Ring

Diamonds are made of a crystalline form of pure carbon, creating the hardest mineral known. They have a high surface ‘lustre’, meaning that much light is reflected from their surface. This light is combined with light reflected through the stone from the back facets to create ‘brilliance’. Light passing through the stone is also split into a broad spectrum of colours termed ‘fire’. A modern brilliant-cut diamond is faceted so that it combines a high level of brilliance with fire. Diamonds occur naturally in a variety of colours: colourless, yellow, brown, black, blue, green, pink and extremely rarely red.

Today diamonds can be artificially coloured or otherwise enhanced. These techniques were developed in the 20th century. Because the Townshend Collection has been in the care of the Museum since 1869, we can be confident that the colours are natural. As a result, these coloured diamonds are of great interest to specialists in the field of gemmology. This ring is set with a large blue diamond. This colour is caused by the presence of boron.

The diamond rings (Museum nos 1172 to 1179-1869) all came to the V&A as a bequest by the Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend. They had previously been part of the famous Hope collection of gemstones.