NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY-JANNET ANNENBERG HOOKER HALL OF GEMS

This is the second part of the series of my visit to National Museum of Natural History. Janet Annenberg Hooker, 93, philanthropist who gave money and rare jewels to the Smithsonian Institution. A daughter of Moses Annenberg, who founded Triangle Publications, Hooker contributed an estimated $9 million in cash and gems to the museum. Her namesake gallery, the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, which opened in 1997 has a walk-through mine, interactive exhibits and high-resolution videos of earthquakes and volcanoes. Among the gems she donated were the Hooker Starburst Diamonds, a set of rare yellow diamonds, including a 245-carat necklace with 50 rectangular diamonds, a 61-carat diamond ring, and earrings. She also helped to pay for renovations and the redesign of rooms in the White House and the State Department headquarters, and was a donor to the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the New York Philharmonic. Hope diamond The Hope Diamond is a large, 45.52-carat, deep blue diamond, currently housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C.. The diamond is legendary for the curse it supposedly puts on whoever possesses it. The Hope Diamond appears to be a brilliant blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within the diamond. The Hope Diamond exhibits red phosphoresence under ultraviolet light and is classified as a Type IIb diamond. Marie Antoniette necklace Butterfly blue stone and diamonds blue stone blue stones yellow and other colored diamonds yellow diamonds ruby ruby ruby bracelet emerald necklace emerald and diamond necklace emerald with diamond emerald with diamonds Tanzanian brooch