A Diamond Named for Arkansas Goes on View in Arkansas, Beside O'Keeffe and Warhol

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville has opened its galleries to a selection of historic pieces drawn from the vaults of one of the great American jewelry houses, and the centerpiece carries the state's own name. The Arkansas Diamond is among the objects visitors will find installed in the Ozarks, a stone whose title finally sits in the place it refers to. The museum has chosen not to show the jewelry in isolation. Instead the cases share the rooms with paintings and prints by Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Warhol and other artists, so that a reader standing in the galleries sees cut stones and canvases answering one another across the floor. The pairing puts the jeweler's bench on equal footing with the easel, which is how serious collectors have long regarded the finest goldsmithing anyway. For anyone who follows what American museums choose to put under glass, an archive of this depth traveling to northwest Arkansas is the kind of loan worth the drive.

With reporting from Galerie.