The story of Eric Estorick is unique + the collection of art and sculpture (s) dating from 1890 to the 1950s includes Giacomo Balla + Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà + Gino Severini + Luigi Russolo + Ardengo Soffici + works by Giorgio de Chirico + Amedeo Modigliani + Giorgio Morandi + Mario Sironi + Marino Marini + the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art museum in Canonbury Square in the district of Islington on the northern fringes of central London is the United Kingdom's only gallery devoted to modern Italian art.
Useful links:
www.estorickcollection.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estorick_Collection_of_Modern_Italian_Art
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/15/arts/melik16.php
What made Eric a great collector?
A wonderful eye, timing, foresight, energy.
-Michael Estorick
I think that neatly sums up what it takes to be an art hunter, whether as a dealer or a collector.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Flawless
Trailer for 'Flawless', the new diamond movie @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GfpT1GCXy8
I hope you will like it.
I hope you will like it.
The Detective And The Investor
The Detective and The Investor by Robert G. Hagstrom is an interesting novel book on how the investigative methods used by the great fictional detectives to analyse the evidence and solve the mystery can be used by investors when analysing a business and determining its value + I liked it.
I was wondering whether the concept could be applied in gem and jewelry analysis + valuation.
I was wondering whether the concept could be applied in gem and jewelry analysis + valuation.
Failed Leadership And Fraudulent Certificates
Chaim Even Zohar writes about the state of DDC (Diamond Dealers Club) today + leadership issues and the impact + GIA’s Certifigate scandal and the key players + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_Forum_Type.asp?id=31
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
- Fancy Or Gadget Rings
It seems probable that a great number of gadget rings perished along with the charm of their novelty. Nevertheless some types of these hybrids still exist to rejoice the hearts of collectors. Among them may be listed such items as the pugilist’s ring intended to be used as a weapon, something akin to ‘brass knuckles’; the compass ring, self-explanatory; the puzzle ring, ornamented with a rebus, and the tobacco stopper.
Tobacco had been introduced into Europe during the latter part of the sixteenth century, but it was too costly a luxury for any but the very wealthy. It was smoked in a small pipe and the smoke was expelled through the nose, not through the mouth. One may picture the young exquisite of the day daintly packing tobacco into his pipe with his golden ring, and breathing smoke from his nostrils—a strange new fashion—a sight to provoke awed admiration tinged with alarm! The tobacco stopper no doubt served its purpose well enough but it must have been an awkward ring to wear.
Then there was the ‘writing diamond’ ring. Vivid among our childhood’s memories of English history, as taught in schools, is the threadbare and doubtless unauthenticatic story of Queen Elizabeth and the aspiring gentleman who wrote upon the windowpane with his ring:
Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall.
And the Queen trying her hand at diamond writing, followed with:
If they heart fail thee, do not climb at all.
We used to think diamond writing must have been a difficult feat and that the ring was made for the sole purpose of writing messages or names on windowpanes. Probably it was used to greater advantage in the new fad for engraving glass tableware.
It Italy, the makers of fine glassware had recently invented a new mode of decorating a thin crystal goblet by covering it with an intricate and lacy design made up of a myriad of fine dots. The engraving tool was a diamond point. Presently glass-men of other countries took by glass-stippling, and before long the layman followed suit. He made a hobby of stippling fairy-like pictures on drinking glasses, and since it was a dainty art it appealed to the ladies, and a pointed diamond set in a ring was a charming tool.
There are many rings of the Renaissance whose bezel is made in the form of a little case with a hinged lid, or with a sliding panel beneath the bezel, thus providing a small space where perfume or poison could be kept. An ingenious form of poison ring borrowed its idea from the rattlesnake. A small hollow tube with a sharp point like a fang was connected with a reservoir of poison. When the point was turned inward, a tiny but fatal pucture could be made merely by clasping the hand of an enemy with warm enthusiasm.
- Fancy Or Gadget Rings
It seems probable that a great number of gadget rings perished along with the charm of their novelty. Nevertheless some types of these hybrids still exist to rejoice the hearts of collectors. Among them may be listed such items as the pugilist’s ring intended to be used as a weapon, something akin to ‘brass knuckles’; the compass ring, self-explanatory; the puzzle ring, ornamented with a rebus, and the tobacco stopper.
