World’s third largest cut diamond comes to the ROM as part of The Nature of Diamonds
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) announces that the Incomparable Diamond will be prominently featured in the Museum’s engagement of The Nature of Diamonds. When the exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, October 25, 2008, the gem will be a distinct highlight of the exhibition’s spectacular walk-in Gem Vault which houses a stunning array of jewels from around the world.
The Incomparable Diamond is the third largest cut diamond ever recorded, a 407.48-carat golden-coloured kite-shaped diamond, graded as flawless and fancy deep brownish-yellow by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
ROM exhibition curator, Dr. Kim Tait, says, “We couldn’t be more excited to have the Incomparable Diamond as part of this exhibition. This is a highly iconic gemstone, with an internally flawless clarity, a golden colour and an incredibly large size. As a mineralogist, I can attest: you don’t get to see something like this everyday. The ROM and its visitors are very fortunate!”
Jointly owned and loaned to the exhibition by Marvin Samuels of Premier Gem Corp., New York and Louis Glick of Rose Trading, New York and Hong Kong, the Incomparable Diamond has a captivating background. It was found as an 890-carat rough diamond by a young girl in the Mbuji-Maya district of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) in the early 1980s as she played in a pile of rubble from a nearby diamond mine. The girl gave the rough diamond to her uncle who, in turn, sold it to local African diamond dealers. The diamond was bought and sold numerous times prior to being acquired by Mr. Samuels and Mr. Glick. Mr. Samuels, a master cutter charged with cutting the diamond, initially hoped to break the record for the largest cut diamond in the world. It was determined, however, that size would be sacrificed for perfect clarity. Following four years of study and cutting, the 407-carat Incomparable Diamond emerged along with fourteen other “satellite” diamonds cut from the one 890-carat rough diamond. Five of these “satellites” are to be exhibited alongside the Incomparable Diamond.
The Nature of Diamonds, presented by De Beers Canada Inc., is the most wide-ranging exhibition ever developed on the allure of diamonds. The exhibition will be displayed in the ROM’s Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall, located on Level B2 in the ROM’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal from Saturday, October 25, 2008 to Sunday, March 22, 2009. Exploring humankind’s ongoing fascination with the diamond, the exhibition provides an in-depth examination of it 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.
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