NEW YORK (AP) – A noted New York City jeweler who collected baubles worth millions of dollars and ran boutiques that decorated celebrities and fashion models in eye-catching opulence was arrested Monday on fraud charges.
Ralph Esmerian, the former owner of the ultra-high-end jeweler Fred Leighton, was accused by federal prosecutors of trying to hide $40 million in assets during a bankruptcy proceeding.
Esmerian had pledged a fortune in vintage jewelry as collateral to Merrill Lynch when he obtained $177 million in loans to buy Fred Leighton in 2006, postal inspectors who investigated the case said in a court filing.
But after the company’s finances disintegrated, they said he secretly sold off some of those pieces and improperly double-pledged others to get millions of dollars in new loans.
One brooch, called the Endymion Butterfly in court papers, sold for $2.2 million. Investigators said Esmerian pocketed $1 million from the deal, then, when confronted by Merrill Lynch about the missing jewels, dipped even deeper into inventory he didn’t own to try to buy the piece back.
Among the items he sold, according to the court complaint, were two century-old Art Nouveau brooches that belonged to a private collector, each worth about $1 million. Other embezzled property, according to prosecutors, included an 1887 diamond brooch worth $1.5 million and an 1894 diamond and ruby butterfly brooch worth $2.5 million.
Esmerian’s attorney did not immediately return phone messages Monday.
Fred Leighton was purchased by new owners during the bankruptcy court proceeding in 2009. The company’s current chief executive, Greg Kwiat, said Esmerian has had nothing to do with Fred Leighton since 2009.
The jeweler’s vintage treasurers are a staple on the red carpet at the Academy Awards and in the pages of fashion magazines.
Before his purchase of Fred Leighton, Esmerian’s claim to fame had been as a collector of museum-quality jewelry and as a wholesaler of precious gems.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
From a private collection in Philadelphia, this Tiffany Favrile glass and bonze Moorish chandelier is 34 inches high. It carries a $30,000-$50,000 estimate. Image courtesy of Fuller’s Fine Art Auctions. PHILADELPHIA – Fuller’s Fine Art Auctions will conduct its next auction on Saturday, Dec. 4, beginning at noon Eastern. In addition to impressive paintings and prints, the auction will feature a collection of rare coins, antique jewelry and one-of-a-kind baseball memorabilia.
LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet bidding.
One of the highlights is a stunning Louis Comfort Tiffany Favrile glass and bronze eight-light Moorish chandelier dating from 1899-1920, which has a $30,000-50,000 estimate.
Among the many paintings up for auction will be Musicians by the renowned Ukrainian artist Emmanuel Mané-Katz (est. $60,000-$80,000), as well as a floral still life painting by the Philadelphian James Longacre Wood (est. $3,000-$5,000), and Silent as a Fish, a 1955 painting by David Burliuk (est. $6,000-$9,000).
Prints will include a Joan Miró aquatint in colors titled Le Dandy from 1969 (est. $10,000-$12,000); Eduard Wiiralt’s 1930 copper etching and engraving, Porgu (Hell) (est. $3,000-$5,000); and a series of five woodcuts by T.C. Cannon titled Portraits of the Brave Heart People from 1975-79 (est. $7,000-$9,000).
Photographs by Ray Metzker, Jock Sturges and Edward Weston will also be auctioned.
The auction will also feature news correspondent Tony Galli’s New York Yankees vs. Brooklyn Dodgers World Series Game 5 score sheet, Oct. 8, 1956, autographed by Don Larsen. The score sheet is accompanied by a copy of the Oct. 22, 1956 Life magazine featuring “The Rewards of Pitching the Perfect Game.” The article includes a photo of the press mob with Tony Galli hovering with pad and pencil over Don Larsen to record his answers to their questions. Also included is Galli’s ongoing teletype reports of this historic baseball game as it progressed and was transmitted by him to newspapers and radio-TV stations across the country for INS (International New Service, the predecessor of UPI). This is Galli’s score sheet for the only perfect game ever pitched in a World Series, signed on that day “To Tony / Don Larsen” (est. $8,000-$10,000).
