According to lab gemologists, natural (quartz/phenakite/topaz) or man-made colorless to near-colorless (glass/syn. cubic zirconia/YAG/GGG/strontium titanate/lithium niobate) rough gem materials have been found in natural diamond parcels in the marketplace to confuse the unwary + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Lab Alert!
http://www.gemlab.net/website/gemlab/fileadmin/user_upload/Research/Gemlab-Newsletter-04-2008-forPDF.pdf
Useful link:
www.gemlab.net
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Perfumes: The Guide
Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin + Tania Sanchez is one-of-a-kind book on fragrances + it's a unique reading experience.
Useful link:
www.perfumestheguide.com
In my view, colored stones + diamonds + wine + perfumes = elegance + beauty + rarity. I think you need special touch + experience + passion to enjoy them.
Useful link:
www.perfumestheguide.com
In my view, colored stones + diamonds + wine + perfumes = elegance + beauty + rarity. I think you need special touch + experience + passion to enjoy them.
Random Thoughts
'What's the most important thing in finance?' J P Morgan was asked.
'Character', he replied.
I think gem and jewelry merchants + art dealers should take note.
'Character', he replied.
I think gem and jewelry merchants + art dealers should take note.
Tord Boontje
Tord Boontje is a Dutch-born, London-based product designer + he blends advanced technologies with artisanal techniques to create exquisite glassware, lighting and furniture + I think, experimentation + speed = new ideas!
Beautiful designs!
Useful link:
www.tordboontje.com
Beautiful designs!
Useful link:
www.tordboontje.com
The Polar Star
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The historic Polar Star diamond was so named because of the double star-like arrangement of its interlocking culet faces, which can be clearly seen through its large table facet. Although fairly small, it has been one of the world’s most famous diamonds since it was acquired by Joseph Bonaparte in about 1806. It belonged to the Russian ducal family of Youssoupoff for more than a hundred years before passing to Henry Deterging and his Russian-born wife, Lydia. It made world headlines in 1980, when it was auctioned and sold at a record price per carat to a buyer from Sri Lanka.
The fame of The Polar Star is due to three factors: its unsurpassed brilliance, the precision of its cut (it can be balanced on its tiny culet) and its limpidity. According to the late Hans Nadelhoffer of Christie’s in Geneva, who auctioned the stone, the rough was found in the bed of the Krishna river, India, at the end of the eighteenth century. Nadelhoffer also suggests that it was fashioned in Amsterdam, but since London was at that time the world center for precision cutting it seems more likely that it was there that it was given its exquisite faceting.
The Gubelin Laboratory in Switzerland has given a very detailed report on this diamond. It weighs 41.28 ct (41.285), which is considerably less than a Brilliant of this size with classic 45° proportions would normally weigh. In fact, it is equal in size to a classic well-made Brilliant of 52.5 ct. The reason for this surprising lightness is the flatness of the crown with its large table. The clarity of the gem has suffered over the years from careless handling. The girdle is slightly abraded and there are other small scratches, but the loss of weight that would be involved in restoring it to its original flawless condition would be negligible. Its color is of the second highest grade, E (River), with a trace of pink. A distinct blue fluorescence was noticed under ultraviolet light (UV 365), and spectrophotometry revealed that the diamond was of extremely rare type known as IIa. It is virtually impossible to assess how far the exceptionally attractive light effects are due to the trace element boron in type Iia diamonds, and how far they are due to the unusual faceting of the pavilion.
Measured dimensions and approximate median proportions:
Diameter: 21.77 – 20.63mm – 100%
Table: 14.5 – 14.2mm – 67%
Crown: >12.2mm – 29.3° - 40.8° - 12.5% - 37°
Pavilion: > 12.2mm – 41.2° - 48° - 45% - 45°
Culet: 2.20 – 2mm – 10%
The historic Polar Star diamond was so named because of the double star-like arrangement of its interlocking culet faces, which can be clearly seen through its large table facet. Although fairly small, it has been one of the world’s most famous diamonds since it was acquired by Joseph Bonaparte in about 1806. It belonged to the Russian ducal family of Youssoupoff for more than a hundred years before passing to Henry Deterging and his Russian-born wife, Lydia. It made world headlines in 1980, when it was auctioned and sold at a record price per carat to a buyer from Sri Lanka.
