Andy Warhol, 1978
Gems
Category: Jewels
Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Life for Me
Philippe Halsman ~ Salvador Dalí with his own creation of diamond-encrusted eye-patch, 1947
The magnificent emerald jewel of the lost Atocha…
A Renaissance Colombian Emerald-Set Gold Jewel Recovered from the Shipwrecked Spanish Galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha, Early 17th Century
PROVENANCE: Lost in the shipwreck of Nuestra Señora de Atocha, Florida Keys, 1622
Rediscovered by Mel Fischer, 1986
Mel Fisher’s Treasures, L.L.C., 1986
NOTE DE CATALOGUE: The magnificent emerald jewel of the lost Atocha showcases the largest faceted stone in the group of emerald-setjewels recovered from the shipwreck of the famous Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha. Set with a single rectangular step cut emerald measuring approximately 11.00 carats, the gold setting, cast and vigorously chased with strapwork and studded with rosettes, reveals the remarkable skills of the New World goldsmiths. The bezel setting, meticulously burnished, secures the stone at the girdle with gold extending up and into the crown of the gem, sealing it firmly in its setting. Although seawater seems to have seeped in behind the stone, it has remained secure for centuries.
This impressive emerald exhibits characteristics similar to those mined in the Chivor region of Colombia high up in the Andes. Emerald deposits were discovered there by conquistadors in 1537 and mined by the indigenous people, who were enslaved by the Spanish explorers. Until the discovery of the Chivor deposits, the only emerald mines known to the Western world were those in Egypt, in use since the late 4th century B.C. and largely exhausted by the 16th century.
Spanish jewelry design of the 16th century fell under the influence of the Counter-Reformation movement which had sweeping, largely reactionary, social and cultural effects in heavily Catholic Spain. Personal ornamentation of a religious nature was viewed as an outward reflection of inner devotion, and thus permissible even in that austere climate. Jewelers also designed secular pieces like the present lot to display some of the largest and finest gems, which were suddenly available in large supply from the New World mines.
The remarkable availability of fine emeralds from mines under Spain’s control afforded their extensive use in jewelry during the Renaissance. Portraits of the Spanish royal family and the nobility show the sitters bejeweled, and often with gem-set gold appliques sewn directly onto their garments. The present jewel may well have been used for this purpose, indicated by the two eyes on the reverse of the gold setting, as seen in the image above. A portrait of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia by Alonso Sanchez Coello painted in 1578 and now in the Museo del Prado (fig. 1) illustrates this custom of applying luxurious jewels to rich fabrics.
With Spain’s power at its height under King Philip III and its territory increasing under his successor Philip IV, passengers and crews sailed with greater frequency over the Atlantic, hungry for the treasures of the New World. The Atocha and the Santa Margarita were new additions to the Tierra Firma armada of 28 ships which sailed annually between Spain and the West Indies, carrying European manufactured goods, wine, lumber, iron, cloth and mercury, which they would trade in the Caribbean ports for bullion, animal hides, cocoa, indigo, cochineal, and tobacco.
The Atocha was commissioned by the Casa de Contractación, a Spanish government agency which attempted to regulate Spanish exploration and colonization efforts, and was named for Our Lady of Atocha, whose shrine in Madrid was regularly visited by Spanish kings. The ship was constructed in Cuba and, after ill-fated attempts to depart the shipyard which necessitated repairs, she finally crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Spain late in 1620. The Atocha sustained leaks in her bow and once they were repaired, she joined the Tierra Firma fleet and departed Spain for the West Indies on March 23, 1622. In Cartagena, Colombia and Portobelo, Panama, the galleon was loaded with the belongings of the noble families and other passengers making the return journey to Spain with the armada. There was also bullion, tobacco and emeralds, both uncut stones and gems set in gold jewelry such as the present example, many not included on the ship’s manifest to avoid the Spanish quinto tax.
These armadas were under the constant threat of English and Dutch fleets as well as pirates. Spanish galleons including the Atocha were armed to defend themselves and the treasure that they carried, but only good timing and an element of luck would protect them against the fierce hurricanes that ravaged the Atlantic. The fleet set sail for Spain with goods and passengers on September 4, 1622 in the midst of hurricane season. Both the Atocha and the Santa Margarita only sailed as far as the Florida Keys before they hit a squall and sank along the reefs. Divers attempted to recover the cargo with some success for that of the Santa Margarita, but found few remains of the Atocha before the wreckage of the ships and their contents were swept out to sea where they would lay unrecovered for centuries. In the 1960s Mel Fisher, a diver with an interest in salvaging shipwrecks, began exploring the waters off of Florida searching for Spanish ships lost in the area. By the end of the decade he and his crew set their sights on recovering the Santa Margarita, with which they had quick success, and the more elusive Atocha.