In addition is Galli’s official American League baseball that he had autographed by major leaguers including Red Schoendienst, Walter Alston, Yogi Berra, Jack McKeon, Dick Williams, Ralph Houk and Billy Martin (est. $800-$1,200).
Prospective bidders may preview the sale in person at Fuller’s West Mount Airy location from Saturday, Nov. 27, through Friday, Dec. 3, from noon to 5 p.m. daily.
On the day of sale the doors open at 9 a.m. The auction begins at noon.
Fuller’s will accept telephone line requests and absentee bids until noon on Friday, Dec. 3. Real-time online bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.com beginning at noon on Saturday, Dec. 4. Advance registration is required. The buyer’s premium is 18 percent. Principal auctioneer is Jeffrey P. Fuller, director of Fuller’s Fine Art Auctions, president of Jeffrey Fuller Fine Art Ltd. since 1979, and an Accredited Senior Appraiser of the American Society of Appraisers since 1984.
For more information e-mail Info@FullersLLC.com or call (215) 991-0100.
For live and absentee Internet bidding, go to LiveAuctioneers at www.liveauctioneers.com. A full auction catalog is also online at www.FullersLLC.com.
Dick Williams and Billy Martin, who met in the 1953 World Series, are among the signers of this Official American League baseball. It has an $800-$1,200 estimate. Image courtesy of Fuller’s Fine Art Auctions.News correspondent Tony Galli’s score sheet recording Don Larsen’s perfect game is the centerpiece of this lot of 1956 World Series memorabilia. The New York Yankees’ pitcher autographed the score sheet. Image courtesy of Fuller’s Fine Art Auctions.Eduard Wiiralt (Estonian, 1898-1954), ‘Porgu,’(Hell), 1930, copper etching and engraving, 15 1/4 x 18 inches (plate), 20 x 24 3/4 inches (sheet), inscribed, dated and signed in pencil. Estimate: $3,000-$5,000. Image courtesy of Fuller’s Fine Art Auctions.Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893-1983) ‘Le Dandy,’ 1969, aquatint, etching, and carborundum in colors, HC, 16 1/4 x 17-1/8 inches (plate), 22 x 21 1/2 inches (sight), 29-1/8 x 23-1/8 inches (sheet), numbered and signed in pencil by the artist. Estimate: $10,000-$12,000. Image courtesy of Fuller’s Fine Art Auctions.Emmanuel Mané-Katz (French/Ukrainian, 1894-1962) ‘Musicians,’ circa 1947, oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 28 1/4 inches (stretcher), signed lower center recto ‘Mané-Katz.’ Estimate: $60,000-$80,000. Image courtesy of Fuller’s Fine Art Auctions.
Alaskan brown bear trophy taken on Kodiak Island. Estimate: $4,000-$7,000. Image courtesy of Pook & Pook Inc. DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. – Pook & Pook Inc.’s Decorative Arts Sale to be held Dec. 2 and 3 will open with an animal trophy collection from the estate of J. Martin Benchoff. The group includes more than 60 lots of trophies, from a full-size Alaskan Kodiak brown bear to a large black rhino head. J. Martin Benchoff was an industrialist and a big game hunter from Shady Grove, Pa. He collected trophy specimens from the United States, Canada, Europe and Africa.
LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
Benchoff was also a patron of wildlife artist Gary Swanson. The first lot of the sale is an oil on canvas by Swanson depicting rams in the Pamir Mountains estimated at $4,000-$6,000.
The second featured collection in the sale consists of a large group of painted bronze figures, collected by Dr. Robert L. Schaeffer Jr. These bronzes are being sold for the benefit of the Schaeffer Endowment Fund of The Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin and Marshall College. In all sizes from one-half inch to 17 inches, a myriad of different mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians and insects will be sold. The Schaeffer collection starts with a pair of Austrian pheasants, 16 1/2 inches and 17 inches long. Others include a group of 19 farms animals, a group of turtles, a pair of large elephants, a pair of porcupines and a group of 21 lizards, just to name a few. Approximately 150 lots of bronzes, over 2,000 individual pieces, will be offered.
The sale will then move into other areas of decorative arts including furniture, paintings, Oriental rugs and accessories. American and Continental furniture encompasses a wide variety of items, beds, benches, painted blanket chests, breakfronts, candlestands, Windsor chairs and a many types of cupboards and chests of drawers. In addition to antique pieces, a selection of Kittinger and Knoll items will be offered.
