Biography Diana Mary Innes Scarisbrick FSA (née Wood; 8 October 1928 – 30 December 2024) was an English art historian specialising in the history of jewellery and engraved gems.
[1] Born 8 October 1928 at Echuca,[2] Victoria, Australia, to English parents,[3] she attended Christ's Hospital and from 1947 to 1950 St Hugh's College, Oxford.
[6] Besides curating exhibitions in the United Kingdom and further afield, she catalogued several significant collections, published scholarly articles and wrote many books.
[7] For many years, she was the official historian of the Parisian jewellers Chaumet, and her work as research associate at the Beazley Archive, Oxford, led to the publication, in collaboration with Sir John Boardman and Claudia Wagner, of The Beverley Collection of Gems at Alnwick Castle (2016).
[9] Scarisbrick memorably described Queen Victoria's collections of Scottish jewellery, which include polished pebbles and semi-precious stones reflecting Highland geology, as "mute travel diaries".