Hope Diamond
Encyclopedia
The Hope Diamond, also known as "Le bleu de France" or "Le Bijou du Roi", is a large, 45.52 carats (9.1 g), deep-blue diamond
, now housed in the Smithsonian
Natural History Museum
in Washington, D.C.
It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron
within its crystal structure, but exhibits red phosphorescence
after exposure to ultraviolet
light. It is classified as a Type IIb diamond
, and is notorious for supposedly being curse
d. It has a long recorded history with few gaps in which it changed hands numerous times on its way from India
to France
to Britain
and to the United States
. It has been described as the "most famous diamond in the world" and is said to be the second most-visited artwork in the world, after the Mona Lisa
.
approximately 1.1 billion years ago. It was made from carbon
atoms to form strong bonds making it a diamond. It became embedded with kimberlite
but eroded by wind
and rain
, resulting in its placement among gravel deposits. The first known diamond mine was in the Golconda region of India, although by 1725 diamonds had been discovered in Brazil
. The Hope Diamond contains trace amount of boron atoms intermixed with the carbon structure, which results in the blue color of the diamond, according to the Smithsonian.
, in the Kollur mine
in the Guntur
district of Andhra Pradesh
(which at the time had been part of the Golconda
kingdom), in the seventeenth century. It is unclear who had initially owned the gemstone, whether it had been found, by whom, and in what condition. But the first historical records suggest that a French
merchant-traveler named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
obtained the stone, possibly by purchase or by theft, and he brought a large uncut stone to Paris which was the first known precursor to the Hope Diamond. This large stone became known as the Tavernier Blue
diamond. It was a crudely cut triangular shaped stone of 115 carats (23 g). Another estimate is that it weighed 112.23 carats (22.4 g) before it was cut. Tavernier's book, the Six Voyages (French: Le Six Voyages de...), contains sketches of several large diamonds that he sold to Louis XIV in possibly 1668 or 1669; while the blue diamond is shown among these, Tavernier mentions the mines at "Gani" Kollur as a source of colored diamonds, but made no direct mention of the stone. Historian Richard Kurin
builds a highly speculative case for 1653 as the year of acquisition, but the most that can be said with certainty is that Tavernier obtained the blue diamond during one of his five voyages to India between the years 1640 and 1667. One report suggests he took 25 diamonds to Paris, including the large rock which became the Hope, and sold all of them to King Louis XIV. Another report suggested that in 1669, Tavernier sold this large blue diamond along with approximately one thousand other diamonds to King Louis XIV
of France
for 220,000 livres
, the equivalent of 147 kilograms of pure gold. In a newly published historical novel, The French Blue, gemologist and historian Richard W. Wise proposed that the patent of nobility granted Tavernier by Louis XIV was a part of the payment for the Tavernier Blue. According to the theory, during that period Colbert, the king's Finance Minister, regularly sold offices and noble titles for cash, and an outright patent of nobility, according to Wise, was worth approximately 500,000 livres making a total of 720,000 livres, a price much closer to the true value of the gem. There has been some controversy regarding the actual weight of the stone; Morel believed that the 112 carats stated in Tavernier's invoice would be in old French carats, thus 115.28 metric carats.
jeweller, Sieur Pitau, to recut the Tavernier Blue, resulting in a 67.125 carats (13.4 g) stone which royal inventories thereafter listed as the Blue Diamond of the Crown of France (diamant bleu de la Couronne de France), but later English-speaking historians have simply called it the French Blue. The king had the stone set on a cravat-pin. According to one report, Louis ordered Pitau to "make him a piece to remember", and Pitau took two years on the piece, resulting in a "triangular-shaped 69-carat gem the size of a pigeon's egg that took the breath away as it snared the light, reflecting it back in bluish-grey rays." It was set in gold and was supported by a ribbon for the neck which was worn by the king during ceremonies.
