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Ideal_Rock
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- Oct 21, 2007
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World''s third-largest part of Nature of Diamonds exhibit.
The world''s third-largest diamond is buried in the basement of the Royal Ontario Museum.
In a topless steel vault – more show than security – assembled for the museum''s upcoming Nature of Diamonds exhibit, staff unveiled the prized stone on loan from New York.
Susan Ventura, the museum''s lead preparator, has handled Michel-angelo''s sketches and Charles Dickens'' original manuscripts. She fumbled a little yesterday morning trying to put on a pair of purple latex gloves in preparation for the stone, dubbed the Incomparable Diamond for its massive weight and flawlessness.
It''s the piece de resistance in an exhibition that features more than 500 precious gems.
"You should''ve gotten the blue ones," a colleague says of her gloves. "They''re a tighter fit."
"We should''ve gotten the clear ones," Ventura replies. "I just got a manicure."
Once the stone is placed perfectly inside the glass display box, Ventura''s hands will be the last to touch it until the exhibition ends in March.
The triangle-shaped diamond is a deep golden colour and feels no heavier than a hen''s egg, Ventura says. It weighs 407.48 carats. To get an idea of the size, think of Katie Holmes'' oval rock from Tom Cruise and multiply it by 80.
A young girl in the Mbuji-Mayi district of the Democratic Republic of Congo found the stone in the early 1980s. At her uncle''s house, she was messing about in a pile of rubble from a nearby diamond mine. The diamond, which weighed 890 carats in rough form, wound its way to Louis Glick, a prominent figure in the New York diamond industry, who reportedly still owns the diamond today.
It''s estimated to be worth $20 million.
"Sometimes, I wish I didn''t know things like that," Ventura says.
The Nature of Diamonds exhibition opens to the public on Saturday, Oct. 25.
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