Thursday, February 21, 2008
Sinhalite From Burma
Sinhalite has been known from Burma (Ohn Gaing: Ongaing, in northern Mogok) for decades + crystals are well-formed + the colors range from light yellow to brownish yellow + the brown coloration is due to iron and other trace elements (Cr/Mn/Ga/Zn) + most commonly confused with chrysoberyl + the name comes from the word Sinhala, the Sanskrit word for Sri Lanka (Ceylon) + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Gold Prospectors
Elisabeth Malkin writes about a new breed of gold prospector: geologists and engineers, armed with sophisticated equipment and millions in investor dollars + other viewpoints @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/18/business/gold.php
Useful links:
www.imdex.com
www.diabras.com
www.paramountgold.com
Useful links:
www.imdex.com
www.diabras.com
www.paramountgold.com
Great Ideas In Psychology
Great Ideas in Psychology: A Cultural and Historical Introduction by Fathali M. Moghaddam is an excellent book on group thinking + I liked it.
Diamond Update
A 101.27-carat stone, the biggest colorless diamond to appear at auction for 20 years, will be sold at the Hong Kong branch of Christie's auction house on May 28, 2008 (the diamond was found at the Premier diamond mine in South Africa, and is being sold by a Europe-based diamond trading company) + expect pleasant surprises!
Useful link:
www.christies.com
Useful link:
www.christies.com
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Dangerous Destinations
(via Forbes) In Pictures: World's Most Dangerous Destinations.
Useful links:
www.ijet.com
www.control-risks.com
I think the info should be useful for gemstone and art dealers who travel frequently to find what they like + certain threats are more frequent now than they have been so you should do your homework and do the right thing.
Useful links:
www.ijet.com
www.control-risks.com
I think the info should be useful for gemstone and art dealers who travel frequently to find what they like + certain threats are more frequent now than they have been so you should do your homework and do the right thing.
The Russian Connection
I found the gold tie clip in the form of a Russian Kalashnikov assault rifle (Junwex, in St Petersburg) @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/19/russia very interesting + I liked it.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
3. The Twelve Mazarins
For some years after young Louis XIV became King of France the diamond cutters of Paris found themselves struggling against heavy odds. For one thing, many Parisians, instead of patroniziing the home jeweler, turned to Amsterdam, where they could buy the finest stones of Golconda, cut in the latest mode, the rose.
Possibly it was with an eye to stimulating interest in the work of French gem cutters that at this time it was decided to refashion twelve of the thickest diamonds in the royal crown. At any rate, under the direction of Cardinal Mazarin the twelve stones were recut according to a new form specially invented for the occasion. Whether or not the Cardinal himself actually did invent the new cutting is a question, but he is usually credited with having done so.
The twelve stones were named for him—The Twelve Mazarins. All we know of their ultimate fate is that in an inventory of the crown jewels of France, dated 1774, there is one diamond listed as ‘The Tenth Mazarin.’ According to the late E W Streeter, leading English authority on gems that ‘tenth Mazarin’ was a ‘four-cornered brilliant.’
The typical brilliant-cut, however, was not invented until the close of the century.
After the Court of Louis XIV had developed into the most magnificent in Europe, the Paris jewelers were top of the wave. Many of them were quartered in the Louvre. They led the fashion in jewelry and their designs became international through the publication of engraved patterns, ready for copying by goldsmiths at large.
Luxury and more luxury was called for by the dazzling monarch. When the noblemen of France or Spain appeared before his super-royal eyes, Louis demanded that they and their wives should carry upon their persons fortunes equal to ‘the value of lands and forests’ in the form of glittering gems. The great mirrors of the famous Galérie des Glaces must have reflected a brilliant galaxy of elegant gentlemen and their still more elegant ladies clad in silks, satins, and laces, all a-sparkle like Christmas trees.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
3. The Twelve Mazarins
For some years after young Louis XIV became King of France the diamond cutters of Paris found themselves struggling against heavy odds. For one thing, many Parisians, instead of patroniziing the home jeweler, turned to Amsterdam, where they could buy the finest stones of Golconda, cut in the latest mode, the rose.
