Monday, November 02, 2009

Diamond Fever

I could go for a diamond or two today..... maybe a yellow diamond. Square or princess cut, surrounded by smaller, white diamonds, in a palladium setting. You know. If you're in the area/the market/or just want to make me smile. Hahahaha. ?

Recently I went to a very educational and extravagant exhibit at the Field Museum on diamonds. It was fascinating and beautiful and we ended up spending hours in the exhibit.

Did you know........
  • Diamonds repel water?
  • Diamonds are better heat conductors than copper?
  • Diamonds are carried to Earth's surface by magma?
Now you do! To learn more about diamonds, check out the Field Museum's overview of the exhibit, which is running until March 28th.

My personal favorites were:


The Incomparable Diamond: 407 carat golden-colored kite-shaped diamond, found in the 1980's by a young girl in the Congo who was playing in a pile of rubble.


The Milky Way 2000 Collar: designed by Dieter Huebner, it contains 2,000 diamonds totallying 67.96 carats.

A pink diamond ring designed by Christian Tse. This isn't the same one, but it is almost as fabulous!

Other wonderful parts of the exhibit were Catherine the Great's necklace, sold by the Russian Government in 1926; a huge diamond given by a czar to some child upon growing her first baby tooth; the Mirage World Peace Egg; and this gecko brooch made of 1, 524 green diamonds (62.16 carats) designed by Stefan Hemmerle in 2001.

3 comments:

Bethanie said...

how awesome! Thanks for sharing--I almost feel like I got to go to the exhibit. :) I really like the Incomparable Diamond and the pink one!

Megora said...

Did they mention conflict diamonds in the exhibition?

Aubrey said...

There was a LARGE part of the exhibit addressing conflict diamonds. It was really interesting too! I don't know why I didn't mention it in my blog. I guess I was distracted by all the sparkles!