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One of the largest, most celebrated emeralds in the world is the Chalk Emerald Ring. While its origins are a bit murky, the stone’s recent past documents its arrival in the National Gem and Mineral Collection as the largest emerald jewelry on display. Read on to discover the story behind the sparkle.
The emerald itself weighs 37.82 carats and is a rectangular step cut. It is surrounded by 60 pear-shaped diamonds, which measure 15.62 carats, set in gold attached to a platinum ring. The color can be described as a medium to dark green with a hint of blue. It is the vivid clarity of the stone that is so exceptionally rare in emeralds as well as its unusual size that make it such a treasured piece.
The exact journey of the Chalk Emerald are lost to time. We do know that it was bought by a British gem dealer in 1959 from the Maharajah of Koch Bihar, India. How the Maharajah acquired it is undocumented but it has been determined that the stone originates from a Muzo, Colombia mine, a region that has produced some finest emeralds ever found. During the 16th and 17th centuries the Spanish did a brisk trade shipping emeralds from the area to India and the Middle East as well as to European royals.
Later the emerald was bought by Harry Winston. It was Winston who set the emerald in its current design and added the surrounding diamonds. He also re-cut it from its original weight of 38.40 carats.
Eventually the ring was sold to businessman Oscar Chalk as a gift for his wife who wore it to a White House dinner in honor of Queen Elizabeth. Apparently both Mrs. Chalk and Her Majesty chose emeralds for the occasion with the queen’s ring being less substantial. When Mrs Clark realized this she turned the ring around so as to not upstage the smaller ring worn by the Queen.
In 1972 the Chalks donated the ring to the Smithsonian where it remains on display in the National Gem and Mineral Collection of the Natural History History in Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit:Cliff from Arlington, Virginia, USA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
MBisanz, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
