More than a decade after its initial display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Cup, crafted by Gianmaria Buccellati of the Italian jeweler, House of Buccellati, is now back on view in the museum’s Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals. The Cup was originally dedicated to the Smithsonian in honor of the “Buccellati: Gold, Silver and Gems” exhibition, which opened at the museum in October 2000. Since then, it has been on loan to several institutions, including the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Fla., in 2002, the Boca Raton Museum of Art in 2005 and at the Kremlin in Moscow from 2008 to 2009.
“Over the past 13 years, the Cup has served as a traveling ambassador for the Smithsonian,” said Jeffrey Post, curator of the National Gem Collection. “We are delighted to have it home for a while and to be able to once again exhibit it here at the Natural History Museum.”
