The Collection of ELIZABETH TAYLOR at Christie's

  
    I've had my calendar marked for months now, anticipating the auction by Christie's of the legendary jewelry owned by Elizabeth Taylor. The items up for auction have been on display in New York for the public to view before the sale started. An online auction began December 3 and will continue until the 17th.  The online auction had some affordable pieces listed with some prices starting at only a few hundred dollars. But, after looking at the  prices of what those pieces went for, it seems as if they were all in the thousands of dollars.

     A few thousand dollars was not the case last night when I watched some of the auction live and the auctioneer started the bidding in the tens of thousands of dollars and the bids increased in increments of $20,000. It was fun to watch, I always like an auction and this one was particularly exciting. December 13 marked the beginning of the sale of the significant pieces and will continue until December 16. The sale has been divided up into the categories of:  The Legendary Jewels ( I and II), The Icon and Her Haute Couture, Fashion and Accessories, Fine and Decorative Art & Film Memorabilia, including costumes.

Christie's had all the pieces on display for viewing, called the A to Z of Elizabeth Taylor.  Below are pictures of the display of kaftans and handbags.  All pieces were in near perfect condition.

  

   

     Christie's reports today that the jewelry set a world record for the most valuable private collection of jewels sold at auction with $115,932,000, shattering the previous 1987 record set by the jewels of the Duchess of Windsor, which didn't come close to this dollar figure. Those sales totaled $50,281,887.

      A  record was set last night with the sale of the famous Burton diamond ring.  An almost completely flawless diamond of 33.19 carats sold for $8,818,500.  The ring's estimated value was 2.5 to 3.5 million, but one has to factor in the Elizabeth Taylor mystique that goes along with that ring and everything else that is being sold. Therefore, you know the price is going to be more that the actual value.

"...When I look into it, the deep Asscher cuts-which are so complete and so ravishing-are like steps that lead into eternity and beyond. My ring gives me the strangest feeling for beauty.  With its sparks of red and white and blue and purple, and on and on, really, it sort of hums with its own beatific life..."   Elizabeth Taylor, My Love Affair with Jewelry

     The other record for the night was the sale of the La Peregrina pearl, diamond and ruby necklace by Cartier. The necklace was estimated to go for 2 to 3 million dollars but the hammer price was $11,842,500.
The famous drop-shaped pearl on this necklace has a rich history.  It was discovered by a slave in the Gulf of Panama sometime in the 1500s and was given his freedom because of the find. It ended up as part of the Spanish royal jewels, Prince Philip II of Spain gave it to Mary Tudor of  England as an engagement present. In succeeding generations it was owned by the Spanish queens Margarita and Isabel. The next major owner of the pearl was the Bonaparte family in the 1800s. This pearl was a gift from Richard Burton and he enjoyed buying his wife jewelry, particularly pieces that held historical significance such as this one. Taylor once lost the pearl and she frantically searched the room for it before Burton found out that it was lost.  Finally, as a last resort, she picked up her little Maltese dog and felt in its mouth, there, miraculously unscratched, was the pearl.

The Burtons commissioned Cartier to design a new mount for the pear-shaped pearl.  The diamond bail suspending the pearl is original to the piece. When Burton purchased it in 1969 for $37,000 it was suspended on a simple pearl and platinum chain. A large photograph of this piece is on the back cover of My Love Affair with Jewelry.

Two portraits made by Valasquez, the great Spanish court painter, depicts the two queens wearing the pearl.    

   Queen Margarita on Horseback (1634-35)  In this painting, Queen Margarita wears the pearl as a broach fastened to her bodice.

   Daughter-in-law to Queen Margarita, Queen Isabel, wears the pearl suspended from a long necklace.








