The Smithsonian celebrates this year the 50th anniversary of Harry Winston’s donation of the 45.52-carat deep blue Hope Diamond. He sent it to the museum via registered mail on November 10, 1958 (2 bucks for postage, $143.29 for a million dollars of insurance).
To celebrate the anniversary, the diamond will for the first time in 50 years be removed from its current setting and placed in a new setting designed by contemporary Harry Winston jewelers. There are three settings in the running, and you can help choose which one will host the Hope by voting for your favorite online.
Voting started yesterday and will remain open until September 7th, so you have plenty of opportunities to votebomb for your favorite.
Although the winning design will be announced in September, the setting won’t actually be ready until May of next year. The Hope diamond will therefore be removed from its setting in the fall and displayed nekkid until May. This is a first, and most likely a last in our lifetime.
Then it will be set in the contest winning design for and put on display until the end of the year. Hope will return to its original Harry Winston setting in late 2010.
Had to go for the first one for it showing off the diamond best in a display, though it’s not what I would choose for a wearable piece.
I went for the second one because I thought the edges of the stone might be obscured by the “embrace” design.
I think the middle one is prettiest, but I agree with LS about the first one, both display and wearability.
You don’t think the diamond looks a little cropped in its loving platinum embrace?
The Journey one (middle one) is also really, really, incredibly trendy. One of the better trends, indeed, but Journey jewelry has been so overdone I feel it will be dated too quickly…or people will just get sick of it because of the oversaturation.
Well, this setting will only be on display a few months, so hopefully people won’t be sick of it while it’s in action.
Oh, I must have read it wrong. I thought it was the new permanent setting
Naw, it’s going back into the original Harry Winston setting at the end of next year.
Well that’s different then, isn’t it. Nevermind. 😉
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Thank you kindly. :thanks:
The second one by far is the most elegant and worthy of displaying this beautiful diamond. It does not overcome the stone as the “embrace” setting does. Regardless, the diamond is still breathtaking.
Agreed on all counts. Sadly, 45,000 people disagreed with us so the “Embrace Hope” setting won.
Now that I have had a chance to see it reset in #1 (Embracing Hope) I must say Anna was right ..the Hope is washed out and overwhelmed by the new setting. Harry’s original, while dated, is far more complementary!
Is it still in the Embracing Hope setting? When I first blogged about this story during the voting period, the Smithsonian planned to put it back in the original Harry Winston setting by the end of 2010.