received £20000, which is set aside as the Turner Fund for the relief of poor artists not members of their body, and the National Gallery acquired the magnificent gift of 362 oil paintings, 135 finished water colors, 1757 studies in color, and thousands of drawings and sketches. The task of sifting, arranging, and cataloguing the water colors and sketches which Turner bequeathed to the nation was rightly placed in the sympathetic hands of his great advocate, John Ruskin.
The life of Turner, as we have seen, was full of strangeness and contradictions, and it is possible he may have inherited some of his eccentricities from his mother, a woman of fierce temper, who eventually became insane. There was little correspodence between his art and his life, for, as Mr E V Lucas has justly said: ‘Turner’s works are marvels of loveliness and grandeur; Turner was grubby, miserly, jealous, and squalid in his tastes. He saw visions and glorified even what was already glorious; and he deliberately chose to live in houses think with grime, and often to consort with inferior persons.’ The evidence before us compels us to believe that he was really happier as ‘Puggy Booth’ with a few cronies in a Chelsea bar-parlor than as ‘the famous Mr Turner’ in the company of his patron, Lord Egremont, or in the hospitable mansion of Mr Fawkes of Farnley Hall.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
Miloš Forman
Milos Forman is an actor + screenwriter + professor + two-time Academy Award-winning film director + the 1975 adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, won five Academy Awards (my favorite) + other great movies include Hair (musical, 1979) + Ragtime (1981) + Amadeus (1984) + Valmont (1989) + The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) + Man on the Moon (1999) + Goya's Ghosts (2006) + I love his movies.
Useful links:
www.milosforman.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo%C5%A1_Forman
Useful links:
www.milosforman.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo%C5%A1_Forman
Gold Update
Quite recently the Group of Seven (G-7) approved the sale of gold by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from April as part of a broad reform of its budget, but the big question is whether the U.S Congress (USA is the largest single member nation + the largest single contributor of the IMF's gold) is going to authorize the reform + I think a win or a loss for gold may depend on the precise size, timing and methodology of the disposals + the best thing to do is to watch the US dollar and equity markets (prime movers for the precious metal) and see if the proposed sale is going to impact gold market prices.
Useful links:
www.imf.org
www.bis.org
www.ecb.int
www.thegartmanletter.com
www.thebulliondesk.com
www.kitco.com
Useful links:
www.imf.org
www.bis.org
www.ecb.int
www.thegartmanletter.com
www.thebulliondesk.com
www.kitco.com
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