     Several different auction catalogues can be purchased. The one I found to be particularly interesting was the Limited Edition Box Set which is selling for $600. This box set includes the out of print book by Elizabeth Taylor, My Love Affair with Jewelry and Christie's auction catalogue for The Legendary Jewels, Evening Sale. Numbered 51/2000 - 2000/2000 and stamped Edition B. Christie's will donate all profits from the sale of this Limited Edition set to The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.  I have the book My Love Affair with Jewelry and did not even know it was out of print. I have enjoyed that book and enjoyed sharing it with my friends. The book is a large coffee table one with detailed photographs of her jewelry-- so close that you can even see the scratches on some of the gold.  The text consists of interesting anecdotes about each piece by Taylor.

A picture of the cover of my book, My Love Affair with Jewelry.

      I think I will print out a list of the jewels sold, just for a kind of record and update to the book for my own personal enjoyment. I have recently learned that this type of thing was done as a hobby by wealthy Victorians. Whenever they would see something in print concerning an author or an update to a book they owned, they would insert that into their book.  I have done sort of the same thing to a few of my books, although one does not have to be wealthy now days to own a book, cut articles out of a newspaper or print something from the Internet to include with their book. But, it was interesting to learn that other people were thinking the same way.  And I thought my idea was original!

The following is the interesting disclaimer that went with the pieces bought at the sale:

By registering to bid, you hereby agree that the copyright, and any and all associated intellectual property and other rights for this item are exclusively retained by The Elizabeth Taylor Trust and/or Interplanet Productions, Ltd. Buyers of the Property will not receive the copyright or any related reproduction rights in the Property and all intellectual property rights are explicitly reserved by Seller and are freely exploitable by Seller in perpetuity. Furthermore, the use of Elizabeth Taylor’s name, photograph or likeness may not be used relating to this item without the express written permission of The Elizabeth Taylor Trust and/or Interplanet Productions Ltd.

Snowflake Bentley

     In 1885, Wilson Bentley was the first to successfully photograph single showflakes. He was a farmer with little formal education that grew up in Vermont in an area called the "Snowbelt." It is called the Snowbelt because the place gets around 120' of snow each year.  As a young boy Wilson was fascinated with snowflakes and he studied the individual snowflakes and even drew their hexagonal shapes. At the age of 17 his parents bought him a camera. After many trials and errors, he was finally able to capture the beauty and exactness of each unique ice crystal with a microscope attached to his bellows camera. With this camera he managed to photograph thousands of snowflakes.  You can enjoy Wilson Bentley's beautiful snowflake photographs, as well as many other snowflake related items which are available to purchase on the website devoted to Snowflake Bentley.  Click here for the link.


Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley 1925


     The children's book, titled SNOWFLAKE BENTLEY, recounts the inspiring life of Wilson Bentley and won the 1999 Caldecott Medal for its beautiful wood block print illustrations. It is a book that combines both wonderful illustrations with science, a combination not often seen.  To me, the book teaches the merits of tenacity, the beauty and wonder as well as the science of ice crystals, and the uniqueness of our universe, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem at first-                                                              all good  things for a child to know.

THE THANKSGIVING VISITOR and A CHRISTMAS MEMORY by Truman Capote

     After reading many works by Truman Capote, the most recent book being THE COMPLETE STORIES OF TRUMAN CAPOTE (which does not encompass all his works as some would tend to think due to the title, I think I would have titled the book differently), the stories I enjoy the most are the ones he writes about the people and places of the South. These are the stories that strike my heartstrings so much so that I have read A CHRISTMAS MEMORY every year at Christmas time, and sometimes the months in between, for some 26 years, and have cried every time I've read it.  Capote spent his childhood in rural Alabama and those southern characters, places, and attitudes he writes about have been ingrained into Capote since childhood. To me his words about that place and time convey a heartfelt intensity that his other work seems to lack.

     Here is a picture of the book Rich surprised me with back in the summer and I have been slowly finding time to read it.  But, my timing worked out fine because I just finished reading THE THANKSGIVING VISITOR, right in time for Thanksgiving.

This is the book I'm currently reading.  The cover shows a very young Capote, when his career as a writer was just beginning. The book contains 20 stories, including THE THANKSGIVING VISITOR and A CHRISTMAS MEMORY.  It also has two other great stories set in the South, MY SIDE OF THE MATTER and CHILDREN ON THEIR BIRTHDAYS.

