Jack Seibert, Certified Gemologist – American Gem society, will frequently go shopping for diamonds in Antwerp, Belgium, the diamond capital of the world. When he is there, he sorts through thousands of diamonds to find some of the prettiest.
Initially, Jack does a “quick” sort to identify diamonds he would like to evaluate more closely. Then he will go back with a more critical eye, grading each diamond personally, looking at color, clarity, and most importantly cut. If a diamond meets Jack’s criteria, it comes home with him, one of the chosen few!
Jack travels with a prominent group of jewelry storeowners, and is able to take advantage of superior prices. Diamonds cannot be purchased any closer to the source. Jack has purchased diamonds at prices that are normally available only to importers and then passes that saving on to his customers.
Belgium’s second city, Antwerp, fans out from the east bank of the Scheldt about 50km north of Brussels. Many people prefer it to the capital; though not an immediately likeable place, it has a denser concentration of things to see, not least some fine churches and distinguished museums – reminders of its auspicious past as center of a wide trading empire. It also has a more focused character: in recent years, the city has become the effective capital of Flemish Belgium, a lively cultural center with a spirited nightlife. On the surface it’s not a wealthy city – the area around the docks especially is rundown and seedy – but it’s diamond industry (centered behind the dusty facades around Centraal Station) is the world’s largest. On a less contemporary note, there is also the enormous legacy of Rubens, some of whose finest works adorn Antwerp’s galleries and churches.
The center of Antwerp is Grote Markt, at the heart of which stands the Brabo Fountain, a haphazard pile of rocks surmounted by a bronze of Silvius Brabo, depicted flinging the hand of the giant Antigonus – who terrorized passing ships – into the Scheldt. The north side of Grote Markt is lined with daintily restored sixteenth – century guildhouses, though they are overshadowed by the Stadhuis, completed in 1566 to a design by Cornelis Floris and one of the most important buildings of the Northern Renaissance.
Southeast of Grote Markt, the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Cathedral is one of the finest Gothic churches in Belgium, mostly the work of Jan and Pieter Appelmans in the middle of the fifteenth century. The broad nave is notable primarily for its paintings by Rubens, of which the Descent from the Cross, to the right of the central crossing, is the most beautiful. In the ambulatory;the second chapel down the right hand side – is the Resurrection triptych by Rubens, painted for the tomb of his friend Jan Moretus in 1612. Moretus is also remembered by the Plantin – Moretus Museum on Vrijdagmarkt, south of Grote Markt, housed in the mansion of his father in law, the printer Christopher Plantin. One of Antwerp’s most interesting museums, it provides a marvelous insight into how Plantin and his family conducted their business.