The fame of The Polar Star is due to three factors: its unsurpassed brilliance, the precision of its cut (it can be balanced on its tiny culet) and its limpidity. According to the late Hans Nadelhoffer of Christie’s in Geneva, who auctioned the stone, the rough was found in the bed of the Krishna river, India, at the end of the eighteenth century. Nadelhoffer also suggests that it was fashioned in Amsterdam, but since London was at that time the world center for precision cutting it seems more likely that it was there that it was given its exquisite faceting.
The Gubelin Laboratory in Switzerland has given a very detailed report on this diamond. It weighs 41.28 ct (41.285), which is considerably less than a Brilliant of this size with classic 45° proportions would normally weigh. In fact, it is equal in size to a classic well-made Brilliant of 52.5 ct. The reason for this surprising lightness is the flatness of the crown with its large table. The clarity of the gem has suffered over the years from careless handling. The girdle is slightly abraded and there are other small scratches, but the loss of weight that would be involved in restoring it to its original flawless condition would be negligible. Its color is of the second highest grade, E (River), with a trace of pink. A distinct blue fluorescence was noticed under ultraviolet light (UV 365), and spectrophotometry revealed that the diamond was of extremely rare type known as IIa. It is virtually impossible to assess how far the exceptionally attractive light effects are due to the trace element boron in type Iia diamonds, and how far they are due to the unusual faceting of the pavilion.
Measured dimensions and approximate median proportions:
Diameter: 21.77 – 20.63mm – 100%
Table: 14.5 – 14.2mm – 67%
Crown: >12.2mm – 29.3° - 40.8° - 12.5% - 37°
Pavilion: > 12.2mm – 41.2° - 48° - 45% - 45°
Culet: 2.20 – 2mm – 10%
The Modern Dutch School
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art of Joseph Israels, Roelofs, Mauve, Mesdag, Blommers, And the Brothers Maris
1
For more than a hundred years after the deaths of Hobbema and Willem van de Velde, Holland produced no painter of European importance. The Dutch School, which during the seventeenth century had risen, as we have seen, to the highest eminence, sank during the eighteenth century into trivial virtuosity. Pictures became conjuring feats rather than true works of art, for they evoked neither tender sentiments nor noble thoughts, but only excited wonder by their manual dexterity. In craftsmanship many of these paintings were remarkable in their meticulous detail, and while some painters—like Wellem van Mieris (1662-1747), whose ‘Fish and Poultry Shop’ is in the National Gallery—carried on the traditions left by Jan Steen and Gerard Dou, still more made a reputation among their contemporaries by their minute renderings of fruit and flowers. These they painted with the patient skill of miniaturist, and they delighted in introducing into their pictures flies and other small insects whose tiny, but marvelously realistic forms, had to be discerned with the aid of a magnifying-glass. Among the artist who excelled in this style of painting may be mentioned the woman-painter of Amsterdam, Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), and her contemporary, Jan van Huysum (1682-1749), both of whom are represented in the National Gallery. Here we may see how skillfully they both painted flowers, how cunningly the one introduces a butterfly, the other a snail; but we soon weary of this pettifogging cleverness, which may amuse our eyes for a few moments, but can never touch our hearts.
It was not till towards the middle of the nineteenth century that any great revival of painting showed itself in Holland. One who helped to prepare the ground for the new generation was Johannes Bosboom (1817-91), who painted impressive pictures in oils and water-colors of the interiors of Dutch Churches and cathedrals. He was influenced by the seventeenth-century painter Emanuel de Witte (1607-92), who had also painted these subjects not only with great accuracy of linear perspective but with broad effects of light-and-shade; Bosboom painted these interiors still more broadly and invested them with a dim atmosphere of grave grandeur and solemnity.
Bosboom always gives us a more or less generalized vision, and contrasted with the particularity of the painters who immediately preceded him, he may be said to have given a new direction to Dutch painting.