             The autobiographical story of THE THANKSGIVING VISITOR was written in 1967 and tells of a Depression Era Thanksgiving dinner of 1932 when second grader Buddy (Capote) was living in the home of his three spinster cousins, one bachelor uncle and his beloved rat terrier, Queenie. One of the cousins whom Buddy affectionately called Sook, was his sixty some year old best friend. The story tells of Sook inviting Odd Henderson, who tormented Buddy on a daily basis just because he was a sissy, as Odd had once told Buddy, to Thanksgiving dinner. In Sook's innocent childlike view of others, she could not comprehend what Buddy told her of  how Odd treated him and of the anguish and dread that Odd brought to Buddy each day as he went to school.  She said they just needed to get to know each other better. The story is written so that both adults and older children can enjoy it and without revealing the humorous details of the story, I will say that the unexpected behavior of  Buddy, Odd and Sook will both entertain and teach a lesson.

     A line from the book that shows Buddy's dislike for Odd Henderson: "But nobody, I don't care who, looked as down-and-out as Odd-a skinny, freckled scarecrow in sweaty cast-off overalls that would have been a humiliation to a chain-gang convict."

THE THANKSGIVING VISITOR illus. by Beth Peck

Capote with his cousin Sook Faulk

 
















 
     "Oh my," she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, "it's fruitcake weather!"  Sook proclaims the beginning of the holiday season with this line from A CHRISTMAS MEMORY. Capote's heartwarming snapshot of his Christmas's spent with Sook and the activities and bond they shared  makes this my favorite holiday story.  Although my childhood was not like his, the story has enough elements in it to remind me of the relationship that I had with my grandmother and our holiday rituals, which included making fruitcakes soaked with Brandy, that I return to this story year after year. The feelings of warmth and security that comes from loving an older relative and the shared joy of  that bond jumps off the pages of this story and fills my heart with my own memories of a childhood and grandmother now gone. This book can be enjoyed by grown ups and children alike. For the love of this story and the memories it brings to me of my granny, every year when the temperature's just right, I exclaim,  "it's fruitcake weather"!

A copy of my book A CHRISTMAS MEMORY illus. by Beth Peck

      
     Another Christmas related story by Capote is ONE CHRISTMAS. It tells the heartbreaking story of a Christmas in which Capote was put on a bus to New Orleans to spend the holidays with his father. I do not recommend this story for children, it is not a happy tale although you do get glimpses of the comfort Capote felt under the care of Sook, which is always a joy to read. The cover of my book has a picture of Capote and his father Arch Persons.  Capote has a different last name because in later years he took on the last name of his adoptive father.

ONE CHRISTMAS

     Of course there are many, many other books and movies that Capote is known for that I could have written about, but I only wanted to talk about my favorites for the holidays.  Here is a link for further reading:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/truman-capote/introduction/58/

N.C. Wyeth and the TREASURE ISLAND illustrations

     Currently on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum  in Chadds Ford, PA are 16 of the original paintings of pirates, swashbucklers and high sea adventurers that N.C. Wyeth painted for Robert Louis Stevenson's book TREASURE ISLAND.  This is the first time in 100 years that all the painting have been assembled together.  Unfortunately one of the illustrations was lost in a fire in 1952.  The paintings come from the 1911 edition of TREASURE ISLAND, and established Wyeth as one of the most important illustrators of the day. Charles Schribner's Sons, publisher of the book, paid Wyeth $2,500 for the illustrations and he used the proceeds to buy 18 acres along the Brandywine River. Wyeth's house where he raised his family of extraordinary artistic children and where he built his studio and made quite a comfortable living as an illustrator still stand in Chadd's Ford. The house and studio are now open for tours. I have had the good fortune of being able to visit Chadd's Ford and the Brandywine River Museum.  This area is full of people and places that N.C. Wyeth's son Andrew has made noteworthy through his paintings over the years, but more of that in another blog.




