It’s hard to make time for anything other than business on such brief trips, but a blissfully quiet hour in Cafe Verlet was possible as it’s round the corner from the Tuileries where the shows are housed. This elegant little coffee importer/roaster also has an extensive menu of single estate coffees and teas to sample. Established in 1880 Verlet has been supplying chic restaurants and discerning Parisians ever snce. I bought some of their wonderful glace fruits which have an intense honey-like fruity taste, rather than the usual crystalized sugar.

I didn’t sit upstairs in the salon du thé as I like to inhale the scent of freshly ground coffee, and watch the variety of Parisian customers who shop there while I savour my Ethiopian coffee or Sencha green tea…

Cafe Verlet, 256 rue St Honoré Paris 1e  http://www.cafesverlet.com/

Mon-Sat 9.30-6.30

Talisman Gallery will shortly be taking delivery of a selection of exciting precious jewellery from Istanbul-based designer and sculptor Aida Bergsen. More about that in a future blog, when I will post images of the pieces that we will be selling. Aida and her husband Selim took me to dinner in Paris, and we talked about Istanbul – I am planning another trip after Easter.

I also managed to catch up with an old friend, the Paris-based American film director Bob Swaim (La Balance.) We had breakfast at the Cafe de Flore on blvd St Germain before he set off for the EICAS film school where is director of the International programme.

It’s hard to make time for anything other than business on such brief trips, but a trip to Cafe Verlet was possible as it is round the corner from the Tuileries where the shows are housed. This elegant little coffee importer/roaster also has a salon du the, and an extensive menu of single estate coffees and teas to sample. It’s been established since 1880 and supplies chic restaurants and discerning Parisian customers. I bought some of their wonderful glace fruits which have an intense honey-like fruity taste honey rather than the usual crystalized sugar.

I was disappointed with the jewellery I saw at the trade shows during Paris Fashion week.. At the moment gold and precious stone jewellery of the kind sold as fashion accessories in department stores and boutiques is safe, conservative and twee. High gold prices means that jewellery is becoming miniaturised. Companies are all copying each other because they’ve run out of ideas.

I’m always on the lookout for bold statement pieces in their own right, not accessories. Talisman Gallery’s USP as a retailer is to go against the grain, seeking out pieces that express the individuality of the designer and the customer who buys it. I try to find jewellery for confident women, but that also includes delicate, feminine collections from designers like Audrey Savransky and Brooke Gregson.

I’ve wanted to see the Klimt portrait of Adele Bauer Bloch for many years.  The gallery bought the iconic picture from the heirs after a bitter legal battle with the Austrian gallery that bought it in highly controversial circumstances in WWII. The Bloch heirs also donated two sculptures that were displayed in front of the portrait in Adele Bauer Bloch’s Vienna apartment. It really is a breathtaking painting.

In the same gallery is a small display of very rare and beautiful Wiener Werkstatte (Viennese Workshop) jewellery. Established in 1903 by artistic co-founders Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, the ethos was for well-made objects designed by artists and executed by specialized craftsmen. They believed that jewellery should be more than a signifier of wealth, and should primarily be of artistic value.

Koloman Moser (1868-1918) Necklace (1904) in silver and amber. Executed by WW

Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) Brooch (1905) in silver, coral, lapis lazuli, malachite, moonstone. Executed by Karl Ponocny, WW)

Josef Hoffmann. Brooch (1907) in silver, partly gilt, agate, coral, lapis lazuli, malachite, turquoise and other semi-precious stones. Executed by WW

Carl Otto Czeschka (1878-1960) Bracelet (1910) in gold and moonstone. Executed by  Stanislaus Teyc for WW

Josef Hoffmann. Brooch (1908) in silver, partly gilt, agate, amethyst, bloodstone, coral. jade, lapis lazuli. moonstone, opal, tourmaline. executed by Eugen Pflaumer for WW

Josef Hoffmann. Bracelet (1914) in gold, diamond, ivory. Executed by WW

Dagobert Peche (1887-1923) Pendant (1920) in gold, pearls. Executed by Anton Pribil for the Oskar Dietrich firm for WW

All images kindly supplied by Neue Galerie  www.neuegalerie.org

I found the sculptors putting the finishing touches to it:

They are En Yu Lin from Taiwan studying Illustration at Kingston University and Jun Young Oh from South Korea studying at Camberwell Art School.

The sale in Talisman Gallery Harvey Nichols starts 10am on Boxing Day, with 30% reduction on selected Lola Rose and up to 50% reduction on end of ranges including Chan Luu, The Branch and Gerda Lynggaard.

I will be reopening Cale Street on Thursday January 5th, and the sale starts on the 9th.

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting images and information about new designers and collections that I’m excited about sharing with you in 2012. Stay tuned for details of forthcoming trade shows in Europe and the US.

Lesley

Turquoise is a blue-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium. The name derives from the French turques as the gemstone mined in Persia was imported to Europe through Turkey. It was known to the Aztecs as chalchihuitl.

Persian sky-blue turquoise was highly valued for more than 2000 years, and primarily mined in the area around the mountain peak of Neyshabur. The Southwest of the USA was an important source, mainly from Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada. It was mined from pre-Columbian times by First Nation peoples, and has been used extensively by Navajo, Zuni and Hopi jewellers up to the present day.

China, Afghanistan, and Northern India have all been sources of turquoise. It has been seen as a holy stone and good luck amulet. In Ancient Egypt it accompanied the dead inlaid in grave goods , and in Persia the brightest blue gemstones were believed to be protective against untimely death.

