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Diamonds:
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What comes to mind when one thinks of diamonds? The cliché: a girl's best friend? The various jewelry companies known for their beautiful creations: De Beers Tiffany Cartier? Political connotations? |
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Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum will explore the world's hardest naturally acquired substance, in The Nature of Diamonds. The ROM will look at the gemstone as a natural substance, digging into its geologic origins, how it is mined, its cultural significance in art, literature, and ornamentation, and its numerous uses in modern science and technology. Plus the museum will examine our fascination with diamonds.
Title: Gecko Brooch, Germany 2001
Artist: Stefan Hemmerle
Medium: 1,524 Green Diamonds (62.14 Carats) Chrysoberyls, White Gold
© Hemmerle
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
The Nature of Diamonds
Royal Ontario Museum
Toronto
October 25, 2008 - March 22, 2009
Title: The Incomparable Diamond
Medium: 407.48-carat golden coloured kite-shaped diamond
Rough diamond was found in the 1980s in the
Mbuji-Maya district of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Loaned by Marvin Samuels/Premier Gem Corp.,
New York and Louis Glick/Rose Trading, New York and Hong Kong
Photo: Asher Wilens © Premier Gem Corp.
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
Collectors
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Diamonds figure in the collections of some of the wealthiest people in the world from royalty to pop stars. |
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Marie de Medici, Princess Mathilde and the Russian Royal family, like many Royals past and present, all loved wearing diamond pieces. |
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Princess Mathilde
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Flowers, notably roses, were a popular designs for jewelry in the 19th Century. Napoleon Bonaparte's niece, Mathilde Laetitia Wilhelmine Bonaparte, Princesse Française, once owned this corsage ornament. It was believed the rose was her favorite flower. |
Suitors would hold a rose to her face to see if they could distinguish the flower's petal from her cheeks. After her death, 1904, a rose was placed next to her in her casket. Her jewels were auctioned and eventually this corsage ornament ended up in the collection of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and became a favored piece of the New York society doyen. Vanderbilt wore the corsage ornament in several of her portraits.
Russian Royalty
Title: Kokoshnik tiara, 1911
Artist: Cartier, Paris, special order,
Medium: Round old-, single- and rose-cut diamonds, platinum, millegrain setting.
Permanent Collection: Cartier Collection
Photo by N. Welsh © Cartier
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
The Russian Royals traditionally gifted royal brides with a fringe tiara called a Kokoshnik Tiara. It was styled after the headdress of a traditional Russian peasant girl. England's Queen Elizabeth owns a Kokoshnik style Tiara that was given to her great-grandmother Alexandra to mark her 25th wedding anniversary when her husband the future King Edward VII, was Prince of Wales. Alexandra liked the style and had requested it.
Title: Pendant Watch with Cipher of Catherine II
St. Petersburg, Russia 1786-1796
D. T. Mussard (movements)
Medium: Gold Diamonds Rubies
Dimensions: H 6in., Dia 1 5/8 in., (watchcase)
Hillwood Estate Museum & Gardens
Bequest of Marjorie Merriweather Post, 1973
Photographer: E. Owen
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
Catherine the Great gifted her Granddaughter with the diamond encrusted chatelaine. In the rococo era women would wear a chatelaine, that hung from their waist, usually with small keys or tools that she might need suspended from the piece. Sometimes chatelaines would include a watch such as the one that once belonged to the Russian Royal Family. It is embossed with Catherine the Great's monogram, set in rubies.
Maharajah of Indore
Title: Belt Buckle, 1928
Diamonds, platinum and onyx in a blend of
Indian inspired opulence and Western Art Deco modernism
Purchased from Cartier by the Maharajah of Indore,
widely described as the wealthiest man in the world in the
1920s and 1930s
©Nick Welsh/Cartier Collection
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
Sir Yeshwant Holkar was better known as the Maharajah of Indore, a Prince of India. Indore is the largest city Madhya Pradesh located in central India. The Maharajah's fortune was described to be at over $20 million during the late 1930s. His hobbies included collecting gemstones.
Elton John
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Flamboyant pop star Elton John once owned one of the many highlights in the exhibition: a 1928 Cartier designed diamond shoulder brooch. |
Designers
Don't overlook the designers involved in the creative process. Cartier, Tiffany and Boucheron need people to actually create the designs. Diamonds looks at some of the famous in other fields, like Frank Gehry, and contemporary Canadian designers Niki Kavakonis and Dieter Huebner.
Frank Gehry
Title: Diamonds in the Rough necklace,
Artist: Frank Gehry for Tiffany & Co, 2006
Medium: Rough diamonds, cultured keshi pearls, gold mesh
The folding, bending and twisting forms of Frank Gehry’s
striking architecture are also reflected in his approach to
jewelry design. For this necklace, Gehry sprinkled rough
diamonds and cultured keshi pearls on gauzy gold mesh,
attaching the gems where they landed.
