Diamond is the hardest gem in the world. Like the fact, the song “Diamonds are the best friends of ladies” was sung by Marilyn Monroe in the 1953, comedy “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”. Have you ever heard about these interesting facts?
The oldest jewelry in the world
A shell pendant from a sea sand snail of the genus Nassarius is one of the oldest. An international team of archaeologists found thirteen such jewels in the summer of 2007 in one of the caves of Morocco. The age of the pendants is 82,000 years! Shells are perforated for lace and retain traces of red ocher painting. Artifacts are stored at Oxford University.
Earrings as a talisman
The ancient Egyptians came up with this trend. They believed that the noisy, mobile, shiny jewelry in the ears scared away evil spirits who crave to enter the human body.
Pearl cocktail
The ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra drank to win a dispute with the Roman commander Marc Anthony. The beauty promised that she would treat the guest of honor to the most expensive dinner of his life, and at the end of the meal she dissolved in wine a huge pear-shaped pearl extracted from the earring. The jewelry worth 10 million sesterces (the monetary unit of Ancient Rome). This price was equal to the annual income of some successful states of those years.
Today, the researcher Prudence Jones from the University of Montclair in New Jersey was able to prove the truth of the beautiful legend.
Pearls really dissolve in vinegar (acetic acid is also found in wine).
The engagement ring is worn on the finger
In antiquity, it was believed that the third finger on the left hand is connected to the heart with a special vein – the vein of love (vena amoris). Nowadays, scientists have proved this romantic theory a wrong fact, which, however, has not abolished the tradition of wearing an engagement ring on that finger. Today, people are still wearing rings as a symbol of love. The best collections of unique engagement rings are available at Segal Jewellery.
The custom of giving an engagement ring
Dates back to 1477, when the Austrian Archduke Maximilian (future Emperor Maximilian I) and the French Duchess Maria of Burgundy married.
The aristocrat wanted to prove the seriousness of his intentions and to secure the promise of the bride not to marry another while negotiations were underway on the dowry and other conditions of the future union. Therefore, he gave the beloved a golden ring on which the letter M was laid out with diamonds – a common initial for both of them. This matchmaking has been widely discussed in the upper class of Europe, so it has become a custom to give an engagement ring.
Rings in the Middle Ages were worn not only on the fingers
Rings were also sewn on clothes, hats to emphasize their high social status and good income. The fashion of tying rings to sleeves and fastening to hats was especially common in England and Germany.
Jewelry rental
The trend of jewelry rentals started in the 18th century: aristocrats and the bourgeoisie rented jewelry and put them on for a wedding and an evening party. After the event is over, they returned to the jewelry showroom or the owner of the jewelry.
Men began to wear wedding rings
Especially, during the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Putting the ring on the finger reminded the soldiers in difficult front-line everyday life of the house, beloved wife and peaceful life, to which they hoped to return. Until that time, men wearing wedding ring all the time was not considered mandatory and was uncommon.
Hire jewelry at the Oscars
The tradition of presenting luxury jewelry of the best brands on the red carpet of the main film ceremony of the year began back in 1944, when actress Jennifer Jones rented Harry Winston diamond earrings, similar to five-petal flowers and five-pointed stars. That evening, Jones received the coveted statuette as the best actress of the year for her role in the drama “Song of Bernadette.”
God saves the queen! And her treasures
Elizabeth II, now the reigning queen of Great Britain, has a jewelry collection that has a value not less than 57 million dollars. More than 300 jewelry sets are stored in the safes of the nun’s dressing rooms and in the basement of Buckingham Palace, the former bomb shelter. This collection of dynastic jewelry is one of the most expensive and rare in the world.
The most expensive jewelry in the world
L’Incomparable diamond necklace from Mouawad jewelry house was designed in back 2013. It is listed in the Guinness Book of Records and is estimated at an incredible value of 55 million dollars. The jewel is made of pink gold and 91 emerald, round and pear-shaped diamonds with a total weight of 637 carats, including a unique yellow diamond – large (407.48 carats) and having the highest purity category – as a pendant. The necklace was on display at jewelry shows in Qatar and Singapore.
Million Dollar Pearl
It’s a natural and non-synthetic pearl; only one out of every 10,000 oysters is capable of becoming a mother of treasure outside the pearl farm incubator.
The most expensive attractive thing in the cinema
The most expensive necklace in the film industry is the one by Nicole Kidman, especially designed for the film-musical Baz Lurmann’s “Moulin Rouge” (2001). The heroine Nicole courtesan Satin shines in a luxurious platinum garland-style collar necklace that is valued at more than $ 1 million. The Guinness Book of World Records adorns 1,308 diamonds weighing 134 carats. Now the jewelry belongs to its designer Stefano Canturi, the head of the Australian jewelry house Canturi.
Luxury in a cube
All the gold that has been mined by mankind in the history can be represented as a 16-meter cube. This is 88,000 tons of precious metal.
The most expensive private collection of jewelry
The hobby of collecting jewelry is very expensive, one of those collectors is the Hollywood diva Elizabeth Taylor; she has the most expensive jewelry collection. Her jewelry was sold at Christie’s auction in 2011 for a record $ 116 million to a private jeweler. Another auction record was the price reached for a pearl jewel. The large pear-shaped pearl of La Peregrine, which Taylor received as a gift from her second husband Richard Burton, was sold for $ 11.8 million. Barton himself once bought a pearl at the Sotheby’s auction for just $ 37,000 and gave it to the Cartier jewelers, who put it first in a ring and then, at Elizabeth’s request, in a necklace.