In 1749, Louis' descendant, King Louis XV
, had the French Blue set into a more elaborate jewelled pendant for the Order of the Golden Fleece
by court jeweler Andre Jacquemin. The assembled piece included a red spinel of 107 carats shaped as a dragon
breathing "covetous flames", as well as 83 red-painted diamonds and 112 yellow-painted diamonds to suggest a fleece shape. But the piece fell into disuse after the death of Louis XV. The diamond became the property of his grandson King Louis XVI
. During the reign of her husband, Marie Antoinette
used many French Crown Jewels
for personal adornment by having the individual gems placed into new settings and combinations, but the French Blue remained in this pendant except for a brief time in 1787, when the stone was removed for scientific study by Mathurin Jacques Brisson
and returned to its setting soon thereafter. On September 11, 1792, while Louis XVI and his family were confined in the Palais des Tuileries near the Place de la Concorde
during the early stages of the French Revolution
, a group of thieves broke into the Garde-Meuble (Royal Storehouse) and stole most of the Crown Jewels during a five-day looting spree by a gang in September 1792. While many jewels were later recovered, including other pieces of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the French Blue was not among them and it disappeared temporarily from history. In 1793, Louis was guillotine
d in January and Marie was guillotined in October, and these beheadings are commonly cited as a result of the diamond's "curse", but the historical record suggests that Marie Antoinette had never worn the Golden Fleece pendant because it had been reserved for the exclusive use of the king.
A likely scenario is that the French Blue or sometimes also known as the Blue Diamond was "swiftly smuggled to London" after being seized in 1792 in Paris. But the exact rock known as the French Blue was never seen again, since it almost certainly was recut during this decades-long period of anonymity, probably into two pieces, and the larger one became the Hope Diamond. One report suggested that the cut was a "butchered job" because it sheared off 23.5 carats from the larger rock as well as hurting its "extraordinary lustre." It had long been believed that the Hope Diamond had been cut from the French Blue until confirmation finally happened when a three-dimensional lead
en model of the latter was recently rediscovered in the archives of the French Natural History Museum
in Paris. Previously, the dimensions of the French Blue had been known only from two drawings made in 1749 and 1789; although the model slightly differs from the drawings in some details, these details are identical to features of the Hope Diamond, allowing CAD technology to digitally reconstruct the French Blue around the recut stone. Historians suggested that one robber, Cadet Guillot, took several jewels including the French Blue as well as the Côte-de-Bretagne Spinel and others to Le Havre
and then to London
, where the French Blue was cut into two pieces. Morel adds that in 1796, Guillot attempted to resell the Côte-de-Bretagne in France but was forced to relinquish it to a fellow thief, Lancry de la Loyelle, who put Guillot into debtors' prison.
In a contrasting report, historian Richard Kurin speculated that the "theft" of the French Crown Jewels was in fact engineered by the revolutionary leader Georges Danton
as part of a plan to bribe an opposing military commander, Duke Karl Wilhelm of Brunswick
. When under attack by Napoleon in 1805, Karl Wilhelm may have had the French Blue recut to disguise its identity; in this form, the stone could have come to Britain in 1806, when his family fled there to join his daughter Caroline of Brunswick
. Although Caroline was the wife of the Prince Regent
George (later George IV of the United Kingdom
), she lived apart from her husband, and financial straits sometimes forced her to quietly sell her own jewels to support her household. Caroline's nephew, Duke Karl Friedrich
, was later known to possess a 13.75 carats (2.8 g) blue diamond which was widely thought to be another piece of the French Blue. However, this smaller diamond's present whereabouts are unknown, and the recent CAD reconstruction of the French Blue fits too tightly around the Hope Diamond to allow for the existence of such a sister stone.
in the possession of the London diamond merchant Daniel Eliason
in September 1812, the earliest point when the history of the Hope Diamond can be definitively fixed, although a second less definitive report suggests that the Hope Diamond's "authentic history" can only be traced back to 1830. The rock was a "massive blue stone of 45.54 carats". It weighed 177 grains (4 grains = 1 carat). It is often pointed out that this date was almost exactly 20 years after the theft of the French Blue, just as the statute of limitations
for the crime had expired. While the diamond had disappeared for several decades, there were questions whether this recovered diamond in Britain was the same as had belonged to the French king, but subsequent scientific investigation in 2008 confirmed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the Hope Diamond and that owned by the French king were, in fact, the same gemstone in the sense that the Hope Diamond had been cut from the same material as the French Blue.
