Thursday, February 12, 2009

Day at the Museum

Yesterday on my day off from the shop, I went on my long anticipated trip to the Royal Ontario Museum to finally see the Diamond Exhibit presented by De Beers.
While I had heard that lines ran for miles as patrons waited to catch a glimpse of the monster diamond – a late Wednesday afternoon left us relatively alone with the stones.

With gorgeous examples of gems throughout the ages, the most fascinating story of the exhibit - at least in my opinion - was the story of the gem cutter. Perhaps this thread runs rather subtlety through the show, but it is really quite amazing to watch as rough, hazy, diamond chunks evolve over hundreds of years into brilliantly faceted gems - the epitome of precision and the search for perfection.


Maybe I do not frequent the museum as much as some - having not been there for years - but I think the most impressive and spectacular part of the trip was the mineral and gem collection. Not only could you amaze at the utter genius and complexity of natures formations (from the perfectly symmetrical and proportioned geometric shapes to the fluid and organic) but also peruse exquisite examples of your not-so-usual faceted gems: tourmaline, tanzanite, as well as some exquisite examples of mandarin garnets, (and with a tiny little side-note I must add, that while to some these gems to seem rather exotic, after working at 18Karat for these last 7months I must say I have seen the lot as they glitter it up on in our display cases.)

Lovers of jewellery and beautiful things cannot help by be moved by these radiant gems.

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