Friday, January 29, 2010

Beautiful Heart-Shaped Jewelry

By Betsy Johnson

The "heart shape" often conjures up thoughts of love and romance. It has worked its way into our treasured annual holidays like St. Valentine's Day, into greeting cards and gifts, and into our jewelry designs as well. As we all know, jewelry is often made out of precious metals like gold and silver, and precious gems like diamonds and emeralds, and by incorporating the "heart shape" we are produce an object that displays the eternal ideas of romance, love, caring, and belonging. We will now explore the origins of heart jewelry, the "heart shape symbol", and the world's most famous heart-shaped diamond.

For years and years the heart symbol has been used to refer to not only the spiritual and emotional, but also the moral and intellectual core of a human being. It is usually colored "red" as this suggests not only blood (which the heart is responsible for pumping thorough the body), but strong emotions like passion and what emotion can possibly be stronger than that of true love?

One of the most rare gems in nature is the "heart-shaped" diamond. I said rare...but they do exist. Perhaps the most famous example of this type of gem is the "Blue Heart" Diamond. Also called the "Eugenie Blue", many people consider it to be the best example of a blue diamond that the world has ever seen. It's debatable whether the Hope Diamond is more famous, but it's the unique heart shape of the "Blue Heart" that really makes it stand out from the crowd. When you are looking for an object that exemplifies pure elegance and simplicity, its hard look farther than the "Blue Heart".

The "Blue Heart" is a 30.82 metric carat diamond. It is thought to be of either African or Indian origin. The original rough diamond was cut by Antanik Ekyanan of Neuilly, Paris in either 1909 or 1910. It's current dimensions are: 20mm x 19mm x 12mm.

The diamond wound up in the possession of an Argentinian woman named Mrs. Unzue, who had it set into a corsage. It was sold to Cartier in 1910. When it was sold to Van Cleef and Arpels in 1953 it was still in the corsage setting.

The next stop of this precious heart jewelry gem was an European family, who then sold it to a gentleman named Harry Winston. The year was 1959, and he placed this diamond into a ring, and subsequently sold it to Marjorie Merriweather Post. Marjorie Merriweather Post eventually donated it to the Smithsonian Institution located in Washington, D.C. It is here at the Smithsonian that this wonderful example of heart jewelry is currently on display. As a bit of nostalgic history and trivia, it's interesting to note that at one point the Blue Heart Diamond, the Hope Diamond, and the Heart of Eternity were all on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

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