There are conflicting reports about what happened to the diamond during these years. Eliason's diamond may have been acquired by King George IV
of the United Kingdom
, possibly via Caroline of Brunswick
; however there is no record of the ownership in the Royal Archives
at Windsor, but some secondary evidence exists in the form of contemporary writings and artwork, and George IV tended to co-mingle the state property of the Crown Jewels with family heirlooms and his own personal property. A source at the Smithsonian suggested there were "several references" suggesting that the British king did, indeed, own the diamond. After the king's death in 1830, it has been alleged that some of this mixed collection was stolen by his mistress, Lady Conyngham
, and some of his remaining personal items were discreetly liquidated to cover the many debts he had left behind him. A conflicting report is that the king's debts were "so enormous" that the diamond was likely sold through "private channels." In either case, the blue diamond was not retained by the British royal family.
There was a report that the gemstone was bought by a wealthy London banker named Henry Thomas Hope for either $65,000 or $90,000. After falling under the ownership of the Hope family, and remaining in its possession for more than half a century, it came to be known officially as the "Hope Diamond". There was a report that Eliason may have been a "front" for Hope, acting not as a diamond merchant but rather as an agent to acquire the diamond for the banker. In 1839, the Hope Diamond appeared in a published catalog of the gem collection of Henry Philip Hope who was a member of the prominent Anglo-Dutch banking family. The stone was set in a fairly simple medallion surrounded by many smaller white diamonds, which he sometimes lent to Louisa Beresford, the widow of his brother, his nephew Henry Thomas Hope, for society balls
. Henry Philip Hope died in 1839, the same year as the publication of his collection catalog. His three nephews, the sons of his brother Thomas, fought in court for ten years over his inheritance, and ultimately the collection was split up.
The oldest nephew, Henry Thomas Hope
, received eight of the most valuable gems including the Hope Diamond. It was displayed in the Great Exhibition of London in 1851 and Paris Exhibition Universelle in 1855, but was usually kept in a bank vault. In 1861, his only child, Henrietta, married Henry Pelham-Clinton, Earl of Lincoln
. When Hope died on December 4, 1862, his wife Anne Adele inherited the gem, but feared that the profligate lifestyle of her son-in-law, the 6th Duke of Newcastle, might cause him to sell the Hope properties. Upon Adele's death in 1884, the entire Hope estate, including the Hope diamond, was entrusted to Henrietta's younger son, Henry Francis, on the condition that he change his surname when he reached legal majority. As Lord Francis Hope
, this grandson received his legacy in 1887. However, Francis had only a life interest
to his inheritance, meaning he could not sell any part of it without court permission.
Francis Hope met American concert hall singer May Yohé
who had been described as "the sensation of two continents in 1894". She became his mistress; they married in 1894; one account suggested that Yohe wore the Hope diamond at one point. She later claimed she had worn the diamond at social gatherings and had an exact replica made for her performances, but he claimed otherwise. Lord Francis lived beyond his means, and it eventually caught up with him, leading to marriage troubles, financial reverses, and he found that he had to sell the diamond. In 1896, his bankruptcy
was discharged, but, as he could not sell the Hope Diamond without the court's permission, he was supported by his wife during these intervening years. In 1901, the financial situation had changed and after a "long legal fight," he was free to sell the Hope Diamond by an "order of the Master in Chancery" to "pay off debts," But May Yohe ran off with a rival named Putnam Strong, who was the son of the former New York City
mayor William L. Strong
. Francis Hope and May Yohe were divorced in 1902.