N.C. Wyeth in his studio ca. 1903-04

     Most of the TREASURE ISLAND illustrations are owned by the Brandywine River Museum and the Wyeth family. These illustrations by Wyeth have been influential in movie and stage settings for any TREASURE ISLAND production since these images first appeared in the 1911 edition., becoming the definitive version of what a swashbuckling pirate should look and act like. From correspondence we know that these 3' x 4' works were done in about 3 1/2 months, an incredible pace and quite a bit larger than most illustrations were typically done. The paintings were reproduced down to about 6 or 7 inches tall for the book. The book was already a success, published first in the late 1800's, but the past illustrations had been line drawings for the most part.   These highly detailed, vividly descriptive paintings full of color, breathed new life into the already loved book, making Long John Silver and Billy Bones actually jump off the page. Wyeth used familiar places, neighbors and acquaintances for his models and inspiration.  He chose passages from the book that he thought would easily translate visually.

Jim, Long John Silver and his Parrot

A view of Wyeth's studio located behind his home in Chadd's Ford. The studio is as he left it, with an unfinished commissioned painting still on the easel. Wyeth was suddenly killed in a car and train collision a few miles from where he lived. The staircase has wheels so that it could easily be moved around in order to reach the large scale paintings that Wyeth most often did.  Notice the large almost floor to ceiling windows to the left that provided an abundance of natural light for him to work in.

     A 1916 silent movie of "Treasure Island" modeled its costumes and character types after Wyeth's work, and actor Lionel Barrymore said in a newspaper interview that his portrayal of Billy Bones was inspired by Wyeth's archetype. Disney animators interpreted Wyeth's style for the 1950s "Treasure Island" as well as the futuristic "Treasure Planet" from 2002.

     "No director had a finer production illustrator than N.C. Wyeth," director Fraser Heston says in a letter included in the exhibit. The son of Charlton Heston, he based his "Treasure Island" storyboards on Wyeth's work for a 1989 movie starring his father as peg-legged pirate Long John Silver.

Billy Bones  - From this illustration, one can easily recognize how our image of what a pirate is supposed to look like comes from Wyeth's creation.

Mary Blair

Mary Blair with Walt Disney

   

Scene from It's A Small World

     The Google logo celebrated the 100th birthday of artist Mary Blair today. I only knew of Mary Blair's work at Disney with her design of the It's A Small World ride in Disney World, but as I researched her I found that she did lots of other work for Disney as well.  I have posted some of my favorites:

The hookah smoking caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, 1951

Cinderella, 1950

Peter Pan, 1953

     Mary Blair also did ads for such companies as Pall Mell cigarettes, Hanes Underwear, Meadow Gold and Dutch Boy Paints, to name a few. Here is my favorite cigarette ad, I love the fresh waternelon behind the cigarettes.  Does this imply that cigarettes are as good for you as fresh fruit, and in the same category?

Ad for Pall Mell

Hanes underwear ad

     Here is some of Blair's work, pre-Disney:

Backyards

Self-Portrait

       I also learned that Blair's husband, Lee Blair and brother-in-law, Preston Blair both did work for Disney  as well. Lee Blair worked for Disney in the late '30's and '40's, working on such projects as Pinocchio, Bambi and Fantasia. My favorite watercolor of his is of a self-portrait, such a handsome man. He went on to work for an ad agency in New York City, how glamorous!  The self portrait is posted below:

Lee Blair, self-portrait

     My favorite of the three, though, is the work of Preston Blair, such a great discovery today! This is my absolute favorite, I want to be the girl in this watercolor, if just for an evening. Notice the penthouse view of a New York City skyline. On my first trip to NYC I saw a couple dressed much like this, coming out of the Waldorf Astoria.  I imagined all kinds of scenarios for them, never knowing their actual story.

Man and Woman Kissing

 Here is a link to the three Blair artists. 

