The Aurora Pyramid of Hope

This collection, the result of many years of searching the globe for examples of the diversity of diamond colors offered by Nature, now holds 296 of these colored gems, spanning the colors of the rainbow.

The diamonds in this collection were chosen to represent the 12 color varieties of diamonds and their modifiers (see below).

Now on display as part of a permanent exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London called “the Vault”, the Aurora Pyramid of Hope holds 267.45 carats of exceptionally rare stones, valued at somewhere between $1 million and $100 million: Bronstein will not be more specific, stating that “it’s not about money.

I want people to see it and be stunned in the same way as the first time they saw a rainbow.” Only one in every 10,000 gem-quality diamonds is colored. The color stems from imperfections in the diamond’s structure or chemical composition (some of the carbon being replaced by other elements), and reflect each stone’s history. For example, traces of nitrogen give the diamond a yellow color, while green is an indication of natural radiation damage. The focus, when collecting the diamonds for this collection, was on color varieties and saturations.

Size, shape or freedom from inclusions were not taken into consideration. Thus the collection displays many different cuts and shapes of diamonds, but the unifying theme is Nature’s display of colors.

Bronstein says that the collection is still incomplete: he has yet to find, for example, a red diamond that is the color of a red traffic light. But he’s working on it.

Diamond Color Variety Chart: 12 color varieties of natural color diamonds and their modifiers, as seen in “Collecting and Classifying Coloured Diamonds – An Illustrated Study of the Aurora Collection” and “Forever Brilliant: The Aurora Collection of Colored Diamonds.”.