Lord Francis sold the diamond for £29,000 (£ as of ), to Adolph Weil, a London jewel merchant. Weil later sold the stone to a New York-based or London-based (accounts differ) diamond dealer Simon Frankel, who took it to New York. There, it was evaluated to be worth $141,032 (equal to £28,206 at the time).
of several owners of the gem, perhaps who had bought it from Frankel and owned it temporarily who met with ill-fortune, but this report conflicts with the more likely possibility that the gem remained in the hands of the Frankel jewelry firm during these years. Like many jewelry firms, the Frankel business ran into financial difficulties during the depression of 1907 and referred to the gem as the "hoodoo diamond."
In 1908, Frankel sold the diamond for $400,000 to a Salomon or Selim Habib, a wealthy Turkish diamond collector, reportedly in behalf of Sultan Abdul Hamid
of Turkey; however, on June 24, 1909, the stone was included in an auction of Habib's assets to settle his own debts, and the auction catalog explicitly stated that the Hope Diamond was one of only two gems in the collection which had never been owned by the Sultan. A contrary report, however, suggested that Sultan Hamid did own the gem but ordered Habib to sell it when his throne "began to totter." Habib reportedly sold the stone in Paris in 1909 for $80,000. The Parisian jewel merchant Simon Rosenau bought the Hope Diamond for 400,000 francs and resold it in 1910 to Pierre Cartier
for 550,000 franc
s. In 1910, it was offered for $150,000, according to one report.
Pierre Cartier tried to sell the Hope Diamond to U.S. socialite
based in Washington D.C. named Evalyn Walsh McLean
and her husband in 1910, Cartier was a consummate salesman who used an understated presentation to try to entice the Washington-based socialite. He described the gem's illustrious history to her while keeping it concealed underneath special wrapping paper. The suspense worked: McLean became impatient to the point where she suddenly requested to see the stone. And she recalled later that Cartier "held before our eyes the Hope Diamond." Nevertheless, she initially rejected the offer perhaps because of her distaste for the Hope family's old setting. Cartier had it reset, and she found the stone much more appealing in this new modern style, and stories about its supposed "cursed" effects may have helped persuade her and her husband to buy it. There were conflicting reports about the sale in the New York Times; one account suggested that the young McLean couple had agreed to purchase the diamond, but after having learned about its unfortunate supposed history, the couple had wanted to back out of the deal since they knew nothing of the "history of misfortunes that have beset its various owners."
The brouhaha over the diamond's supposed "ill luck" prompted a worried editor of The Jewelers' Circular-Weekly to write:
The tenuous deal involved wrangling among attorneys for both Cartier and the McLeans, but finally, in 1911, the couple bought the gem for over $300,000, although there are differing estimates of the sales price at $150,000 and $180,000. An alternative scenario is that the McLeans may have fabricated concern about the supposed "curse" to generate publicity to increase the value of their investment.
A description was that the gemstone "lay on a bed of white silk and surrounded by many small white diamonds cut pear shaped". The new setting was the current platinum framework surrounded by a row of sixteen diamonds which alternated between Old Mine Cut and pear-shaped variants. Ms. McLean wore it to a "brilliant reception" in February 1912 when it was reported that it was the first time it had been worn in public since it had "changed owners." She would "sport the diamond at social events" and wore it numerous social occasions that she had organized.
There were reports that she misplaced it at parties, deliberately and frequently, and then make a children's game out of "finding the Hope", and times when she hid the diamond somewhere on her estate during the "lavish parties she threw and invite guests to find it." The stone prompted elaborate security precautions:
But the stone was not stolen during their ownership. When Ms. McLean died in 1947, she bequeathed the diamond to her grandchildren through a will which insisted that her former property would remain in the custody of trustee
s until the eldest child had reached 25 years of age. This requirement would have prevented any sale for the next two decades. However, the trustees gained permission to sell her jewels to settle her debts, and in 1949 sold them to New York
diamond merchant Harry Winston
. He purchased McLean's "entire jewelry collection". Over the next decade, Winston exhibited McLean's necklace in his "Court of Jewels," a tour of jewels around the United States, as well as various charity balls and the August 1958 Canadian National Exhibition
. At some point, he also had the Hope Diamond's bottom facet
slightly recut to increase its brilliance.
is credited with persuading Harry Winston to donate the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for a proposed national gem collection to be housed at the museum. On November 10, 1958, Winston donated the diamond to the Smithsonian Institution
, where it became Specimen #217868, sending it through U.S. Mail
in a box wrapped in brown paper, insured via registered mail
at a cost of $145.29. Winston had never believed in any of the tales about the curse; he donated the diamond with the hope that it would help the United States "establish a gem collection." Winston died many years later, in 1978, of a heart attack. Winston's gift, according to Smithsonian curator Dr. Jeffrey Port, helped spur additional gifts to the museum.
