'Pharaoh' Exhibition Highlights Exquisitely Crafted Jewelry of the Ancient Egyptians

If you're planning a trip to the Land Down Under in 2024, be sure to see the "Pharaoh" exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), where more than 500 objects celebrating 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian jewelry, art and visual culture will be on display.

The huge collection will be on loan from The British Museum, which has amassed one of the most exceptional collections of ancient Egyptian objects in the world. It's the largest international loan the London institution has ever undertaken.

Running from June 14 through October 6, the landmark presentation will unpack the phenomenon of pharaoh, those all-powerful kings who claimed a divine origin.

"What really sets our show apart is a focus on the artistic aspects of these works and the sheer beauty and skill of the crafting of these works," said Amanda Dunsmore, NGV's senior curator, international decorative arts and antiquities. "Ancient Egyptian sculptors were absolute masters of their craft."

Among the 500 works are a wide array of exquisitely crafted gold jewelry, monumental sculpture, architecture, temple statuary, papyri (documents), coffins and a rich array of funerary objects.

The pharaohs presented an idealized image of themselves as invincible warriors and fervent worshippers of the gods. This is evident from the imagery on rings, bracelets and personal treasures, to the statues and monuments of colossal scale. Among the largest items is a 1.5-ton, 4-foot-wide fist of Ramses II.

The exhibition will be divided into seven thematic sections that explore the pharaoh’s roles and duties, including as the high priest officiating in temples, the head of the country’s administration, the leader of the army and the head of the royal family. The pharaohs were responsible for protecting Egypt against its enemies and ensuring universal order. They ruled both Upper and Lower Egypt from the 1st Dynasty (c. 3000 BCE) until the Roman conquest in 30 BCE.

Credits: Images courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum.

Music Friday: Cake's John McCrea Wants 'A Girl With a Mind Like a Diamond'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you fun songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, Cake frontman John McCrea combines quirky lyrics with a vibraslap rattle as he describes his ideal partner: "a girl with a mind like a diamond."

Appearing as the fourth track from Cake's 2001 album Comfort Eagle, "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" is a song "about prosperity and depression," songwriter McCrea told CNN in 2001.

"It's really just about... what happens to the human mating ritual when you have population booms and then things start to lag in every way," he said. "So I was not really writing about a woman in short skirt/long jacket as much I was writing about humans and how strange our behavior is."

He sings, "I want a girl with a mind like a diamond / I want a girl who knows what's best / I want a girl with shoes that cut / And eyes that burn like cigarettes."

He also reveals that he prefers a girl who plays with her jewelry, enjoys uninterrupted prosperity and uses a machete to cut through red tape.

The video for "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" earned a nomination for Breakthrough Video at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. The Platinum-certified single sold more than one million copies and the Comfort Eagle album earned a Gold certification with more than a half-million albums sold.

Last Friday, the band reissued Comfort Eagle on vinyl — in both black and Coke-bottle green varieties.

The song features McCrea playing a vibraslap, a percussion instrument consisting of a piece of stiff wire that connects a wooden ball to a hollow box of wood filled with metal “teeth.” When the wooden ball is struck with the palm of the hand, the device emits a prolonged rattlesnake sound.

Founded in Sacramento, CA, in 1991, Cake is classified as an alternative rock band, but many critics would rather put Cake in a class of its own due to the group's wide range of musical influences, off-beat lyrics and deadpan delivery.

The key to the band's unique sound, joked guitarist Xan McCurdy, is old, cheap guitars.

"We never get the exact same tone twice," he told songfacts.com.

Trivia: "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" was used as the opening theme to Chuck, an action comedy/spy drama that ran on NBC for five seasons starting in 2007.

Please check out the audio track of "Short Skirt/Long Jacket." The lyrics are below if you'd like to sing along…

"Short Skirt/Long Jacket"
Written by John McCrea. Performed by Cake.

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond
I want a girl who knows what's best
I want a girl with shoes that cut
And eyes that burn like cigarettes

I want a girl with the right allocations
Who's fast, and thorough, and sharp as a tack
She's playing with her jewelry
She's putting up her hair
She's touring the facilities
And picking up slack
I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket.