Tobacco had been introduced into Europe during the latter part of the sixteenth century, but it was too costly a luxury for any but the very wealthy. It was smoked in a small pipe and the smoke was expelled through the nose, not through the mouth. One may picture the young exquisite of the day daintly packing tobacco into his pipe with his golden ring, and breathing smoke from his nostrils—a strange new fashion—a sight to provoke awed admiration tinged with alarm! The tobacco stopper no doubt served its purpose well enough but it must have been an awkward ring to wear.
Then there was the ‘writing diamond’ ring. Vivid among our childhood’s memories of English history, as taught in schools, is the threadbare and doubtless unauthenticatic story of Queen Elizabeth and the aspiring gentleman who wrote upon the windowpane with his ring:
Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall.
And the Queen trying her hand at diamond writing, followed with:
If they heart fail thee, do not climb at all.
We used to think diamond writing must have been a difficult feat and that the ring was made for the sole purpose of writing messages or names on windowpanes. Probably it was used to greater advantage in the new fad for engraving glass tableware.
It Italy, the makers of fine glassware had recently invented a new mode of decorating a thin crystal goblet by covering it with an intricate and lacy design made up of a myriad of fine dots. The engraving tool was a diamond point. Presently glass-men of other countries took by glass-stippling, and before long the layman followed suit. He made a hobby of stippling fairy-like pictures on drinking glasses, and since it was a dainty art it appealed to the ladies, and a pointed diamond set in a ring was a charming tool.
There are many rings of the Renaissance whose bezel is made in the form of a little case with a hinged lid, or with a sliding panel beneath the bezel, thus providing a small space where perfume or poison could be kept. An ingenious form of poison ring borrowed its idea from the rattlesnake. A small hollow tube with a sharp point like a fang was connected with a reservoir of poison. When the point was turned inward, a tiny but fatal pucture could be made merely by clasping the hand of an enemy with warm enthusiasm.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
From Birmingham David Cox went to London to paint scenery—at four shillings a square yard!—in the Surrey Theatre, varying this work with sepia drawings, which he sold to a dealer at two guineas a dozen for school copies. Meanwhile he made every endeavor to improve his art and took lessons from John Varley (1778-1842), an artist of refined accomplishment, who was one of the founders of the Water-color Society in 1804. Varley, who had had his own struggles before he made a position for himself as one of the best water-colorists of his time, like Cox so much and thought so highly of his talent that he would not allow the young man to pay him for his lessons.
Under Varley’s tuition Cox rapidly improved his art and his circumstances; he was able to quit the theatre and earn money in his turn by giving lessons, and in 1805 he made his first visit to Wales, where he discovered Bettws-y-Coed, ever after to be his Mecca. On his return he exhibited his Welsh water colors, which attracted some attention, and in 1808 he married and settled down in a little house on Dulwich Common. Here he gave lessons to pupils and polished his own art by the diligent study of the surrounding scenery, learning to render the varied effects of Nature and the aspects of morning, noon, and twilight. In 1813 he was elected a member of the Water-color Society and became one of the principal contributors to its exhibitions.
In 1829 he made a tour on the Continent, choosing his subjects on the coasts and in the market places of Antwerp and Brussels, and the crowded bridges of Paris, but he liked best the scenery of his own country, particularly the mountainous country of Wales and Scotland, whose gloomy passes he painted with great effect and grandeur. He also painted many views of the Thames and of the country round London, but till he was past fifty he worked exclusively in water-colors.
In 1839, however, when he was fifty six, Cox became acquainted with a young Bristol painter, William James Mϋller (1812-45), who had just returned from a long journey through Greece and Egypt. Mϋller was himself a very brilliant colorist and a skillful painter in oils; the man and his work made a deep impression on Cox, who studied Mϋller and watched him at work, and henceforward devoted himself more to oils than to water-colors. About 1841 Cox left London and settled at Greenfield House, Harborne, near Birmingham, and there, with an annual excursion of some weeks to his beloved Bettwys-y-Coed, he lived till the day of his death on June 7, 1859. During these later years Cox gave himself chiefly to oil-painting; his best pictures were seldom seen in London during his own lifetime, and when shown were not generally appreciated. It was only after his death that his merit as an oil painter became widely recognized.