A Kittinger mahogany chest on frame is estimated at $500-$1,000, a breakfront for $800-$1,000 and 13 other examples. There are groups of Knoll swivel chairs, sofas and end tables.
Coming at the beginning of the holiday season, Christmas and Thanksgiving related groups will be offered. A German musical Christmas tree stand, Dresden ornaments, kugels and German candy containers are just a few of the offerings. Music boxes will add to the festivities. A Swiss Sublime Harmony cylinder box, a Regina disc player and a coin operated Nickelodeon are some of the highlights together with a group of 13 lithographed windup boxes. Accessory items are interspersed throughout the sale comprising baskets, mirrors, mantel clocks, candelabra, various dresser boxes, lamps, brass andirons, fire tools and more.
Bidjar, Bohkara, Heriz and Kazak are just a few of the Oriental carpets to be sold. There will also be selections of Chinese export, Staffordshire, Royal Doulton amd pearlware. Large frosted Lalique glass pieces including an elephant, panthers and a stag are sure to attract attention together with other glassware to include Steuben, Favrile, satin glass and Amberina. A large group of colorful Moorcroft pottery is sure to escalate the bidding.
To round out the sale add a selection of English and American samplers, dolls and toys, weaponry, Native American items, paintings by listed artists, quilts and coverlets.
For further information visit Pook & Pook’s website at www.pookandpook.com or email info@pookandpook.com.
1973 Jaguar XJ6 Series 1, approximately 73,000 original miles, purchased new by single owner, garage kept. Estimate: $5,000-$8,000. Image courtesy of Pook & Pook Inc.Austrian cold painted bronze turkey, mid 20th century, 7 inches high. Estimate: $200-$400. Image courtesy of Pook & Pook Inc.Kittinger butler’s desk, 40 1/2 inches high x 38 inches long. Estimate: $300-$500. Image courtesy of Pook & Pook Inc.Group of satin overlay includes quilted vase and glasses, together with colored hobnail glass, ruby spatter glass, enameled vases, etc., approximately 19 pieces. Estimate: $150-$200. Image courtesy of Pook & Pook Inc.
Re-creation of an herbivorous Alamosaurus, meaning "Alamo lizard," a genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Period. Image originally uploaded to Wikipedia.org by DiBgd. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
DALLAS (AP) – In the bowels of the Museum of Nature & Science in Fair Park, Tommy Diamond sat hunched over what looked like a huge boulder of plaster.
Yes, there was a lot of plaster there, but what was underneath was much more valuable priceless, in fact.
Diamond spends eight hours (or more) a day chipping away at the vertebra of an Alamosaurus.
Ten vertebrae of the 65-million-year-old dinosaur, uncovered in 1997, are being prepared to go on display for the opening of the Perot Museum of Nature & Science in Victory Park in 2012.
“No one’s ever seen the neck of an Alamosaurus before,” said Tony Fiorillo, curator of earth sciences at the museum. “They’re not the biggest vertebrae ever found, but they’re certainly the biggest ever excavated in Texas.”
The cervical bones were found in Big Bend National Park in West Texas by accident. Fiorillo’s team was working about 500 feet away when University of Texas at Dallas student Dana Biasatti saw the dinosaur’s hip bones poking right above the surface.
They weren’t lifted out of the park until 2001, after extended negotiations with Big Bend officials. Because the vertebrae were so heavy (ranging from 100 to 800 pounds), some had to be airlifted out of the park by helicopter.
Now they sit in the museum’s basement in plaster casts, waiting to be uncovered by the museum’s fossil preparators. It takes six to seven months to chip away at all the plaster and uncover the bone (without damaging it) and get it museum ready.
“When you get past all the dirt and down to the bone, that’s when you get really sucked into it,” said Ron Tykoski, chief fossil preparator. “It gets really exciting, every little layer you peel away.”
The first Alamosaurus bones were discovered in 1922 in New Mexico. Contrary to one’s first thought, the dinosaur was not named after the San Antonio landmark, but rather the river bed where the fossils were found.