For its first four decades in the National Museum of Natural History
, the Hope Diamond lay in its necklace inside a glass-fronted safe as part of the gems and jewelry gallery, except for a few brief excursions: a 1962 exhibition to the Louvre
; the 1965 Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg, South Africa; and two visits back to Harry Winston's premises in New York City, once in 1984, and once for a 50th anniversary celebration in 1996.
When the Smithsonian's gallery was renovated in 1997, the necklace was moved onto a rotating pedestal inside a cylinder made of 3 inches (76.2 mm) thick bulletproof glass in its own display room, adjacent to the main exhibit of the National Gem Collection in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals. The Hope Diamond is the most popular jewel on display and the collection's centerpiece. In 1988, specialists with the Gemological Institute of America
graded it and noticed "evidence of wear" and its "remarkably strong phosphorescence" with its clarity "slightly affected by a whitish graining which is common to blue diamonds." A highly sensitive colorimeter
found tiny traces of a "very slight violet component" which is imperceptible to normal vision.
In 2005, the Smithsonian published a year-long computer-aided geometry research which officially acknowledged that the Hope Diamond is, in fact, part of the stolen French Blue crown jewel.
In 2009, the Smithsonian
announced a temporary new setting for the jewel to celebrate a half-century at the National Museum of Natural History
. Starting in September 2009, the 45.52 carats (9.1 g) diamond will be exhibited as a stand-alone gem with no setting. It was removed from its setting for cleaning from time to time, but this is the first time it will be on public view by itself. Previously it had been shown in a platinum setting, surrounded by 16 white pear-shaped and cushion-cut diamonds, suspended from a chain containing forty-five diamonds.
The Hope returned to its traditional setting in late 2010.
On November 18, 2010, the Hope Diamond was unveiled and displayed at the Smithsonian in a temporary newly-designed necklace called "Embracing Hope," created by the Harry Winston firm. Three designs for the new setting, all white diamonds and white metal, were created and the public voted on the final version. The Hope Diamond also is resting on a new dark blue neck form, which the Harry Winston firm commissioned from display organization, Pac Team Group. Previously, the Hope Diamond had been displayed as a loose gem since late summer of 2009 (see above image) when it was removed from its former Cartier-designed setting. A Smithsonian curator described it as "priceless" because it was "irreplaceable", although it was reported to be insured for $250 million. In 2012 the diamond will be returned to its historic setting, and the current necklace will be implanted with another diamond worth "at least a million dollars," and the necklace with the new diamond will be sold to benefit the Smithsonian.
In 2010, the Smithsonian licensed its gem and jewelry collection to create a "line of bracelets, brooches and other baubles" to be sold on the TV shopping network QVC; the jewelry line will not have real diamonds, but will serve as costume jewelry with semiprecious stones, and benefits the museum by being an additional source of revenue.
of a reputed curse to the effect that it brings misfortune and tragedy to persons who own it or wear it, but there are strong indications that such stories were not grounded in solid fact and were likely to have been fabricated to enhance the stone's mystery and appeal, since increased publicity usually raised the gem's value and newsworthiness.
According to specious accounts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the original form of the Hope Diamond was stolen from an eye of a sculpted statue of the goddess Sita
, the wife of Rama
, the seventh Avatar
of Vishnu
. However, much like the "curse of Tutankhamun
", this general type of "legend" was most likely the invention of Western authors during the Victorian era, and the specific legends about the Hope Diamond's "cursed origin" were invented in the early 20th century to add mystique to the stone and increase its sales appeal as well as increase newspaper sales. It fueled speculation that humans possessing the gemstone were fated to have bad luck with varying reports of undetermined veracity. A report in 2006 in The New York Times
, however, suggested that "any hard evidence linking it to tragedy has yet to be officially proven."