Possibly it was with an eye to stimulating interest in the work of French gem cutters that at this time it was decided to refashion twelve of the thickest diamonds in the royal crown. At any rate, under the direction of Cardinal Mazarin the twelve stones were recut according to a new form specially invented for the occasion. Whether or not the Cardinal himself actually did invent the new cutting is a question, but he is usually credited with having done so.
The twelve stones were named for him—The Twelve Mazarins. All we know of their ultimate fate is that in an inventory of the crown jewels of France, dated 1774, there is one diamond listed as ‘The Tenth Mazarin.’ According to the late E W Streeter, leading English authority on gems that ‘tenth Mazarin’ was a ‘four-cornered brilliant.’
The typical brilliant-cut, however, was not invented until the close of the century.
After the Court of Louis XIV had developed into the most magnificent in Europe, the Paris jewelers were top of the wave. Many of them were quartered in the Louvre. They led the fashion in jewelry and their designs became international through the publication of engraved patterns, ready for copying by goldsmiths at large.
Luxury and more luxury was called for by the dazzling monarch. When the noblemen of France or Spain appeared before his super-royal eyes, Louis demanded that they and their wives should carry upon their persons fortunes equal to ‘the value of lands and forests’ in the form of glittering gems. The great mirrors of the famous Galérie des Glaces must have reflected a brilliant galaxy of elegant gentlemen and their still more elegant ladies clad in silks, satins, and laces, all a-sparkle like Christmas trees.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
For example, in the ‘Sketch for the Leaping Horse,’ the bent willow is to the right of the horse and its rider, as it doubtless was in the scene that Constable actually beheld; but in the picture of ‘The Leaping Horse in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, the tree is shifted to the other side of the horse and rider, more to your left, in order to improve the design and emphasise the rhythm of the diagonal accents from the big tree on our left to the waterweeds in the opposite lower corner. This transposition of the willowtree is exceedingly instructive, for it proves that Constable did not, as some have maintained, simply paint ‘snapshots’ of Nature; he understood the science of picture making as well as any artist, and while desirous above all of presenting the general truth of the scene before him, he did not scruple to alter the position of one particular tree or other object if thereby he thought he could improve the composition of his picture.
Constable was now fifty, but still he was only an A.R.A. Neither ‘The Leaping Horse’ nor ‘The Cornfield’, which he exhibited in 1826, moved his brother artists to make him an Academician, and though ‘The Cornfield attracted a good deal of attention and was one of the first pictures to make Constable talked about in London, it did not sell, but remained in his possession to the day of his death. There would seem to be no denying that to the end of a number of Academicians were unable to appreciate the genius of Constable, and after the death of Joseph Farington in 1821 he had no keen admirer with influence within their ranks. The story is told that one year, after he had at last been elected R.A in 1829, Constable submitted one of his works labelled with another name to the Academy jury. When the majority had voted for its rejection, Constable admitted his authorship and quietly remarked, ‘There, gentlemen, I always thought you did not like my style of painting.’
When official recognition came it was ‘too late,’ as Constable sady said. Fortunately he was not in want, for in 1828 his wife’s father had died and left Constable the sum of £20000. ‘This,’ wrote Constable, ‘I will settle on my wife and children, and I shall then be able to stand before a six-foot canvas with a mind at ease, thank God!’ From this exclamation it would certainly appear as if the painter himself took more pleasure in his six-foot sketch than in painting a picture from it for the market.
Any pleasure he migiht have experienced in his election to the Academy as a full member in 1829 was counteracted by his grief at the loss of his wife, who had just previously died. It was the thought of this faithful companion and helper that prompted Constable to say his election as R.A was ‘too late’.