Caravaggio: Behold the Man

" Behold the Man"  c. 1605-06

     

The Columbus Museum of Art is the only U.S. stop for the baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's piece, "Ecce Homo: Behold the Man," painted around 1606. The painting depicts a scene from the account in the New Testament's book of John, chapter 19 in which Pontius Pilate displays Jesus to the crowd and mockingly declares, "behold, the man."  Jesus is draped in robes and wearing a crown of thorns.  Art historians believe that the face of Pilate is that of an older Caravaggio. Caravaggio's face is also depicted as that of the giant in his painting of "David With the Head of Goliath."

"David with the Head of Goliath" c. 1597-99

 

 

 

     
     Only about 80 of Caravaggio's paintings survive but his influence was strong enough to inspire the term, "Caravaggiesque."  The other 10 paintings in this exhibit, all taken from Ohio museums and one private collector, were inspired by Caravaggio's style of realism depicting severe, raw passionate emotions with shafts of light highlighting his subject's otherwise dark surroundings. A Baroque painting can be identified as such by these characteristic distinctive patches of light and dark .His models were often found in the streets and painted in a realistic manner much to the disapproval of the church and its patrons, which were accustomed to a calmer more idealized interpretation. Caravaggio's subjects were shocking and too real for his day.

      Caravaggio lifestyle was as passionate and fervent as his paintings. His drunken brawls and flamboyant lifestyle resulted in multiple arrests, attempts on his life and he killed a man that resulted in a Papal death warrant that forced him to live as an exile. He attempted to return to Rome to receive a pardon but died in Tuscany at the age of 38 possibly from lead poisoning.

"Judith Beheading Holofernes" c. 1598 

     To celebrate the opening of this show, the museum will host two parties and a fundraiser this Saturday. Inspired by the bad boy of Baroque, Caravaggio-A-Go-Go will celebrate all things Italian and will offer guests a trip through some of Italy's cities, a sampling of regional foods, arias from select Italian operas, an orchestra with "Frank Sinatra" and of course Italian wines. This event is black tie and VIP Tickets are $650. The less extravagant of the two parties, $100/ticket, will celebrate in bawdy Caravaggio style the seven deadly sins of gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. The two parties will merge at the end of the evening.  How fun does all this sound?!?  Wish I was going.  I do hope to get to Columbus before the exhibit closes February 5, 2012.  The museum is located at 480 East Broad St. in Columbus, OH

Mixed Media

     There's only a few days left to see this delightful exhibit by Marge Fulton from Hazard, KY.  It's at the Big Sandy Community and Technical College (BSCTC) in Prestonsburg, KY.  There are about 30 pieces in the show and much of  the work has such detail and variety of mediums that a person could ponder on each piece for quite a while.  Much of the exhibit follows the path of art journaling with the use of text as well as images resulting in this show becoming a very thought provoking as well as aesthetically pleasing experience.

     I was pleased to be able to finally meet artist/instructor Tim Sizemore while at the BSCTC gallery.  What little bit I talked to him I realized he is quite an interesting individual. I asked him if he could maybe start a Facebook page or something so that those of us in the community could be kept up to date as to the exhibits that are going on at the college. I haven't seen one yet, when I do I will post the link here.  Marge mailed me the above pictured postcard that announced her exhibit, which was a great idea and left me with a little souvier of sorts to remember the exhibit.  I keep a scrapbook of all the art exhibits and museums that I attend and this postcard will go into my scrapbook.
     I attended an Art Journaling Workshop taught by Marge at the Appalachian Artisan Center in Hindman, KY a while back and loved it.  Marge is a great instructor and had an unbelievable amount of supplies that she so generously shared with us.  The workshop was great fun and I hope that she will do more things like that in the future.  It did my heart good to set aside some time just to be creative and also to be around others that understand that need to create and express yourself. Here is a link to the Artisan Center in Hindman:

http://www.artisancenter.net/

I think my favorite piece in the Mixed Media exhibit was one made from several different materials, layers and textures, all on a reclaimed block of wood.  It is amazing to think that so many of its elements could have been viewed as worthless and ready for the trash, but the artist's choices made each item work together to become a work of art.  Magical.

My favorite piece from the exhibit features an image of Bob Dylan.  Sorry but I can't remember the title.

