Democratic America has no crown jewels. but we’ve got the next best thing, or maybe a better thing altogether, in the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection, on display in the National Museum of Natural History in a new setting that suits its splendor, the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals.
The gem collection dates back to 1884, when a curator in the Smithsonian’s Division of Mineralogy assembled a modest array of American precious stones for display that year at the New Orleans Exhibition. In the ensuing 116 years, the collection has grown to a dazzling scale and beauty, thanks almost entirely to donors who wanted their jewels to be in the nation’s museum.
The names of the great jewels in the collection ? the Napoleon Diamond Necklace, the Marie-Louise Diadem, the Marie Antoinette Earrings, the Spanish Inquisition Necklace, the Portuguese Diamond, the Hooker Emerald ? evoke both the grand realm of history and the dark world of the modern mystery novel. But the most famous of all the gems ? not the biggest, but the one that burns so bright in the public’s imagination that it’s the most sought-out object in the Smithsonian ? is the Hope Diamond. Is the diamond named after the emotion? Nothing so fanciful, I’m afraid. Henry Philip Hope, a London banker and gem collector, owned the stone in the 1830s.
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The Hope Diamond | Travel | Smithsonian Magazine