The dinosaur is classified as a sauropod, which includes some of the largest animals to live on land. The Alamosaurus, a herbivore, is estimated to have weighed 35 tons.
The Museum of Nature & Science is working with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and UTD, both of which have other parts of the dinosaur. The actual bones will be scanned and casts will be made and put on display in the museum. The real bones are too heavy to use in the full skeleton re-creation.
Three institutions working together on one animal is atypical, Fiorillo said. Usually one organization handles all of the preparation and set up for a museum display. Because the other institutions discovered the other bones decades ago, the three must work together to re-create the entire animal.
But there is one part of the Alamosaurus no one has ever seen – a skull.
“We were really excited because the neck was all articulated,” Fiorillo said. “It was going and going and we were hoping for a skull, but it stopped after the neck.”
Tools that wouldn’t look out of place in a dentist’s office are used to painstakingly chip away slivers of dirt of and plaster. Tykoski and Diamond said it’s not uncommon for their fingers to be numb after consecutive hours of scraping away at the bone.
The museum has two people dedicated solely to getting the Alamosaurus fossils ready. But volunteers have also played a huge part in preparing the bones.
Whittling away at the layers of plaster and dirt for hours on end doesn’t demand expert skill, but it does require quite a bit of patience.
Fiorillo said the volunteers come in when they can, working for a few hours at a time. They come from scientific and nonscientific backgrounds – from anthropology students to fossil enthusiasts to artists.
Marcie Keller, who started full time with the museum at the beginning of October, was an art major in college. She has no experience in archaeology or science at all, for that matter.
Fiorillo said those with an artistic background are some of their best volunteers, because of their good hand-eye coordination.
Keller agreed, adding: “I did a lot of etching and printmaking so this is pretty much doing the same thing. I felt very comfortable in the lab right away.”
The work is tedious, the fossil preparators admit, but there is almost always a huge payoff once the final layer of dirt is scraped away.
“You can be the first person in the world to see a particular bone or fossil,” Tykoski said. “It can look like a big chunk of rock, but maybe you’ll find something under all those layers.
“It’s quite the adrenaline rush.”
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Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Old City in Jerusalem is seen in this photo with Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives in background. Photo by Shmuel Spiegelman. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license.
JERUSALEM (AP) – While excavating the site for a planned new ritual bath for Jews in Jerusalem, Israeli archaeologists uncovered a pool belonging to the Roman legion that sacked the city nearly 2,000 years ago.
The discovery announced Monday sheds a rare light on the city the Romans built after destroying the second Jewish Temple in 70 A.D. and expelling the Jews from Jerusalem following their revolt.
Ofer Sion, the director of the excavation in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, said the site helps prove that the Roman city was larger than previously thought.
“It is very important because in all the excavations in the Jewish quarter (we have) never found a building from the 2nd and 3rd century,” he said Monday.
History-rich Jerusalem is one of the most excavated cities in the world, and archaeologists are routinely deployed to examine sites ahead of any planned construction projects.
The archaeologists found steps leading to the pool’s white mosaic floor and hundreds of terra cotta roof tiles stamped with the name of the Roman unit – the famed Tenth Legion – that built the pool. Sion suggested the site was part of a larger complex where thousands of soldiers once bathed.
After the city was sacked and the Jewish kingdom overthrown, the Romans founded the city of Aelia Capitolina as capital of the new province of Syria-Palestina.
Later, when the Jordanians ruled in Jerusalem’s Old City from 1948-1967, a sewing factory was built on the same site, Sion said.
When the archaeologists complete their dig, the Jerusalem city council will continue their plans to build a mikveh, a Jewish ritual bath, Israeli authorities said. Some religious Jews routinely use the bath for ritual purification.
Israel’s Antiquities Authority said that the remains of the ancient Roman bathhouse would be integrated into the design of the new ritual bath.
Archaeology and politics often go hand in hand in Jerusalem, and especially in areas surrounding the Old City and its many layers of history that are enmeshed in a web of competing claims.
Rafi Greenberg, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University, said Israeli authorities often focus on findings from Jerusalem’s Jewish past at the expense of historical remants from other eras.