Whether in oil or in water color the work of David Cox is distinguished by its light, its vigor, and its spaciousness. His pictures ‘A Windy Day,’ also known as ‘Crossing the Common,’ is a happy example of the scene and weather he excelled in rendering.
From Birmingham David Cox went to London to paint scenery—at four shillings a square yard!—in the Surrey Theatre, varying this work with sepia drawings, which he sold to a dealer at two guineas a dozen for school copies. Meanwhile he made every endeavor to improve his art and took lessons from John Varley (1778-1842), an artist of refined accomplishment, who was one of the founders of the Water-color Society in 1804. Varley, who had had his own struggles before he made a position for himself as one of the best water-colorists of his time, like Cox so much and thought so highly of his talent that he would not allow the young man to pay him for his lessons.
Under Varley’s tuition Cox rapidly improved his art and his circumstances; he was able to quit the theatre and earn money in his turn by giving lessons, and in 1805 he made his first visit to Wales, where he discovered Bettws-y-Coed, ever after to be his Mecca. On his return he exhibited his Welsh water colors, which attracted some attention, and in 1808 he married and settled down in a little house on Dulwich Common. Here he gave lessons to pupils and polished his own art by the diligent study of the surrounding scenery, learning to render the varied effects of Nature and the aspects of morning, noon, and twilight. In 1813 he was elected a member of the Water-color Society and became one of the principal contributors to its exhibitions.
In 1829 he made a tour on the Continent, choosing his subjects on the coasts and in the market places of Antwerp and Brussels, and the crowded bridges of Paris, but he liked best the scenery of his own country, particularly the mountainous country of Wales and Scotland, whose gloomy passes he painted with great effect and grandeur. He also painted many views of the Thames and of the country round London, but till he was past fifty he worked exclusively in water-colors.
In 1839, however, when he was fifty six, Cox became acquainted with a young Bristol painter, William James Mϋller (1812-45), who had just returned from a long journey through Greece and Egypt. Mϋller was himself a very brilliant colorist and a skillful painter in oils; the man and his work made a deep impression on Cox, who studied Mϋller and watched him at work, and henceforward devoted himself more to oils than to water-colors. About 1841 Cox left London and settled at Greenfield House, Harborne, near Birmingham, and there, with an annual excursion of some weeks to his beloved Bettwys-y-Coed, he lived till the day of his death on June 7, 1859. During these later years Cox gave himself chiefly to oil-painting; his best pictures were seldom seen in London during his own lifetime, and when shown were not generally appreciated. It was only after his death that his merit as an oil painter became widely recognized.
Whether in oil or in water color the work of David Cox is distinguished by its light, its vigor, and its spaciousness. His pictures ‘A Windy Day,’ also known as ‘Crossing the Common,’ is a happy example of the scene and weather he excelled in rendering.
Heard On The Street
We have no way of knowing what lays ahead for us in the future + all we can do is use the information at hand to make the best decision possible.
The Estanque
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
During his travels in the Netherlands towards the end of 1559, King Philip II of Spain bought the largest diamond ever seen in Europe. The merchant who sold him the rough stone was (according to Charles de Lecluse, who spells the name in various ways) Juan Carlos Affaitatus. King Philip had the stone fashioned into a single exceptionally fine gem weighing nearly 50 ct, which was given the name of Estanque, meaning ‘impervious’ or ‘adamantine’. He presented the diamond, and the famous Peregrina pearl, to his third wife Elizabeth of Valois as a wedding present. On 13th February 1560 she rode in state into Toledo, wearing both these jewels and another large Table Cut diamond. This second Table can be seen in portraits of the English Queen, Mary Tudor, Philp’s second wife, on whose death in 1558 the diamond returned to the Spanish Crown.
Large Table Cut diamonds were the height of fashion in Spain at that time; they often had drop-shaped pearls suspended from them. The Peregrina and the Estanque were later combined into one jewel known as the Joyel Rico or the Jewel of the Austrias, which suggests that it was created for Philip’s fourth wife, Anne of Austria.
