Dazzling Diamonds by Victoria Chatham

 

 

 AVAILABLE HERE

For writers of romance, diamonds, or at least a diamond engagement ring, tend to have a place in their stories and in His Unexpected Muse my heroine inherits a whole cache of them. Carol Channing first sang the song ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,’ in the 1949 show ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ by Jule Styne and Leo Robyn, but it was the iconic Marilyn Monroe who made the song so famous. So what is the fascination with diamonds?

As with so many roots, we can go back to the Greeks and Romans for the early mention of diamonds. Greeks thought they were the tears of the gods or splintered stars, and the philosopher Plato considered they contained celestial spirits. As early as the first century AD, Roman literature mentions that diamonds tipped Cupid’s arrows. Romans believed them to be pieces of their gods, valuing them more than gold to protect them from any harm. It became common practice for soldiers to wear them in battle. Diamonds then were of the rough, uncut variety, and it was bad luck to cut one as that would counteract its protective qualities. With the decline of the Roman Empire, the magic and mythology of diamonds faded. Other cultures mention diamonds, but never to the extent of the Romans.

There is a common conception that diamonds are formed from coal because they are both sourced from carbon. Intense heat and immense pressure deep in the earth’s mantle about 1 billion to 3.5 billion years ago caused the formation of diamonds. The movement of tectonic plates compressed buried organic material found in swamps and peat bogs, into coal. At 360 million to 290 million years old, a piece of coal is a mere child compared to a diamond.

Cullinan Diamond, Wikipedia.com

While India was the ancient source of diamonds, deposits today are located around the world in North and South America, Australia and especially South Africa, home of the massive Cullinan diamond found there in 1905, all 3,106 carats of it. When cut, parts of it were incorporated into the British Crown Jewels, which are housed in the Tower of London.

There are many famous diamonds, including the Kohinoor or Mountain of Light, the largest diamond ever found in India. The Orloff, the Hope Diamond, the Taylor-Burton, the Esperanza Diamond are just a few of the world’s famous diamonds. They come in a range of colours from green, blue, yellow and pink, with red being the rarest and most expensive and still found only in India.

Diamonds did not regain their popularity until the Renaissance when Ludwig von Berquen, a Dutch lapidary, invented the art of faceting on diamonds in 1475 to enhance their glitter and beauty. The first known diamond engagement ring was given to Mary of Burgundy by Archduke Maximilian of Austria in 1477. Through the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the wearing of diamonds as solitary stones in rings, pins, and pendants became popular. Fashions changed how diamonds were worn. Large diamond brooches were popular on tight bodices, and long drop earrings complemented a low neckline. During the Victorian era, etiquette demanded that young, unmarried women did not wear diamonds, and married women only showed them off at balls or court appearances.

image from Bluenile.com

The tradition of wearing a diamond engagement ring on the fourth finger of the left-hand stems from
the belief that for a diamond to release its full power, it must be worn on the heart, or left, side of the body. Diamonds now come in various cuts from bezel to princess, cushion to emerald, rose, radiant, pear, marquise. They are said to protect the wearer, are reputed to detect guilt or innocence, indicate good luck, and increase fertility. Whatever the cut, whatever the reason for wearing them, diamonds really can be a girl’s best friend.

 

    

Victoria Chatham

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Priscilla Brown reflects on diamonds

 

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Recently at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra I attended an exhibition of jewellery created by the Paris House of Cartier.  Writers often keep their characters in their heads, and during this I was accompanied by Cassandra from Silver Linings. Crazy? Probably! Cassandra designs and fashions silver jewellery, and though Cartier works with gems, she would love such an exhibition.

 The more than 300 pieces of jewellery and related ephemera have been lent by Cartier, by the British royal family, the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the Princely Palace of Monaco, private collections and others. The first impression on walking into the darkened exhibition is of glittering and almost overwhelming opulence. The pieces are displayed in LED-lit high-security cases of varying sizes according to the item, and accompanied by brief details. I was particularly entranced by the life-size figure of Queen Marie of Romania, a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, wearing a ball dress with a long shimmering pendant given to her by her husband King Ferdinand.

And the jewels themselves – diamonds, diamonds and more diamonds, different sizes, different types of ‘cuts’ and facets, various settings in precious metals such as gold or platinum; some larger gems such as emeralds are carved, others are polished but not given facets. Designs of every imaginable style are evident.

As well as jewellery for personal adornment, Cartier designed accoutrements including vanity and lipstick cases, powder compacts, clasps for handbags and evening bags, clocks, watches, cigarette holders and cases and lighters, cigar cutters, ashtrays. One area of the exhibition displays historic items specifically for men, and contains several smoking accessories.   Another space is set up to illustrate the stages of jewellery production. Each table explains the process from the designer’s idea, to the jeweller, the cutter and the polisher, with one table showing the tools used.  Cassandra would have been interested in these as some are similar to those she uses for her work.

As well as European royalty, Indian maharajahs, and the generally very well-heeled, Cartier attracted stage and screen personalities, the latter not only with jewellery for themselves but to display in their movies. In the final section of the exhibition, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe flaunt jewellery in movie clips shown sound-free with subtitles, making an enjoyable ending to a couple of hours spent with the jewels.

