Six Star Magazine Six Star Magazine Winter 2008/2009 | Page 28

exhibition’s most dazzling objects including
a 2,600-diamond corsage ornament
belonging to Princess Mathilde, niece of
Napoleon Bonaparte, the 2,000-diamond
Milky Way necklace and the Aurora
Butterfly of Peace, consisting of an
astounding 240 multi-coloured diamonds.
The Museum’s World Culture
Galleries including the Daphne Cockwell
Gallery of Canada: First Peoples, the
Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada,
and galleries of China, Japan and Korea,
Cyprus, the Middle East, Egypt and Europe

are a spectacle of art, artifacts, textiles,
clothing, early Canadiana, armour,
earthenware and so much more.
Those who imagined themselves
draped in diamonds in The Nature of
Diamonds exhibition can complete their
ensemble at the Patricia Harris Gallery of
Textiles & Costume, which highlights a
diverse international collection of costume
and textiles, including Chinese imperial
court garments, early Islamic textiles,
Western fashion from the 18th century to
the present, and early Canadian textiles.

A WING AND A PRAYER
as the early 1990s 150,000 migrated to the Canadian

Peck. What scientists discovered, though, was that

Arctic each spring. Today, though, those numbers

in recent years the crabs have been over-harvested

have reduced drastically, with less than 18,000 finding

as commercial fishing bait, leaving less eggs for the

their way north in recent years. To get to the bottom

birds. The result, of course, is a corresponding drastic

of this devastating decline, ROM ornithologists stock

reduction in the bird’s population.

up the department’s Subaru Outback and head south,
joining other scientists and volunteers on the beaches

Look for the opening of the Schad Gallery of

of Delaware Bay between New Jersey and Delaware.

Biodiversity early next year. This Gallery promises

The Outback, as Mark says, “is a nice cross between a

to make bold beautiful statements and, hopefully,

passenger vehicle, a van and an off-roader. This vehicle

open many pairs of eyes!

has the space to let us move collections around and
at the same time take us off the beaten path, a place
where we often find ourselves.”
Mark Peck, an Ornithologist and member of the

It was off that beaten path, on the sandy

Department of Natural History at the Royal Ontario

beaches of Delaware Bay, that the group

Museum (ROM) spends most of his time studying

of scientists found one of the answers

the land of the living. Currently his priority is the

to the Red Knot’s shockingly

development of the ROM’s new Schad Gallery of

diminished numbers: not enough

Biodiversity. Scheduled to open in March 2009, this

Horseshoe Crab eggs.

10,000 sq. ft. gallery explores the diversity of life on

“This important food source

earth and how species and habitats are threatened by

allows the shorebirds to

human activity.

fatten-up for the last leg of

The reason the ROM and the Schad Gallery of

their journey, a 2,000-km

Biodiversity are paying so much attention to the

trek to their Canadian

Red Knot shorebird (pictured right) is that, as recently

breeding grounds,” says

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ROM photos: © Royal Ontario Museum, 2008. All rights reserved.

Speaking of sparkly, The Nature of
Diamonds, which runs until March 22,
2009, is the most wide-ranging exhibition
ever developed on the allure of diamonds.
Housed, fittingly, in the new Lee-Chin
Crystal, the exhibition showcases
approximately 500 brilliant objects
drawn from private collections and major
museums from around the world.
Lenders to the exhibit include Cartier,
Tiffany & Co., Van Cleef & Arpels, and
De Beers Canada. As part of the exhibition,
the walk-in Gem Vault houses some of the