It has only been possible to analyze the cut of the stone through the efforts of Dr Muller, who discovered a most interesting description in Saez Diez’s manual for jewelers, published in 1781. Diez claimed that the area of the gem was equal to the area of a 56ct diamond. He had not actually seen the gem, but it is clear that a trustworthy informant had compared the size of the Estanque with Jeffries’ charts.
A number of portraits of Spanish queens show the Estanque diamond, but in most of them the brushwork is imprecise. However, in the portrait of Margarita of Austria, wife of Philip III of Spain, Bartolomé Gonzales (appointed Pintor del Rei in 1617) has reproduced the gem with exceptional accuracy. He shows the size of the table and the culet, the stepping of the pavilion, and the reflections of the culet in the crown facets. These last indicate that it was a shallow stone.
Drawing of the Estanque diamond: diameter of 22mm, a table size of 78 percent and a crown height of 11 percent. The angles of inclination are 45° both above and below the girdle. The application of a step near the culet was a device widely used in Antwerp throughout the period when Table Cuts remained in fashion. It made it possible to reduce the size of the culet and at the same time to retain the 45° angles of the pavilion. If the step was applied at precisely the right point, it gave increased reflections of light from the pavilion. The broken lines in the diagram indicate the shape of a standard High Table Cut.
Two other painting of the Estanque diamond confirm my analysis of it: a portrait of Queen Anna by Alonso Sanchez Coello and a portrait of Queen Margarita, said to have been painted by Diego Velázquez and his studio.
During his travels in the Netherlands towards the end of 1559, King Philip II of Spain bought the largest diamond ever seen in Europe. The merchant who sold him the rough stone was (according to Charles de Lecluse, who spells the name in various ways) Juan Carlos Affaitatus. King Philip had the stone fashioned into a single exceptionally fine gem weighing nearly 50 ct, which was given the name of Estanque, meaning ‘impervious’ or ‘adamantine’. He presented the diamond, and the famous Peregrina pearl, to his third wife Elizabeth of Valois as a wedding present. On 13th February 1560 she rode in state into Toledo, wearing both these jewels and another large Table Cut diamond. This second Table can be seen in portraits of the English Queen, Mary Tudor, Philp’s second wife, on whose death in 1558 the diamond returned to the Spanish Crown.
Large Table Cut diamonds were the height of fashion in Spain at that time; they often had drop-shaped pearls suspended from them. The Peregrina and the Estanque were later combined into one jewel known as the Joyel Rico or the Jewel of the Austrias, which suggests that it was created for Philip’s fourth wife, Anne of Austria.
It has only been possible to analyze the cut of the stone through the efforts of Dr Muller, who discovered a most interesting description in Saez Diez’s manual for jewelers, published in 1781. Diez claimed that the area of the gem was equal to the area of a 56ct diamond. He had not actually seen the gem, but it is clear that a trustworthy informant had compared the size of the Estanque with Jeffries’ charts.
A number of portraits of Spanish queens show the Estanque diamond, but in most of them the brushwork is imprecise. However, in the portrait of Margarita of Austria, wife of Philip III of Spain, Bartolomé Gonzales (appointed Pintor del Rei in 1617) has reproduced the gem with exceptional accuracy. He shows the size of the table and the culet, the stepping of the pavilion, and the reflections of the culet in the crown facets. These last indicate that it was a shallow stone.
Drawing of the Estanque diamond: diameter of 22mm, a table size of 78 percent and a crown height of 11 percent. The angles of inclination are 45° both above and below the girdle. The application of a step near the culet was a device widely used in Antwerp throughout the period when Table Cuts remained in fashion. It made it possible to reduce the size of the culet and at the same time to retain the 45° angles of the pavilion. If the step was applied at precisely the right point, it gave increased reflections of light from the pavilion. The broken lines in the diagram indicate the shape of a standard High Table Cut.
Two other painting of the Estanque diamond confirm my analysis of it: a portrait of Queen Anna by Alonso Sanchez Coello and a portrait of Queen Margarita, said to have been painted by Diego Velázquez and his studio.
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