Another pioneer and forerunner of the modern movement was Willem Roelofs, who was born at Amsterdam in 1822, and went to France, where he made the acquaintance of Corot and other members of the Barbizon School. For some time Roelofs lived with these artists in the now famous village, and painted the forest of Fontainebleau in their company; then he returned to the Netherlands, taking with him new ideals of landscape painting. Though he lived chiefly in Brussels, Roelofs had a considerable influence on Dutch painting. He was never an imitator of Corot, Daubigny, or Troyon, though he learnt something from all of them, as we may see in his picture ‘A Summer’s Day, and it was through him that a knowledge and appreciation of their paitings first spread through Belgium and Holland. Roelofs helped to found at Brussels in 1868 the Société Libre des Beaux Arts (Free Society of Fine Arts), of which Corot, Daubigny, and Millet became honorary members, and to this exhibition both Dutch and Belgian artists contributed. It became the rallying-point of the younger generation and of those painters who were beginning to be affected by the Barbizon pictures which so many of them had seen in Paris. After living in Brussels for forty years Roelofs moved to The Hague, where he died in 1897.
The Modern Dutch School (continued)
The Art of Joseph Israels, Roelofs, Mauve, Mesdag, Blommers, And the Brothers Maris
1
For more than a hundred years after the deaths of Hobbema and Willem van de Velde, Holland produced no painter of European importance. The Dutch School, which during the seventeenth century had risen, as we have seen, to the highest eminence, sank during the eighteenth century into trivial virtuosity. Pictures became conjuring feats rather than true works of art, for they evoked neither tender sentiments nor noble thoughts, but only excited wonder by their manual dexterity. In craftsmanship many of these paintings were remarkable in their meticulous detail, and while some painters—like Wellem van Mieris (1662-1747), whose ‘Fish and Poultry Shop’ is in the National Gallery—carried on the traditions left by Jan Steen and Gerard Dou, still more made a reputation among their contemporaries by their minute renderings of fruit and flowers. These they painted with the patient skill of miniaturist, and they delighted in introducing into their pictures flies and other small insects whose tiny, but marvelously realistic forms, had to be discerned with the aid of a magnifying-glass. Among the artist who excelled in this style of painting may be mentioned the woman-painter of Amsterdam, Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), and her contemporary, Jan van Huysum (1682-1749), both of whom are represented in the National Gallery. Here we may see how skillfully they both painted flowers, how cunningly the one introduces a butterfly, the other a snail; but we soon weary of this pettifogging cleverness, which may amuse our eyes for a few moments, but can never touch our hearts.
It was not till towards the middle of the nineteenth century that any great revival of painting showed itself in Holland. One who helped to prepare the ground for the new generation was Johannes Bosboom (1817-91), who painted impressive pictures in oils and water-colors of the interiors of Dutch Churches and cathedrals. He was influenced by the seventeenth-century painter Emanuel de Witte (1607-92), who had also painted these subjects not only with great accuracy of linear perspective but with broad effects of light-and-shade; Bosboom painted these interiors still more broadly and invested them with a dim atmosphere of grave grandeur and solemnity.
Bosboom always gives us a more or less generalized vision, and contrasted with the particularity of the painters who immediately preceded him, he may be said to have given a new direction to Dutch painting.
Another pioneer and forerunner of the modern movement was Willem Roelofs, who was born at Amsterdam in 1822, and went to France, where he made the acquaintance of Corot and other members of the Barbizon School. For some time Roelofs lived with these artists in the now famous village, and painted the forest of Fontainebleau in their company; then he returned to the Netherlands, taking with him new ideals of landscape painting. Though he lived chiefly in Brussels, Roelofs had a considerable influence on Dutch painting. He was never an imitator of Corot, Daubigny, or Troyon, though he learnt something from all of them, as we may see in his picture ‘A Summer’s Day, and it was through him that a knowledge and appreciation of their paitings first spread through Belgium and Holland. Roelofs helped to found at Brussels in 1868 the Société Libre des Beaux Arts (Free Society of Fine Arts), of which Corot, Daubigny, and Millet became honorary members, and to this exhibition both Dutch and Belgian artists contributed. It became the rallying-point of the younger generation and of those painters who were beginning to be affected by the Barbizon pictures which so many of them had seen in Paris. After living in Brussels for forty years Roelofs moved to The Hague, where he died in 1897.
The Modern Dutch School (continued)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
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