“Every modern building in the Old City is built above an ancient building,” Greenberg said. “The question is if religious authorities are tolerant enough to accept alternative histories.”
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
HEMBY BRIDGE, N.C. (AP) – A three-year-old North Carolina boy has been shot and killed by his father, who was showing another son how to fire the muzzle-loading rifle.
The Union County Sheriff’s Office told multiple media outlets the victim was Jesse David Simpson.
Authorities say the boy was visiting his grandparents’ house about 10 miles southeast of Charlotte when the shooting occurred around 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Deputies say the boy’s father was showing his 4-year-old son how to fire the muzzle-loading rifle when the 3-year-old stepped onto the patio and was hit in the chest.
Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Easley says the .50-caliber rifle was an antique and has to be filled with powder and can only fire one shot at a time.
No charges have been filed.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Cover of sheet music for "The Star-Spangled Banner" [words by Francis Scott Key], transcribed for piano by Ch. Voss, Philadelphia: G. Andre & Co., 1862. Image from the Project Gutenberg archives.
NEW YORK (AP) – An 1814 first edition of The Star-Spangled Banner is heading for the auction block in New York City. It’s estimated to go for $200,000 to $300,000 at the sale early next month.
Christie’s auction house says it’s the only known copy in private hands and one of only 11 first-edition copies known to exist. The others are in institutions or university libraries. The auction is scheduled for Dec. 3.
Francis Scott Key wrote a first draft of the poem that was set to music in September 1814 as a British naval flotilla bombarded Fort McHenry.
Publisher Thomas Carr rushed the song to print, resulting in typos and Key’s name being omitted. The first edition also called it A Patriotic Song. The song wasn’t officially recognized as the national anthem until 1931.
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Online: www.christies.com
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Caption: A photo of the head from a statue of Joseph Stalin desecrated during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution that preceded the Red Army’s takeover that crushed the citizens’ revolt. Fair use of low-resolution historically significant photo obtained through Wikipedia.org.
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) – Hungary will auction off 230 Communist-era relics, including a life-size bust of former Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin, to benefit the victims of last month’s red sludge flood.
The objects, which also include paintings in the Socialist realism style and photographs of Hungary’s communist-era leaders, were found in state warehouses and ministries “where they have been gathering dust for the past 20 years,” Bence Retvari, Hungary’s state secretary, said Monday.
“The state does not want to look after these Communist relics anymore,” he added.
The auction will be held Dec. 6 at the Pinter Gallery in the capital, Budapest. The revenue will go to Caritas, a Catholic charity, to help residents in several western towns left devastated by an Oct. 4 flood of toxic red sludge from a plant reservoir. Ten people died in the deluge and dozens were injured.
Gallery owner Peter Pinter said he hoped the most valuable objects would go to a single bidder so “they could then be donated to a museum or public collection for exhibit.”
The auction pieces include a large, framed photo of Matyas Rakosi, the ruler who led a Stalinist-type regime between 1945 and 1956.
Artwork with communist themes has met with varying fates across Hungary after the end of the communist regime in 1990.
Many large statues – of Soviet-era leaders and soldiers, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and factory workers – were moved to Memento Park, an outdoor museum in Budapest. A huge painting by Aurel Bernath called The Workers’ State can be seen again in the lobby of a prominent political building in the capital after being hidden from public view from 1990-2004.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
![Cover of sheet music for "The Star-Spangled Banner" [words by Francis Scott Key], transcribed for piano by Ch. Voss, Philadelphia: G. Andre & Co., 1862. Image from the Project Gutenberg archives.](https://www.liveauctioneers.com/wp-content/uploads/jupiterx/images/2010_1123_StarSpangled_lead-365c428.jpg)
![Cover of sheet music for "The Star-Spangled Banner" [words by Francis Scott Key], transcribed for piano by Ch. Voss, Philadelphia: G. Andre & Co., 1862. Image from the Project Gutenberg archives.](https://www.liveauctioneers.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2010_1123_StarSpangled_lead.jpg "Cover of sheet music for \"The Star-Spangled Banner\" [words by Francis Scott Key], transcribed for piano by Ch. Voss, Philadelphia: G. Andre & Co., 1862. Image from the Project Gutenberg archives.")