Portraits and Dreams



Wendy Ewald



Poster for lecture



View from SKCTC Campus

    

     The beautiful fall mountain scenery alone was worth the drive to the Whitesburg campus of Southeast Community and Technical College (SKCTC) to hear Wendy Ewald lecture Monday night.  I was fortunate enough to have two of my "children" (now young adults), Maggie and Ben to go with me. Whitesburg is close to the Virginia border and it is amazing how much higher the mountains are there compared to the ones I'm used to living in between. Such a noticable difference in such a relatively short distance, it took us about an hour to get there, marveling at the blotches of orange, rust, red and gold that the trees are beginning to display.  In a few more days they will totally explode with color, they are just on the brink of it now.

     Ewald spoke and showed slides from her project, "helping children to see," not only in the mountains of East Kentucky, but  in Canada, Columbia, India and Saudi Arabia, to name a few of the other places.  It was enlightening to see her and her student's work and have her personal commentary, as a sort of behind the scenes narrative, to go along with the images. Part of a documentary that is still in the works was shown in which she comes back to Letcher County Kentucky and visits with her former students. They speak of  that time with her and what it meant to them as young children.  Some of her former students were in the audience Monday night.  One man recounted how he remembered Ewald reading to them and how he was touched by a poem that she had read.  He said that was the first time he had ever heard poetry read.  He also expressed that as a child he had read about people that were different from him, that lived in other places, but Ewald was the first person that he had ever seen that was not like him.  In other words, a person that was not an Appalachian.  Another woman spoke about how looking at those images and knowing what she knows now, as an educator and about poverty in East Kentucky,  she could see that they were all poor, but  didn't know it, they didn't feel poor at the time. As an Appalachian I could identify with the feelings the gentleman had of knowing that he had seen somone different than him and of the woman saying she was poor but didn't know it.

     Two images of a little blonde girl, both self portraits, were quite interesting. The girl titled one, "I am Dolly Parton" and the other shot was called "I am the Girl with the Snake."  Ewald shared with the audience that Dolly Parton had somehow come across the photo and wrote the girl a letter.  I'm sure that Dolly could identify with that little girl living in poverty, her hopes and dreams were probably similar to the ones Dolly had growing up in East Tennessee. Ewald pointed out that the portrait of the girl with a snake wrapped around her was done long before any Hollywood starlet ever had a similar shot done to show how glamorous or cool they were.



Photographer Brett Bentley

     The October issue of Kentucky Monthly magazine features Floyd County's own Brett Bentley of Martin, Ky. Bentley's simplistic image of a single fall leaf graces the cover, along with a six page spread of several other images of Kentucky's glorious fall foliage on the inside. Bentley writes a short article along with his photographs describing how he got started with his hobby. Along with his photography, he also hand crafts his own frames to showcase his work  His work has been recognized in other magazines and contests as well. He is a member of the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen.

Here is the link to Kentucky Monthly:

http://kentuckymonthly.com/

Link to Bentley's website:

http://www.photobentley.com/

Photographer Wendy Ewald

     I'm excited to hear photographer Wendy Ewald lecture at the Whitesburg campus of SKCTC tonight.  She will be in the auditorium of the Belinda Mason Building from 7:00 pm -10:00 pm. Ewald is an internationally known photographer with many books on her photography projects as well as work published in magazines such as Psychology Today, Art in America, Harper;s and Time-Life. 
      Ewald lived and taught in Letcher County from 1974 -1982.  She has photographed in many parts of the world but the one of most interest to me is that of her stay in East Kentucky. That time period produced the books, Appalachia:  A Self Portrait, Appalachian Women:  Three Generations, Portraits and Dreams:  Photographs and Stories by Children of the Appalachians.
     Part of Ewald's presentation tonight will include images by her and her students during her stay in Letcher County as well as video from a new documentary project which follows up on former students who are now adults.
    The event is free and open to the public.  It is part of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Here is a link that gives detail of Ewald's career.

http://literacythroughphotography.wordpress.com/wendy-ewald/