Hall of Minerals and Hall of Gems

The Museum of Natural History was the first museum I have ever went to when I was a kid. When I was little, I only went to this museum to see the dinosaur bones. This time, I learned to enjoy the other exhibits at this museum. Two exhibits that caught my interest were the Guggenheim Hall of Minerals and the Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems. Minerals and gems might seem boring in comparison with the other exhibits, such as marine life, but I was fascinated by the vast rock and gem collection the museum had.

Below are some pictures from the Guggenheim Hall of Minerals:

The mineral that attracted my attention was the quartz shown in the second picture. Its crystal purple color coped with the lighting of the museum made it seem as it was glowing. Quartz, in other words, the ‘Universal Crystal’, has been known as a power stone. It has the ability to give off energy and is beneficial for healing, meditation, and protection.

In the Morgan Memorial Hall of Gems, my favorite showcase items were the diamonds and the Star of India.

On the left is a picture of the Olympia Diamond Collection. Naturally colored diamonds rarely occur and represent 1 in every 100,000 white diamonds. They are saturated in color, and in this collection, there are five natural diamonds: blue-green, orange-yellow, purplish-pink, blue, and orange. On the left is the Star of India, one of the largest blue star sapphire in the world. It has stars on both sides of the gem and the milky blue color of the sapphire makes it seem as if it’s glowing under the light. It was donated by J.P. Morgan in 1901.

Back in ancient China, the Chinese monarchs would often pick their wives from various portraits of beautiful women. In Japan, they also hold the same practice of depicting both real and idealized beautiful women in paintings. Kikugawa Eizan was a famous painter and the leading designer of bijinga during his time. Bijinga is the Japanese art for beautiful women. In this painting, the female is dressed in a simple, casual attire, showing that she belongs to a lower rank. In the past, these types of paintings only featured high-ranking courtesans, but as time progressed, bijinga began depicting lower-ranked courtesans, fictional characters, geishas, and historic figures as well. The woman in the painting also has her leg shown from the slit of her kimono, which is to help attract men to the painting. Most of the women in these types of paintings are often shown as really pale and their hair tied up with ornaments.

Posted: December 8th, 2010
Categories: Lily Wen, Museum of Natural History
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