I want a girl who gets up early
I want a girl who stays up late
I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity
Who uses a machete, to cut through red tape

With fingernails that shine like justice
And a voice that is dark like tinted glass
She is fast, thorough, and sharp as a tack
She is touring the facilities and picking up slack
I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket

I want a girl with a smooth liquidation
I want a girl with good dividends
At Citibank we will meet accidentally
We'll start to talk when she borrows my pen

She wants a car with a cup holder armrest
She wants a car that will get her there
She is changing her name
From Kitty to Karen
She's trading her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron
I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket

Credit: Photo by Jay Adan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Immense 17.61-Carat 'Bleu Royal' Diamond Could Fetch $50MM at Christie's Geneva

The largest internally flawless fancy vivid blue diamond ever to appear at auction is set to headline Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale in Geneva on November 7. Weighing an astounding 17.61 carats, the perfectly symmetrical pear-shaped "Bleu Royal" carries a presale estimate of $35 million to $50 million.

If it achieves the high estimate, the "Bleu Royal" will take its place just behind the record-setting 14.62-carat “Oppenheimer Blue” (Christie's 2016, $57.5 million) and the 15.10-carat “De Beers Blue” (Sotheby's 2022, $57.47 million).

Christie's noted that Bleu Royal has been part of an important private collection for the past 50 years and that this is the first time the stone has been offered at auction.

“This is a true miracle of nature,” commended Rahul Kadakia, International Head of Christie’s Jewels. “Over our 257-year history, Christie’s has had the privilege of offering the world’s rarest gems at auction, and Bleu Royal continues this tradition. We are proud to offer collectors the opportunity to own a diamond fit for royalty.”

Blue diamonds larger than 10 carats are exceptionally rare. It is believed that only five have ever come to auction and two will be offered this fall: The "Bleu Royal" and the 11.28-carat “Infinite Blue,” which will be the subject of a single-lot event at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on October 5. The cut-cornered rectangular mixed-cut fancy vivid blue stunner has a pre-sale estimate of $26 million to $37 million.

Christie's explained that, due to collector demand and an increasingly limited supply, prices for top-quality colored diamonds have increased exponentially in recent years.

Blue diamonds are considered one of the rarest colors of all diamonds. A fabulous fluke of nature, a blue diamond owes its color to the random presence of boron within the diamond’s carbon structure. The Infinite Blue is categorized as a Type IIb diamond, a quality level that includes less than 0.5% of all diamonds.

Scientists believe that blue diamonds form about 400 miles below the surface, four times deeper than about 99 percent of all other diamonds.

Credits: Image courtesy of Christie's.

Heart Locket on Which Bogie Professed His Love for Bacall Sells for 57K

The real-life love story of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall has been celebrated as one of the great romances of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The couple met in 1944 on the set of To Have and Have Not, and despite an age difference of 25 years, they fell madly in love.

On Friday, the heart-shaped locket on which Bogart proclaimed his love for Bacall sold for $57,150 at Los Angeles-based Julien’s Auctions. The winning bid was nearly three times the auction house’s pre-sale high estimate of $20,000.

Julien’s noted that the gold locket, which is set with a faceted heart-shaped simulated garnet, is inscribed with the phrase, “Baby / here’s my heart / Bogie.” The piece measures 1 inch x 2 inches, weighs 20 grams and opens to reveal two photo compartments.

It’s not clear whether Bogart gifted this piece before or after the couple exchanged vows in May of 1945. The 45-year-old Bogart was already a Hollywood headliner at the time, having starred in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942). The up-and-coming model-turned-actress was just 20 years old.

Naysayers predicted that the relationship would be short-lived, but they were wrong. Bacall and Bogart would go on to celebrate a 12-year storybook marriage — one that would be cut short only after he succumbed to cancer in 1957.

In her memoir, Bacall wrote, "No one has ever written a romance better than we lived it."