There is evidence of several newspaper accounts which helped spread the curse story. A New Zealand
newspaper article in 1888 described the supposedly lurid history of the Hope Diamond, including a claim that it was "said once to have formed the single eye of a great idol", as part of a confused description that also claimed that its namesake owner had personally "brought it from India", and that the diamond's true color was "white, [although] when held to the light, it emits the most superb and dazzling blue rays." An article entitled "Hope Diamond Has Brought Trouble To All Who Have Owned It" appeared in the Washington Post in 1908. An additional account of the Hope Diamond's "cursed origins" was a fanciful and anonymously written newspaper article in 1909. It was followed by another article in 1911 which detailed a rather lengthy list of supposed cases of ill-fortune but with few confirmations from other sources:
The mainstream academic view is that these accounts are specious and speculative since there are few, if any, independent confirmations or historical scholarship to back them up. A few months later, perhaps compounded by inaccurate reports in The New York Times
on November 17, 1909, it was incorrectly reported that the diamond's former owner, Selim Habib, had drowned in a shipwreck of the steamer Seyne near Singapore; in fact, it was a different person with the same name, not the owner of the diamond. There was speculation that jeweler Pierre Cartier
further embroidered the lurid tales to intrigue Evalyn Walsh McLean into buying the Hope Diamond in 1911.
The theme of greedy robbers stealing a valuable metal from the tomb or shrine of an ancient god or ruler, and then being punished by it, is one which repeats in many different forms of literature. A likely source of inspiration for the fabrications was the Wilkie Collins
' 1868 novel The Moonstone
, which created a coherent narrative from vague and largely disregarded legends which had been attached to other diamonds such as the Koh-i-Noor
and the Orloff diamond. The theme can be seen in films such as The Mummy as well as stories about the curse of Egyptian king Tutankhamun
and in more recent films such as the Indiana Jones
films. In keeping with these scripts, according to the legend, Tavernier did not buy the Hope diamond but stole it from a Hindu
temple where it had been set as one of two matching eyes of an idol, and the temple priests then laid a curse on whoever might possess the missing stone. Largely because the other blue diamond "eye" never surfaced, historians dismissed the fantastical story. The stories generally do not bear up to more pointed examination; for example, the legend that Tavernier's body was "torn apart by wolves" is inconsistent with historical evidence which shows that he lived to 84 and died of natural causes.
It is possible that the overblown story of the curse, possibly fueled by Cartier and others, may have caused some hesitation on the part of the prospective buyers, the McLeans, around 1911. When a lawsuit between buyer and seller erupted about the terms of the deal, newspapers kept alive reports of the diamond's "malevolent influence" with reports blaming like this one, which blamed the stone's "curse" on having caused, of all things, the lawsuit itself:
The Hope Diamond was also blamed for the unhappy fates of other historical figures vaguely linked to its ownership, such as the falls of Madame Athenais de Montespan and French finance minister Nicolas Fouquet
during the reign of Louis XIV of France
; the beheadings of Louis XVI
and Marie Antoinette
and the rape and mutilation of the Princesse de Lamballe during the French Revolution
; and the forced abdication of Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid
who had supposedly killed various members of his court for the stone (despite the annotation in Habib's auction catalog). Even jewelers who may have handled the Hope Diamond were not spared from its reputed malice: the insanity and suicide of Jacques Colot, who supposedly bought it from Eliason, and the financial ruin of the jeweler Simon Frankel, who bought it from the Hope family, were linked to the stone. But although he is documented as a French diamond dealer of the correct era, Colot has no recorded connection with the stone, and Frankel's misfortunes were in the midst of economic straits that also ruined many of his peers. The legend includes deaths of numerous other characters who had been previously unknown: Diamond cutter Wilhelm Fals, killed by his son Hendrik, who stole it and later committed suicide; Francois Beaulieu, who received the stone from Hendrik but starved to death after selling it to Daniel Eliason; a Russian prince named Kanitowski, who lent it to French actress Lorens Ladue and promptly shot her dead on the stage, and was himself stabbed to death by revolutionaries; Simon Montharides, hurled over a precipice with his family. However, the existence of only a few of these characters has been verified historically, leading researchers to conclude that most of these persons are fictitious.
