Washington, June 28: "I can feel the beauty on my chest," said actress Jenna Elfman, wearing a strategically-draped scarf and nearly 60 carats worth of pink diamond solitaire. "You can feel the physical vibrations." This was no scene from an updated version of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," but rather the elegant gloom of the Smithsonian Institution's Natural History Museum, where seven of the world's rarest diamonds go on display on Friday in an exhibit called "The Splendor of Diamonds."
Meant to provide company to the legendary 45.52 carat Hope diamond, which revolves quietly in its four-sided display case, the seven are on loan from collections around the world.
The show includes the plum-sized De Beers Millennium Star, a flawless, colorless 203.04 carat rock that is the behemoth of the group.
Elfman, known for playing beautiful but loopy women on television and in movies, wore the Steinmetz Pink, which she said was "not too heavy" at 59.60 carats.
There was also the comparatively small Pumpkin, so called because of its vivid orange color. Its last most conspicuous appearance was at the 2002 Academy Awards, when Halle Berry wore it in a ring as she won the Oscar for best actress.
The massive 101.29-carat Allnatt glowed yellow, the Heart of Eternity, at 27.64 carats, glinted dark blue and the 5.51-carat Ocean Dream shone green. Its official color is Fancy Deep blue-green, rated by the Gemological Institute of America.
The Moussaieff Red, a bulging faceted triangle weighing 5.11 carats, was discovered in the rough in the 1990s by a Brazilian farmer and is now owned by Moussaieff Jewellers of London. Bureau Report