Above left to right: Ram Rijal 22ct gold and turquoise ring; Lithos pendant of turquoise and 18ct gold set with blue topaz  and 18ct gold, turquoise  and diamond ring. From a selection at Talisman Gallery Harvey Nichols ]]> http://talismangallery.co.uk/blue-rondo-a-la-turque-december-turquoise/feed/ 0 http://talismangallery.co.uk/tomb-of-the-unknown-craftsman-grayson-perry-at-the-british-museum/ http://talismangallery.co.uk/tomb-of-the-unknown-craftsman-grayson-perry-at-the-british-museum/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:29:35 +0000 Amanda http://talismangallery.co.uk/?p=1101 Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry has been delving deep into the British Museum’s collection to curate a personal view of the world through objects created by anonymous craftspeople. He has set up a dialogue between these diverse objects and his own ceramic and metal creations, but the originality of this exhibition is that he isn’t looking for inspiration. Rather, he selects pieces that resonate with his own self-created and mythological cultural world. The exhibition is prefaced with an extraordinary bespoke motorbike parked at the entrance. AM1 (named for his childhood teddy Alan Measles) took Perry on a pilgrimage through Germany, with Measles in a mounted glass altar on the back in homage to the Popemobile.        

Perry is an artist that people love or hate. He’s been dismissed as a potter in a dress. This exhibition may convert some who are puzzled by his ceramics, but it will mostly open up his broad base of enthusiasts to some challenging themes from the BM collection. Sexuality, death, maps, pilgrimage and spirituality unite different cultures over time and geography. When I went on a late Friday afternoon the visitors ranged from small children to the elderly, students to ladies up from the shires, tourists from everywhere.

There’s a lot of humour, both satirical and sly, but overall a great sense of curiosity and enthusiasm for ideas as well as technique and form. Alan Measles crops up in surprising guises, as the representation of a god or votive figure in his own personal cult. Perry draws parallels between the shamans and magi of other cultures with the position of the artist in our own. The shapeshifting and gender-bending he embraces is really nothing new, and he ferrets out examples to show this fluidity appears and reappears throughout history.

My favourite items? The cast iron ship at the end of the exhibition, bearing the souls of all the Unknown Craftsmen (and Perry?) contained in glass bottles into the Afterlife; it’s decorated with reminders of the great cargo contained inside the British Museum. And the two iron figures that represent all people, everywhere, from all times called Our Mother and Our Father, who are weighed down by the detritus and baggage of humanity they carry into eternal exile.

The BBC Imagine documentary about Grayson Perry’s pilgrimage on AM1 to Germany is still available on iPlayer  http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b016ycnn/ for about another month. The exhibition is on at the British Museum http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/grayson_perry.aspx until February 26th 2012.

Emily Armenta of Armenta Designers was here from Houston for a Press launch of her collection. I was at the press breakfast at the Dorchester and the journalists were really excited by her jewellery designs. She sells exclusively through Talisman Gallery in the UK and I’m already building an enthusiastic and loyal clientele for her work. I’ve posted about her inspirations in an earlier blog, but there will be a more detailed piece with an interview and Designer Questionnaire soon. New pieces will be in store in the next few weeks, just in time for Christmas.

It’s always a pleasure to see Dima of Dima Designs, who blew into town from Cairo on her way to Los Angeles. She was visiting her friend and client Vanessa Williams on the set of ‘Desperate Housewives’ in LA- and Eva Longoria has also become a devotee of her intricate Islamic-inspired jewellery. I was the first retailer to buy her work in the UK – she had been a customer of mine, and was encouraged by our conversations about jewellery to start her own business.

Emre Dilaver who runs Sevan Bıçakçı Jewellery in Istanbul, stopped over briefly in London – he always seems to be travelling to America and the Middle East. We played backgammon (which is my latest obsession) till the early hours. The first time we played was in Istanbul and he trounced me, but on home territory I got my own back. I intend retuning to Istanbul shortly to buy some more pieces from Sevan, as Talisman Gallery Harvey Nichols has sold almost all the pieces I bought.

Roya Noebashari from Noor Gallery in Tehran was here at the beginning of October, and I now have some lovely new pieces in store – we sell her work exclusively in the UK. Roya always generously brings me gifts of top quality saffron and a huge bag of fresh pistachios from Iran whenever she visits London.

I’m planning on making time to visit the Grayson Perry ‘Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman’ exhibition at the British Museum, the newly opened 2 Temple Place and the Russian Constructivist exhibition at the Royal Academy before Christmas.

In the 18th century the Schneckenstian topaz mine in Saxony was the most famous source of the gemstone, but Brazil is now a major supplier, including the rare and highly sought-after  Imperial topaz. Light blue topaz is even found in the British Isles.

The name probably derives from the Old French topace and Latin topazus. Some sources suggest that ‘Topaz Island’ was the Isle of Serpents in the Red Sea, also known as Topazos, but as the gemstone has never been found there it is probably an etymological confusion.

The Romans associated topaz with Jupiter, god of the Sun, as did the Ancient Egyptians with their own Sun god Ra. It has been used as an amulet stone that protects and wards off melancholy, insomnia and warns of poison. Topaz was believed to cure eye problems and prevent bad dreams.

Below: Diego Percossi Papi blue topaz and gold vermeil Sun and Moon earrings  from a selection at Talisman Gallery Harvey Nichols

The preview contained only a small selection of the lots up for sale, so I will certainly buy the catalogue when it’s issued. I have a great collection of auction catalogues that I use for reference – not only the price guide but also because the images usually show the jewellery in great detail.  I’m also interested to see the rest of the collection which includes couture gowns – some of which were displayed at the preview.