Leaving Cassandra behind, over coffee at the café I wondered whether, as a writer of contemporary romances, I could imagine a story where the lead character owns a vault-full of diamonds.  So far, my notebook is blank on this, but who knows!

Enjoy your reading!  Priscilla

(This image is not from the exhibition.)

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February is the Month for Love by Victoria Chatham

NOW AVAILABLE

February is not only the shortest month of the year but also the month in which St. Valentine’s Day is celebrated, the day when lovers traditionally declare their love and give each other gifts. However, history is hazy as to whom, exactly, Valentine was but there’s a strong possibility that any one of seven priests known as Valentine could be a contender. The two most likely candidates are St. Valentine, a bishop of Rome and St. Valentine, the first bishop of Interamna in Terni, a town in Umbria.

Our first St. Valentine lived during the reign of Claudius II who had something of a problem with his army. After engaging in several unpopular campaigns, married men simply refused to join up. Claudius understood this, so he banned engagements and marriages thinking that a single man had less incentive to stay at home. But St. Valentine, bishop of Rome, continued to marry couples in secret after Claudius had banned the ceremony. For this, and then refusing to renounce Christianity, Valentine was clubbed, stoned and beheaded on February 14^th in Ad 269 or 270.

The second Valentine who might have been a contender for the title came to an equally unpleasant end. For the crime of marrying a pagan man to a Christian woman, he was scourged, imprisoned and beheaded on February 14^th during the same period.

This for the Romans was the time of Festivals of Purification and Fertility, which took place from February 13^th to 18^th, and were dedicated to peace, love and household goods. But, on February 14^th, the Romans celebrated Lupercalia – likely dedicated to Juno-Lupa, the She-Wolf. If you remember the story, Rome was reputed to have been founded by the twins, Romulus and Remus. They were raised by a she-wolf in a cave in the Palatine Hills and it was close to that cave that the festival took place.

In AD 496 Pope Gelasius declared February 14^th to be the Feast Day of St. Valentine, patron saint of lovers and engaged couples. During this time young Roman men took to courting the young women they admired with handwritten greetings of undying love and affection. If this mutual admiration resulted in marriage then, to prove to the father of the bride that his new son-in-law had his bride’s best intentions at heart, the groom gave the bride a ring. This is believed to be the earliest time for a ring to be incorporated into the marriage ceremony.

During the medieval era, this tradition carried on when couples would put their own names in a box and then be drawn in pairs. Each couple would exchange gifts and the girl would be the man’s sweetheart for a year. He was duty bound during that year to protect her and wore her ribbon on his sleeve. The end of the year usually culminated in a wedding. These were the origins of what was called courtly love.

In 1382 Geoffrey Chaucer in his Parliament of Foules wrote ‘For this was St. Valentine’s Day when every bird cometh there to choose his mate’, and in 1537 Henry VIII, he of the six wives, declared by Royal charter that England would celebrate February 14^th as St. Valentine’s Day, the traditional date for exchanging love messages and simple gifts. It was during the 1500’s that paper valentines began to appear and were known as poetical or amorous addresses.

Then there were the romantic poets and playwrights down through the ages from Shakespeare (When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew), to Christopher Marlow (Come live with me and be my love), John Donne (I wonder by my troth, what thou and I did before we loved?) and on through Lord Byron, Shelley, Keats and numerous other poets.

During the early 1700’s Charles II of Sweden brought the Persian poetical art known as the Language of Flowers to Europe. This attributed flowers with certain symbolic meanings, something the

Victorians took to heart as a means for a love-stricken swain to send clandestine messages to his intended. Chocolates came into the market in the mid-1800’s when Richard Cadbury invented a way to mix chocolate and cocoa butter to make sweeter, more edible chocolate. The resulting sweet treats were sold in fancy boxes and the Victorians snapped them up.

British artist Kate Greenway, 1846-1901, was well known for her Valentine cards and Esther Howland, 1828 – 1904, started making handmade cards but demand outstripped her capabilities and she began mass production of them in the US and the UK. These penned romantic verses continue in modern Valentine cards with a mind-boggling 190 million cards being sent last year in the US alone.

More latterly diamonds, the so-called King of Gems, have been become a popular Valentine’s gift whether in the form of earrings, necklaces or bracelets. The ancient source of diamonds was India but today the top five diamond-producing countries in the world are Russia, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, and Canada. South Africa, once a major producer of diamonds, is now at the bottom of that list. Diamonds are found in primary and secondary deposits of alluvial gravel, sand or clay. The rarest of all diamonds, the red diamond, is still only found in India. At the time of its sale in 1987, the Hancock Red was the most expensive per-carat gemstone ever sold at auction. Scientists are still not one hundred percent sure what gives a red diamond its colour. In 1475 Ludwig von Berquen, a Dutch lapidary, invented a way of cutting flat surfaces on gemstones, thereby increasing their brilliance. The best-known shapes are Princess, Pear, Marquise, and Emerald but for a breath-taking sparkling diamond ring, choose a round brilliant cut diamond.

However, whatever the real origins of St. Valentine’s Day, whatever the gift, the best tradition of February 14^th is always the declaration of true love.

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