November - record price and a sad story

World Record
Believed to be a new world record price for a miniature was paid for this diamond encrusted miniature portrait of Peter the Great originally given as an award.

It was sold at Sotheby's for USD1.315m, compared to an estimate of only $80,000-120,000. A total of 10 copies are known to have been awarded by the Russian Tsar and only six remain today.

Enough to make you weep!
I was sent the following anecdote the other day;
"I will leave you with a story that I was told just a few days ago. A man, very old today, remembers visiting in his grandfather's jewellery store in Manhattan during the depression. The man remembers people bringing in scraps of metal to be sold for pennies. And he remembers being just tall enough that he was eye to eye with a large jar his grandfather kept on a table. And the jar was full of little faces. The faces of miniatures which were discarded for the small amount of the precious metal would bring. All those tiny bits of art, lost to the world."