Accompanying an exhibition at Les Enluminures, New York, this lavish
catalogue presents an extraordinary collection of diamonds from the king
of gems, Benjamin Zucker, one of New York's leading dealers in diamonds
and precious stones. Benjamin Zucker's remarkable story unfolds over
three generations of diamond dealers. Arriving in New York in 1941, he
had the benefit of the training of his grandfather, a leading expert in
uncut diamonds in Antwerp, and his uncle, one of the foremost dealers of
diamonds in the Far East. Some of the world's most famous diamonds, such
as the Wittelsbach Diamond, passed through the hands of the Zucker
family. Armed with the family "know-how", Benjamin Zucker formed a
collection that "has taken a lifetime of patience, money, and
unquenchable enthusiasm", according to Diana Scarisbrick. As Mr. Zucker
himself says "diamonds will always be a magical window facing the
invisible world". Put together over more than forty-five years, this
truly rare and immensely valuable collection includes thirty-five
precious jewels mostly made for European patrons - rings, brooches,
hairpins, earrings. It tells the story of the Indian diamond over a
period of nearly 600 years, ending before the discovery of mines in
Brazil, a source that displaced India and inaugurated a new age of
diamonds. Starting with the octahedral diamond, the collection includes
outstanding examples of world-class importance showing how jewelers
gradually captured more and more of the allure of these indomitable
gems, evolving from point to table to rose to brilliant cuts. The
success of the brilliant cut (close to our cuts today) eclipsed the
earlier shapes, many of which were recut to "modernize" them, with the
result that the earlier cuts of "old mine" diamonds included here are
exceedingly rare. Most of these jewels are published. Many of them have
been exhibited in prestigious museums such as the Walters Art Museum,
the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, and most recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As assembled
in the present collection they have never been displayed together and
have never been offered for sale. This lavish publication by the leading
scholar in the field accompanies the exhibition. It is written by Diana
Scarisbrick, celebrated jewelry historian and author of Diamond Jewelry:
Seven Hundred Years of Glory and Glamour (September 2019).
