Breakfast at Tiffany's
April 11, 24
The huge Altar Gospels at the Kremlin, in Moscow, decorated with gold silver, diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, are something to behold.
They were the bling of their day - the 17th and 18th centuries - an opulent show of wealth and religious dedication by a privileged elite long before the advent of communism.
I recall standing there in the Armory Chamber, among the Faberge eggs, the ivory throne of Ivan the Terrible and the coronation dress of Catherine the Great, staring in amazement at the size (up to 3ft high) and value (impossible to say) of these treasures.
It's not really a thing anymore, binding Bibles or other books with precious gems. Except it is.
There's a company in Israel, called OrYahalom (Hebrew for "light of the diamond") that produces a range of Bibles adorned with diamonds.
And earlier this week a one-off edition of Breakfast at Tiffany's - the Truman Capote 1958 novella that inspired the Audrey Hepburn movie - was on display, decorated with over 1,000 diamonds, and bearing a $1.5m price tag.
This is no ordinary work of art. The signed first-edition that has been bound in black goatskin by British artist bookbinder Kate Holland with a design of Manhattan's streets from the 1950s, some of them platinum pave set with over 1,000 white diamonds - totaling nearly 30 carats.
Tiffany's flagship store, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, is marked by a one-carat emerald-cut sapphire, in the trademark robin egg blue. And the title is hand-tooled on the spine in platinum.
That's only part of the story. The book itself is displayed in a wooden birdcage, designed and ebonised (turned black like a piano) by a master cabinetmaker, on a specially-made glass plinth.
All of which fits inside a custom-made vintage trunk, based on a classic Louis Vuitton grey Trianon canvas wardrobe trunk.
The whole ensemble was on show at the 64th annual ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair. Ian Kahn, of specialist booksellers Lux Mentis, told us there had been "tentative nibbles" but no firm buyer so far.
Centuries ago such costly and elaborate endeavors were dedicated to the church. Today they celebrate popular culture and an iconic jeweler.
Breakfast at Tiffany's tells the story of café society girl Holly Golightly (Hepburn's character) and her quest for a wealthy husband in 1950s New York. The actual Tiffany's store, which appears in the movie, represents the glamor to which she aspires.
How Capote would feel about his slim 179-page work being transformed into coffee table treasure I don't know. Or Indeed Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of the Tiffany empire, who died when silent movies were still a novelty.
Have a fabulous weekend.