Though it would be a gross exaggeration to say that Constable ever obtained anything like popularity in his own lifetime, his landscapes after 1831 began to be known to a wider public by virtue of the mezzotints of some of his best paintings by David Lucas (1802-81). Lucas was an engraver of genius, who brilliantly translated into black-and-white the beauties of Constable’s light and shadow, but when he first approached the artist for permission to engrave his work Constable was dismally despondent about project. ‘The painter himself is totally unpopular,’ he said, ‘ and will be so on this side of the grave. The subjects are nothing but art, and the buyers are wholly ignorant of that.’ Nevertheless Lucas persisted with his mezzotints, which did much to spread the fame of Constable, and these engravings are now eagerly sought for at high prices by collectors.
Though never becoming actually despondent or embittered, Constable naturally craved for the appreciation which he felt he deserved, and in the endeavor to court notice he even went so far as to advertise in the newspapers:
‘Mr Constable’s Gallery of Landscapes, by his own hand, is to be seen gratis daily, by an application at his residence.’
Natural Landscape (continued)
For example, in the ‘Sketch for the Leaping Horse,’ the bent willow is to the right of the horse and its rider, as it doubtless was in the scene that Constable actually beheld; but in the picture of ‘The Leaping Horse in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, the tree is shifted to the other side of the horse and rider, more to your left, in order to improve the design and emphasise the rhythm of the diagonal accents from the big tree on our left to the waterweeds in the opposite lower corner. This transposition of the willowtree is exceedingly instructive, for it proves that Constable did not, as some have maintained, simply paint ‘snapshots’ of Nature; he understood the science of picture making as well as any artist, and while desirous above all of presenting the general truth of the scene before him, he did not scruple to alter the position of one particular tree or other object if thereby he thought he could improve the composition of his picture.
Constable was now fifty, but still he was only an A.R.A. Neither ‘The Leaping Horse’ nor ‘The Cornfield’, which he exhibited in 1826, moved his brother artists to make him an Academician, and though ‘The Cornfield attracted a good deal of attention and was one of the first pictures to make Constable talked about in London, it did not sell, but remained in his possession to the day of his death. There would seem to be no denying that to the end of a number of Academicians were unable to appreciate the genius of Constable, and after the death of Joseph Farington in 1821 he had no keen admirer with influence within their ranks. The story is told that one year, after he had at last been elected R.A in 1829, Constable submitted one of his works labelled with another name to the Academy jury. When the majority had voted for its rejection, Constable admitted his authorship and quietly remarked, ‘There, gentlemen, I always thought you did not like my style of painting.’
When official recognition came it was ‘too late,’ as Constable sady said. Fortunately he was not in want, for in 1828 his wife’s father had died and left Constable the sum of £20000. ‘This,’ wrote Constable, ‘I will settle on my wife and children, and I shall then be able to stand before a six-foot canvas with a mind at ease, thank God!’ From this exclamation it would certainly appear as if the painter himself took more pleasure in his six-foot sketch than in painting a picture from it for the market.
Any pleasure he migiht have experienced in his election to the Academy as a full member in 1829 was counteracted by his grief at the loss of his wife, who had just previously died. It was the thought of this faithful companion and helper that prompted Constable to say his election as R.A was ‘too late’.
Though it would be a gross exaggeration to say that Constable ever obtained anything like popularity in his own lifetime, his landscapes after 1831 began to be known to a wider public by virtue of the mezzotints of some of his best paintings by David Lucas (1802-81). Lucas was an engraver of genius, who brilliantly translated into black-and-white the beauties of Constable’s light and shadow, but when he first approached the artist for permission to engrave his work Constable was dismally despondent about project. ‘The painter himself is totally unpopular,’ he said, ‘ and will be so on this side of the grave. The subjects are nothing but art, and the buyers are wholly ignorant of that.’ Nevertheless Lucas persisted with his mezzotints, which did much to spread the fame of Constable, and these engravings are now eagerly sought for at high prices by collectors.
Though never becoming actually despondent or embittered, Constable naturally craved for the appreciation which he felt he deserved, and in the endeavor to court notice he even went so far as to advertise in the newspapers:
‘Mr Constable’s Gallery of Landscapes, by his own hand, is to be seen gratis daily, by an application at his residence.’
Natural Landscape (continued)
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