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Keyword

Gems: Colors of Light and Stone

Start Date 17 June 2007
End Date 24 August 2007
Venue Bowers Museum
Location Santa Ana, California, USA
Curator Peter Keller
Exhibition with a glass cabinet displaying the "Ceylon Sinflower", a 400 carat yellow Ceylon sapphire mounted in 18 karat red gold that can be worn as a necklace, or detached and mounted on a flower stem.
Exhibition with neck bust displaying an 18-inch-long spessarite garnet necklace called the "Ramona Orange".
Exhibition displaying a a tiara featuring a tiara made with a 242-carat tanzanite a tiara called "Queen of Kilimanjaro" featuring a 242-carat tanzanite.

GEMS! Colors of Light and Stone illustrates the scientific and artistic aspects of gemstones from one of the most important private gem collections in the United States – the Michael Scott Collection. Curated by Bowers Museum President Peter Keller, Ph.D., this exhibition features some of the world’s finest known gems.

On display are more than 300 rare gems, including the largest faceted gemstone, weighing in at 220 pounds and 500,000 carats; a necklace featuring the two largest known examples of the sapphire-like California state gemstone, benitoite; a 400-carat golden sapphire that is one of the world’s largest; and the world’s largest tanzanite (242 carats) set in a tiara with 1,000 diamonds. This is the most important exhibition of colored gemstones, diamonds, and gems of art ever shown in a U.S. museum.

Images courtesy of The Orange County Register.