Editor’s Note
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has received a historic donation of 41 natural colored diamonds from Ronald Winston, son of famed jeweler Harry Winston. The collection includes the rare “Winston Red” diamond.
Washington, D.C.—The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is adding 41 natural colored diamonds, including a rare 2.33-carat fancy red, to its gem collection, all courtesy of the son of the “King of Diamonds.” Ronald Winston, eldest son of Harry Winston, is gifting the museum the “Winston Red” diamond and the Winston Fancy Color Diamond Collection, an assemblage of 40 stones in total.
The museum announced the donation on Tuesday and said the stones will be unveiled to the public on April 1.
The diamonds will be on display in the Winston Gallery, which was named for Harry Winston and houses the Hope Diamond, which the famed diamantaire donated to the museum in 1958, a gift the museum said laid the groundwork for the National Gem & Mineral Collection.
Red diamonds are considered the rarest of all diamonds, and it is rarer still to see ones that are 1 carat or larger in size. The 2.33-carat “Winston Red” is one of the largest red diamonds graded as a fancy red by the Gemological Institute of America, the museum said, and is an old mine brilliant-cut diamond, which suggests it was cut before the mid-1900s.
A full study on the science and history of the “Winston Red” is slated to be included in the spring 2025 issue of “Gems & Gemology,” GIA’s quarterly journal.
The 40 diamonds in the Winston Fancy Color Diamond Collection range in color from a soft peach to a deep teal and in size from 0.40 to 9.49 carats. Ronald, who just turned 84 and worked in the family business for decades, amassed the collection over 60 years.
Following the release of the 2023 biography Ronald wrote on his father Harry, Ronald said in an interview with JCKOnline that he missed the jewelry business, particularly the “creative element of finding rare, extraordinary things.”