Also featured at Julien’s Auctions Hollywood Legends & Royalty sale were the couple’s matching 14-karat gold wedding bands. Described as "articulated curb link bands," the pair was sold as a single lot and fetched $190,500 — just shy of the pre-sale high estimate of $200,000. His ring is size 9 and hers is size 7.25. Both are 7 mm wide.

In all, the A-list couple starred in four movies together, including the aforementioned To Have or Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948).  

Credits: Jewelry images via Julien’s Auctions. Bogart and Bacall photo by National Motion Picture Council, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Music Friday: Cher Is Wearing Sonny's Ring in 1965's #1 Hit, 'I Got You Babe'

Welcome to Music Friday when we often bring you classic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today we flash back to the summer of 1965 — a time of hippies, bell bottoms, flower power and a chart-topping duo named Sonny & Cher singing “I Got You Babe.”

In this love song about a young couple willing to challenge societal norms, Cher famously assures Sonny, “So let them say your hair’s too long / ‘Cause I don’t care, with you I can’t go wrong.” In the jewelry reference, Sonny serenades, “I got flowers in the spring. I got you to wear my ring.”

Written by Sonny Bono, “I Got You Babe” was the duo’s biggest single and signature song. It ascended to #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and charted in 18 countries, including Singapore, Switzerland and Zimbabwe.

Sonny revealed in a 1966 interview that the song was inspired by first-hand experiences.

“I know what it is like to be kicked around because you dress differently,” Sonny told Musical Express. “I know what it is like to see the girl you love hurt because a hotel refuses you admission because of your dress. I know what it is like to have that one person stand by you. There are a lot of other people who have experienced these things and I’m trying to put our feelings into words for everyone.”

Despite being named one of the greatest duets of all times by both Billboard and Rolling Stone magazines, “I Got You Babe” was nearly thrown on the scrap heap.

Apparently, Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atco Records, didn’t really care for the song, and was planning to relegate it to the “B” side of Sonny & Cher’s single, “It’s Gonna Rain.”

Even Cher admitted that she was hardly enthusiastic when she sang it for the first time. Sonny agreed to change the key in the bridge to suit Cher’s range and then she loved it.

Sonny was sure they had a hit, but Ertegun was still not convinced. Sonny pitched the song to the program director of Los Angeles radio station KHJ. He made a deal that allowed the station to have the song exclusively if they played it once an hour.

The station’s listeners couldn’t get enough of “I Got You Babe” and Ertegun finally agreed to publish it as the “A” side.

“I Got You Babe” had a key role in the 1993 movie, Groundhog Day, as Bill Murray, playing an arrogant TV weatherman, finds himself reliving February 2 in a perpetual time loop. Every morning at exactly six o’clock Murray wakes to the clock-radio playing the Sonny & Cher ditty.

Check out the video of Sonny & Cher performing “I Got You Babe.” The lyrics are below if you'd like to sing along…

“I Got You Babe”
Written by Sonny Bono. Performed by Sonny & Cher.

Cher: They say we’re young and we don’t know
We won’t find out until we grow
Sonny: Well I don’t know if all that’s true
‘Cause you got me, and baby I got you

Sonny: Babe
BOTH: I got you babe, I got you babe

Cher: They say our love won’t pay the rent
Before it’s earned, our money’s all been spent
Sonny: I guess that’s so, we don’t have a pot
But at least I’m sure of all the things we got

Sonny: Babe
BOTH: I got you babe, I got you babe

Sonny: I got flowers in the spring, I got you to wear my ring
Cher: And when I’m sad, you’re a clown
And if I get scared, you’re always around
Cher: So let them say your hair’s too long
‘Cause I don’t care, with you I can’t go wrong
Sonny: Then put your little hand in mine
There ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb

Sonny: Babe
BOTH: I got you babe I got you babe

Sonny: I got you to hold my hand
Cher: I got you to understand
Sonny: I got you to walk with me
Cher: I got you to talk with me
Sonny: I got you to kiss goodnight
Cher: I got you to hold me tight
Sonny: I got you, I won’t let go
Cher: I got you to love me so

BOTH: I got you babe
I got you babe
I got you babe
I got you babe
I got you babe

Credit: Image by CBS Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.