At a prestigious, invite-only gathering in Washington, DC, excitement filled the air earlier this month as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History unveiled a new exhibit: the Winston Red diamond. The stone took center stage in a custom-designed, illuminated display alongside a striking sequence of 40 other fancy-color diamonds, which lay in an arrangement resembling a bouquet of exotic flowers. Just hours later, an eager crowd of museum visitors gathered to witness the Winston Red’s public debut.
To appreciate the rarity of fancy-red diamonds, it helps to know that only one in every 25 million diamonds receives this coveted color grade. At 2.33 carats, the Winston Red is the world’s fifth-largest fancy-red diamond, and one of just 30 known fancy reds exceeding 1 carat. It is also the largest diamond of that color currently on public display.
In an interview with Rapaport, Dr. Gabriela Farfan, the museum’s Coralyn Whitney curator of gems and minerals, shares insights into the stone’s distinctive characteristics and scientific significance.
The nitty-gritty
Red diamonds get their striking hue from structural defects, explains Farfan. “Unlike other minerals that have 3D transition metals like copper or manganese [to] give them their colors, diamonds can get their colors in several ways. Impurities like boron cause the blue color, nitrogen causes yellow, and vacancies or holes in the structure make green. In the case of pink diamonds — and red diamonds, which are essentially more extreme versions of pink — it’s actually a structural defect called plastic deformation. High-pressure and -temperature events deep within the earth essentially squished the diamond’s crystal structure and created that pink color.”
Elaborating on the Winston Red, Farfan declares its color ”an unmodified, pure red,” its cut “an old mine brilliant cut, a bit of a cushion shape,” and its clarity “an I2, very fractured, with several inclusions, which is quite typical of fancy-red diamonds. As we know, it’s very, very rare to find fancy-red diamonds, and the way they get their color means they went through a lot of pressure and temperature conditions. Usually that means they are quite cracked. However, in this case, we don’t really care about that, because the color is so brilliant that no one notices.”
As for the diamond’s origins, Farfan can say only that they are “still unknown. However, be on the lookout for a study coming out in the spring issue of Gems and Gemology. My colleagues and I from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), the Paris School of Mines, and the Smithsonian have been narrowing it down to two possible countries, which I will not spoil right now.”
A colorful education
The Smithsonian’s mission includes preserving gemstones and educating the public about them, Farfan emphasizes. “The Smithsonian Institution has the largest gem and mineral collection in the world, and it is a public institution that belongs to the American people. It is open and free to all. Anyone from around the world can walk through our doors from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every single day of the year, except for Christmas Day, and they can see the marvels of our planet.”
The museum received the Winston Red from famed jeweler Harry Winston’s son Ronald, who “had his heart set on gifting his fantastic fancy-color diamond collection to the Smithsonian,” relates Farfan. “It’s a way to expand his family’s legacy since his father gifted the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1958. Now, we’re celebrating another addition of icons to the National Gem Collection. I’ve been working on this project for about two years, and we officially acquired the diamonds in December of 2023. Today, we’re finally unveiling 40 of the best stones from the 118-stone collection — plus the Winston Red — so we’ll have 41 diamonds in this new exhibit.”
Farfan sees this exhibit as “a marvelous opportunity” to teach people about diamond colors. “Most visitors have never heard of fancy-color diamonds, so they expect that diamonds are only colorless,” she explains. “You’d be surprised that most people who come to see the Hope Diamond don’t even realize that it’s a blue diamond until they get here. Seeing the Hope Diamond is often the first time they encounter a fancy-color diamond. Now, with this new collection, we’re going to educate the public on the variety of other colors that diamonds can occur in.”
For those concerned about missing the chance to see the Winston Red, the curator offers some assurances. “Here at the Smithsonian, we actually have a policy that nothing is permanent — not even the Hope Diamond is considered permanently on exhibit. However, realistically speaking, it will be here for the foreseeable future, and we’re very excited for everyone to get to see these diamonds for many, many years to come.”
Main image: The 2.33-carat Winston Red diamond. (Robert Weldon, courtesy of Ronald Winston)
