Chicago Field Museum Grainger Hall of Gems

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Well, I went to the Field Museum today to see the wonderful "Diamonds" temporary exhibit they had on display, but unfortunately they would not let us take photos.

Therefore, I couldn''t show you a diamond studded Fabrege egg, several pieces from royalty and hollywood, the loaned Tiffany yellow, or a huge 20 carat pink diamond, or the Millenium Star, *sigh*

However, not all was lost since I was able to get some amazing shots from the permanent exhibit in the "Grainger Hall of Gems." The Field Museum has a nice collection, but I wouldn''t say all the stones were museum quality. This collection really couldn''t compare to the Smithsonian, but there were some beautiful pieces.

Here is one of my favorites, a gorgeous fire opal drop. It looked like a neon mandarin garnet. Just awesome neon orange. My photos do not do these pieces justice since they were behind glass, and the museum had this annoying yellow incandescent light, which isn''t great for photography.

Well enjoy the eye candy nonetheless.

 

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A beautiful Tahitian pearl necklace studded with yellow stones (I think diamonds) and some red stones. I was in a hurry to take pictures and had to make a mental note of all I saw, so forgive me for not getting all the details. With three small kids, it''s difficult to hang around precious jewelery and gems. They want to see dinosaurs instead!!

 

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Coral

 

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Beryl necklaces, on the left heliodor, and the right, morganite. The heliodor was a very saturated yellow, but my photo stinks. Sorry. The morganite was a bit washed out.

 

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oops forgot pic.

 

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I tried to get a good pic of this tsavorite ring, but it kept coming out fuzzy. It was around 2.33 carats and a deep green.

 

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Here are some aqua rings. The one on the right is from Tiffany&Co and a deep greyish blue.

 

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Can we talk windows?? LOL!!

Some huge aquas. Hundreds of carats in size.

 

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A beautiful turquoise and high karat gold necklace.

 

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A beautiful diamond necklace from the 1850''s.

 

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This next stone proves that just because a stone is in a museum doesn''t mean it''s museum worthy. This pale washed out, badly windowed, blue stone is actually a paraiba from Brazil.

There were some indicolites as well, and green tourmalines, and they were so ugly, I just can''t bring myself to show them here. Can we talk about extinction please?

 

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padparadcha - it was "meh."

 

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Some large star sapphires.

 

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A large catseye moonstone bracelet (gargantuan) with a moonstone necklace in the background.

 

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A selection of sapphires in various colors and sizes. None of them were fine Kashmir color though.

 

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A large emerald pendant. The emerald wasn't the fine deep green you see in top emeralds though, and it was highly included. There were some loose emeralds, but I was quite disappointed at how light in tone and saturation they were.

 

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A pretty zircon ring.

 

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I wish I got a better photo, but this was a very large and nice bixbite ring.

 

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This was one of my favorites in the collection, a very beautiful colored Russian demantoid ring. Sorry for the fuzzy shot. The demantoid had just beautiful neon color to it.

 

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Mandarin spessarite necklace. The two large spessartites were so inlcuded you could not see through them.

 

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This diamond brooch sparkled so much, I thought I was going to burn out my retinas!!

 

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This was a new designer spessartite brooch that refused to focus!!

 

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A pink topaz pendant by the designer of the above spessartite brooch.

 

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This is a demantoid necklace and this demantoid was no where near the fine color of the demantoid ring above.

 

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A ruby necklace, I didn''t get a chance to read the description, but they didn''t look Burmese.

 

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I was hoping to see some fine spinels, but these were dark brick red brown.

 

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I thought this was a beautiful mineral specimen. Spinel in a host rock.

 

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A very large (guesstimate 30 carats) color change sapphire necklace. I actually have met the designer of this piece many years ago.

 

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A beautiful, huge and deeply saturated tanzanite necklace.

 

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Some beautifully carved jade pieces. These were breathtaking.