It was not until 1985 that Fisher’s team uncovered the main hull of the Atocha and its hidden treasure, including silverand gold objects, bullion, scientific instruments, and hundreds of rough cut emeralds and gem-set gold jewelry. Of the items recovered from the shipwrecked galleon, this stunning jewel is one of the most important. The size and quality of the stone combined with the masterful goldsmith’s work are evidence that this jewel was made for a person of noble standing in Spanish society.
RELATED LITERATURE: Priscilla E. Muller, Jewels in Spain, 1500-1800, New York, 1972, pp. 27-38
Accompanied by AGL report no. CS 52234 stating that the emerald is of Colombian origin, with no indications of clarity enhancement.
➜ Sotheby’s Masterworks. New York | February 01, 2013
Lilies of the Valley Basket
August Wilhelm Holmström for the House of Fabergé, 1896
Born in Helsinki on October 2, 1829, Holmström was the son of a master bricklayer. Apprenticed to the German jeweler Herold in St. Petersburg, he became a journeyman in 1850 and a master in 1857. That same year he became principal jeweler for the Fabergé company when he bought the workshop of the master goldsmith Fredrick Johan Hammarström. Birbaum says his workshop was among the first three in the House of Fabergé, the others being those of Reimer and Kollin. Holmström worked exclusively for Fabergé. Bainbridge says he made the gold miniature of the cruiser in Memory of the Azov that was the surprise in the 1891 Tsar Imperial Easter egg. The 1892 Tsar Imperial Diamond Trellis Egg bears his mark.
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| Imperial Diamond Trellis Egg |
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Memory of the Azov Egg
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It was in Holmström’s workshop that the famous Fabergé miniature copies of the Imperial regalia were executed. These one- to ten-scale miniatures were exhibited at the 1900 Exhibition Internationale Universelle in Paris and are now kept in the special treasury of the Hermitage Museum called the Gold Room. In his memoirs, Birbaum observes:
“The workshop was famous for its great precision and exquisite technique, such faultless gem-setting is not to be found even in the works by the best Paris jewelers. It should be noted that even if some of Holmström’s works are artistically somewhat inferior to those of Parisians masters, they always surpass them in technique, durability and finish.” (Fabergé and Skurlov, History of the House of Fabergé, 1992)
The noted Lilies of the Valley Basket presented to Alexandra Fedorovna in 1896 and now in the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection in New Orleans, Louisiana, was made in Holmström’s workshop. It is illustrated as item number 76 in Hill et al., Fabergé and the Russian Master Goldsmith (1989).
Holmström had eight children. His daughter Fanny married Knut Oskar Pihl, manager of Fabergé’s Moscow jewelry shop; his daughter Hilma alina married Vasilii Zverschinskii, bookkeeper to the firm, and she worked for the firm as a designer; and his son Albert headed the workshop after August Holmström’s death in 1903. Holmström was burried in St. Petersurg, not far from the grave of Mikhail Perkhin. Bainbridge rates him “on the very top rung of the Fabergé ladder” (Peter Carf Fabergé, 1949)
Will Lowes and Christel Ludewig McCanless
Fabergé Eggs: A Retrospective Encyclopedia
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Yale Joel ~ An 80-carat uncut diamond; unusual Christmas gift suggestion at Tiffany’s, December 1969
Fauteuil 31
Réception de M. Jean Cocteau
Frank Scherschel ~ Jean Cocteau, Académie française 1955
L’ Épée de Jean Cocteau dessinée par lui-même et réalisée par Cartier en 1955, sertie de diamants, de rubis et incrustée d’ivoire fut vendue en vente publique en 1997 pour 1,75 millions de francs. Me battre en duel ne serait guère dans mon tempérament. De plus je l’ai fait forger rue de la Paix. – Jean Cocteau
I shop therefore I am
The Tucker Cross
“September 1955, and the weather was getting worse. Then on the seventh day, a Sunday, I found the greatest single object of all. Eager to work faster, I took a water hose down to the bottom and turned on the jet to blast sand from the area below the brain coral. After carving a deep hole I turned the jet off. When the debris settled, my eyes fell on a gold cross, lying face down in the sand. I picked it up and turned it over.
Awe struck, I counted the large green emeralds on its face. There were seven of them, each as big as a musket ball. From small rings on the arms of the cross hung tiny gold nails, representing the nails in Christ’s hands, and at the foot was the ring for a third, which had been lost. The ornate carving, while beautiful, was somewhat crude, indicating that Indians had made the cross. It remains my most treasured discovery.”
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Peter Stackpole, 1956
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A treasure ship from the Spanish colonial period, the San Pedro was part of the Nueva Espana fleet which carried manufactured goods from Spain to the New World and returned with gold, silver, coins, jewels and other valuable products.
