Smithsonian Goes Mass Market

The Smithsonian Institute National Museum of Natural History will add to its celebrated gem collection with Masterpiece Royal Butterfly by jewelry artisan Cindy Chao. The brooch will be the first jewelry piece by a Taiwanese designer to be inducted into the institution’s permanent collection.

It is a face known throughout the world, but the public will see a different side of the Queen today as a portrait banished for 61 years goes on display.

In honor of Queen Elizabeth's 60th anniversary as Britain's Monarch, the Royal Family released an official Diamond Jubilee portrait of Her Majesty adorned with jewelry from The Royal Collection. The Queen is wearing the State Diadem (crown), a circlet of diamonds, created in 1820. She wears this during the procession to and from the State ...

The exhibition, The Great American Hall of Wonders, examining the 19th-century American belief that the people of the United States shared a special genius for innovation, is now open at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It is a collaborative effort between the museum and Commerce's U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and explores six subjects – three natural resources, three man-made inventions – that helped shape America during this period: the buffalo, Giant Sequoia, Niagara Falls, the gun, the railroad and the clock. The exhibition will focus on the ways these six subjects brought together artistic, scientific and technological ways of seeing the world. In addition to providing creative and technical assistance for development of the exhibition, the USPTO has played a part in the public program development by working with the museum to provide:  speakers for university level courses as well as inventors from the National Inventors’ Hall of Fame for a lecture series.   There will also be a day and a half long inventors symposium held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the USPTO will take the lead in providing experts to address the many challenges facing independent inventors and entrepreneurs.

More than 10,000 diamonds set in works acquired by six British monarchs over three centuries go on display to mark the queen's 60-year reign. The exhibition, "Diamonds: A Jubilee Celebration," runs from June 30 - July 8 and July 31 - October 7 at Buckingham Palace. It includes a number of the queen's personal jewels and works from the Royal Collection, the art collection of the British Royal Family.

Jessica Simpson will launch a diamond fashion jewelry collection available at Zale Corp. branded stores beginning in October. The Dallas-based jewelry retailer made the announcement Tuesday. The Jessica Simpson collection will feature rings, earrings, pendants and bracelets, available in a range of affordable price points, the company said.?? Simpson?s collection will be offered exclusively at ...

Bruce Bartlett has a post up analyzing some recent polling on American attitudes toward tax and spending issues.