© Tiffany & Co.
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
Frank Gehry is best known as one of the world's greatest contemporary architects. Next month his new designs for Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) will be unveiled. His jewelry is akin to his building designs: unique.
Niki Kavakonis
Title: Tip of the Iceberg Ring, 2007 Toronto
Artist: Niki Kavakonis
A natural, uncut 2.78ct octahedral diamond from the
Ekati mine (Northwest Territories) set in Palladium
Niki Kavakonis Designs
Photo ©Royal Ontario Museum, 2008
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
Contemporary artists have a spot in the exhibition. Niki Kavakonis's Tip of the Iceberg Ring features a 2.78ct natural uncut diamond from northern Canada, invisibly set into 18kt white gold. It was originally created for The Northern Lights Exhibition featuring Bjorn Weckstrom at Toronto's Design Exchange in 2005.
Niki Kavakonis said, "I am thrilled to be in The Nature of Diamonds exhibition." Of the Iceberg Ring, she explained, "A couple of years prior to designing the Tip of the Iceberg ring I had traveled to Newfoundland with my husband to see the Icebergs along Iceberg Alley. That gave me the inspiration for working with an uncut Canadian diamond. When I was doing the actual design work for the ring I was reading a lot about Fallingwater, and that's where the second source of inspiration came from."
Fallingwater, located close to Pittsburgh, is famous for it's designer, American Frank Lloyd Wright, and Wright's unique design, the home, was built partially over a waterfalls. Wright's use of cantilevers, which is a beam anchored at one end, like the floors at Fallingwater, and projecting out into space. Kavakonis used the style in the creation of Tip of the Iceberg Ring.
The ring came before the designer visited Fallingwater. Kavakonis said, "this year, I did get a chance to visit Fallingwater, and it was very impressive. You can stand on the balconies during the tour, and you really do get the sense of "living" with the waterfall."
Dieter Huebner
Title: Milky Way Necklace, 2000
Artist: Dieter Huebner of Toronto for Brinkhaus Jewellers (Vancouver)
Medium: 2,000 diamonds weighing 67.96 carats suspended in a platinum grid
Winner of De Beers Diamonds International Award in
2000 for this salute to the millennium
Photo © C. Philip Hersee Photography Ltd.
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
German native Dieter Huebner spent several years teaching art, in his field gold and silver metal design, at Humber College.
Natural History
Earlier this year the ROM hosted an exhibition celebrating Charles Darwin. Natural History is a key focus for the Royal Ontario Museum.
William Thorsell, ROM Director and CEO, states, "The Nature of Diamonds is a remarkable exhibition, brilliantly highlighting the ROM’s dual mandate of natural history and world cultures. Once again, we have worked with renowned institutions, including our good friends at the American Museum of Natural History, to bring our visitors an extremely comprehensive, and utterly beautiful, exhibition focusing on a fascinating subject.”
Title: Oppenheimer Diamond,
South Africa
Gift of Harry Winston, Inc. to the Smithsonian Institution
Photo by Chip Clark © Smithsonian Institution
The large pale yellow crystal of 253.70 carat was found in
1964 at the Dutoispan mine near Kimberley, South Africa.
Such a well-formed crystal structure in the octahedral
form is rarely seen in a stone this size. It has only a few
black inclusions and is transparent. Harry Winston
purchased the crystal in 1964, donating it to the
Smithsonian Institution in memory of Sir Ernest
Oppenheimer, chairman of the board of De Beers
Consolidated Mines, Ltd. from 1929 to 1957.
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
Exhibition curator at the ROM, Dr. Kim Tait, Associate Curator of Mineralogy in the ROM’s Natural History department, says, “The ROM is producing an insightful video entitled Crystal Clear: Diamonds from Canada's North that showcases the fairly recent discovery of Canadian diamonds, as well as highlighting the mines in Canada, and the ones opening this year. The ROM is particularly proud that this video will travel to other venues hosting the exhibition during its tour.”
Title: Aurora Butterfly of Peace,
A suite of 240 diamonds represents every variety of fancy
coloured diamonds and a range of cut styles.
Total weight: 166.94 carats
It was assembled over 12 years (1992 to 2004) by Alan
Bronstein and Harry Rodman of Aurora Gems, Inc. in
New York
Aurora Gems Collection
Photo by Robert Weldon © Aurora Gems
Image Courtesy: Royal Ontario Museum
The Nature of Diamonds is part of the ROM’s A Season of Gems. In December the Teck Cominco Suite of Earth Sciences Galleries, a permanent gallery, will open at the ROM. The 6,900 square-foot space will showcase the ROM’s exceptional specimens of minerals, gems, rocks, and meteorites, a collection among the finest in North America.
The Nature of Diamonds
Royal Ontario Museum:
October 25, 2008 - March 22, 2009