It was in November 1596, en route from Cartagena, Columbia to Cadiz, Spain, and laden with treasure, that the 350-ton merchant ship was wrecked on Bermuda’s inner reef.
She was discovered in 1950 by veteran shipwreck diver, Teddy Tucker and Robert Canten. Tucker knew that she was old and named her ‘The Old Spaniard’. However, it was only when he started to work on the site that he realised the true significance of his find.
Among the treasures recovered was a gold pectoral cross with seven emeralds, said to be one of the most valuable pieces of jewellery retrieved from any Spanish shipwreck. The cross was on display at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo for many years. However, in 1975 when it was removed from its case during a royal visit, it was discovered that the cross had been stolen and replaced with a paste replica. Its whereabouts remain unknown. ➔ Bermuda Monetary Authority
Teddy Tucker looking at the cross with Clare Boothe Luce, July 1957
Cat Brooch
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| Gem-Crystal, English, ca. 1920 |
Couronne du Sacre de Louis XV
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| Augustin DUFLOS, d’après Claude RONDÉ Couronne de Louis XV, 1722 Musée du Louvre |
[Déposée à Saint-Denis en 1729 après le remplacement des pierres d’origine, portée à la Convention en 1793, déposée au Cabinet des médailles puis au Garde-meuble, transférée du palais de Trianon au Louvre en 1852. Paris, France. Argent partiellement doré, fac-similés des pierres précieuses d’origine, satin brodé]
Couronne de Louis XV
À l’occasion de leur sacre, les rois de France avaient pour coutume de se faire exécuter une couronne personnelle. Pour Louis XV, deux couronnes furent réalisées : une en or émaillé et l’autre, conservée au Louvre, en argent doré et ornée de pierreries. Cependant, en 1729, cette dernière fut dépecée et on remplaça les pierres d’origine par des copies. La couronne ne servait qu’à l’occasion du sacre et reposait à l’abbaye de Saint-Denis avec les autres instruments de cérémonie, appelés regalia.
Une œuvre toute de perles et de pierres précieuses
La Couronne de Louis XV est composée d’une calotte de satin brodé et cerclée d’une structure métallique d’où partent des arceaux ajourés surmontés d’une fleur de lys. Le bandeau est ceint de deux files de perles et de huit pierres de couleur (saphirs, rubis, topazes et émeraudes) alternant avec des diamants. Le départ des arceaux est marqué par des fleurs de lys formées par cinq diamants. Le célèbre Régent, acheté quelques années avant le sacre, orne la fleur de devant. Les huit diamants quadrangulaires qui constituent le sommet des fleurs appartiennent à la série des dix-huit Mazarins. Enfin la couronne est également surmontée d’une fleur de lys faite de feuilles d’acanthe en argent comportant dix-sept diamants complétés par le Sancy. Sur la calotte sont cousus ving-quatre autres diamants. En 1729, perles et pierres précieuses furent remplacées par des copies à la demande de Louis XV. Au total, la couronne comportait 282 diamants (161 grands et 121 petits), 64 pierres de couleur (dont 16 rubis, 16 saphirs et 16 émeraudes) et 237 perles.
L’oeuvre de joailliers parisiens
La couronne personnelle de Louis XV a été dessinée par le joaillier Claude Rondé et exécutée sous la direction du jeune Augustin Duflos, joaillier du roi aux Galeries du Louvre. Peu de temps après, en 1723, Duflos réalisa chez Rondé une couronne sur le même modèle et suivant les mêmes dimensions pour le roi Joseph V du Portugal. En 1725, les Rondé livrèrent pour la reine une autre couronne de plus petite taille mais de composition voisine.
Les descriptions de la couronne de Louis XV
On connaît deux descriptions de cette œuvre : la première publiée par Le Mercure, un mois après le sacre, en novembre 1722, et la seconde servant de légende à une gravure de Sébastien Antoine. Celle-ci signale bien que la couronne était ornée de 64 pierres de couleur mais elle ne mentionne que 273 diamants et indique quelques variantes par rapport à l’état connu aujourd’hui. Il est donc possible que l’aspect actuel ne soit pas tout à fait fidèle à la composition d’origine et que les différences soient la conséquence de la restauration faite par le joaillier M. Maillard en 1780. Bien qu’ornée de pierres factices et malgré les légères modifications subies, la couronne personnelle de Louis XV nous révèle le faste des cérémonies royales ainsi que la virtuosité des joailliers du XVIIIe siècle.
Documentation: Regalia : les instruments du sacre des rois de France, les honneurs de Charlemagne, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, 1987, pp. 91-92
Muriel Barbier
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| © Musée du Louvre / E. Lessing
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tout ceci est magnifique 