Design
The upper half of the necklace consists of many small diamonds threaded onto a silver chain. The lower half of the necklace is divided into two concentric semi-circular strands, each carrying eight pairs of "football-shaped" diamonds and four pairs of barrel-cut emeralds, arranged symmetrically. The centre of the lower strand holds a large emerald supporting a pendant which itself holds five smaller emeralds. The point where the upper and lower halves of the necklace join is marked by two large emeralds threaded onto the chain. Altogether, there are 15 emeralds and 374 diamonds in the necklace. The diamonds of the Spanish Inquisition Necklace are the oldest examples of cut diamonds in the Smithsonian Institution's National Gem Collection.
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Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.”
—Marilyn French (20th century)