My Favorite Necklace

This is the Spanish Inquisition Necklace found at the Smithsonian Institute. Dane A Penland is the photographer, and I copped his image from sharing files of Flickr. You can find a rather complete description of the necklace and its jewels and provenance at The Daily Jewel

Once I had a torn magazine page with this picture on the wall near my jewelry-making table. The page is lost, but the memory of this beautiful piece has lingered with me. Wouldn't I love to have an occasion to wear something like this? And, how many body guards would I need to hire. The information says that Audrey Hepburn wore it to the Academy Awards. Ahhhh. A fitting place for such a beautiful piece.

And once I owned a tiny piece of emerald - uncut, about the size and shape of a large splinter. It disintegrated from being handled roughly in so many moves. Ahhh.

I love blue, and here's a picture of the Hope Diamond, also at the Smithsonian and also photographed by Penland and from Flickr.Somehow the single diamond doesn't convey elegance quite like the emeralds and diamonds. Ahhh.

While I love these two pieces, I really guess that the ones I love most are the ones that I can touch and rub with my fingers and examine the patterns. They are carefully tucked away among my beads, examples of need for beauty and the kinesthetic potencies of such gemstones as malachite, azurite, amethyst and the beautiful agates.

I remember walking into a gem store in, hmmmm, maybe it was Boulder, CO, and gasping at the beauty of a tremendous hunk of barite roses. I went in and was assaulted by what felt like vibrations being given off by the large pieces of crystals and other gemstones. I had to go outside and peer in to see the wonders because I felt so overwhelmed by the vibrations. Silly me. Rocks don't give off vibrations. LOL

So, I enjoy handling small pieces of gemstones, but I don't have a single barite rose - too much vibration in them for me.