The actress May Yohe made repeated attempts to capitalize on her identity as the former wife of the last Hope to own the diamond, and sometimes blamed the gemstone for her misfortunes. In July 1902, months after Lord Francis divorced her, she told police in Australia
that her lover, Putnam Strong, had abandoned her and taken her jewels. In fact, the couple reconciled, married later that year, but divorced in 1910. On her third marriage in 1920, she persuaded film producer George Kleine to back a 15-episode serial The Hope Diamond Mystery
, which added fictitious characters to the tale, but the project was not successful. In 1921, she hired Henry Leyford Gates to help her write The Mystery of the Hope Diamond, in which she starred as Lady Francis Hope. The film added more characters, including a fictionalized Tavernier, and added Marat
among the diamond's "victims". She also wore her copy of the Hope, trying to generate more publicity to further her career.
Evalyn Walsh McLean added her own narrative to the story behind the blue jewel, including that one of the owners had been Catherine the Great, although there are no confirmations that the Russian ruler ever owned the diamond. McLean would bring the Diamond out for friends to try on, including Warren G. Harding
and Florence Harding
.
Since the Smithsonian acquired the gemstone, the "curse appears to have gone dormant." Owning the diamond has brought "nothing but good luck" for the nonprofit national museum, according to a Smithsonian curator, and has helped it build a "world-class gem collection" with rising attendance levels.
In 2007, an important discovery was made which enabled a slew of activity to help scientists, historians and gemologists further explore the history of the Hope Diamond, as well as create replicas of the larger pieces, from which it had been cut, believed to have been owned by eighteenth-century French monarchs. A lead cast of the French Blue diamond was discovered in the gemmological collections of the National Museum of Natural History
in Paris, reported in a bilingual French–English press release, and the unique finding triggered an investigation by an international team of researchers into the stone's history. It was an important event since previously investigators had to rely on two dimensional sketches of the diamond, but now they had a three dimensional
structure with which to apply techniques such as computer-aided drawing analysis. It allowed creation of the first numeric reconstruction of the French Blue including a virtual snapshot video. Even the emblem of the Golden Fleece of Louis XV was numerically reconstructed around the French Blue, including the "Côte de Bretagne" spinel
of 107 carats (21.4 g), the "Bazu" diamond of 32.62 carats (6.5 g), 3 oriental topazes (yellow sapphires), five brillants of up to 5 carats (1,000 mg) brillants and nearly 300 smaller diamonds. Special care was taken to reconstruct the major gemstones precisely by using CAD analysis as well as knowledge of historical gemsetting techniques. As part of the investigation, the "Tavernier Blue" diamond was also reconstructed from the original French edition of Tavernier's Voyages (rather than the later London edition that somewhat distorted and modified Tavernier's original figures), and the Smithsonian Institution provided ray-tracing
and optical spectroscopic data about the Hope diamond. These events culminated in an event and a documentary to celebrate the making of these replicas, with celebrations by the French museum
including H. Horovitz, Martin du Daffoy who was the historian and jeweller from the Place Vendôme
in Paris, as well as directors and leaders from the museum. The event was filmed by Gédéon programmes for a documentary on the French Blue diamond, to be presented by 2011 worldwide.
The lead cast of the French Blue, itself, has a history. It had been catalogued at the French museum in 1850 and was provided by a prominent Parisian jeweler named Charles Archard who lived during the same generation as René Just Haüy
, who died in 1822. Most likely, the lead cast was made near 1815, since that was the year that similar entries from the 1850 catalogue had been made. The model was accompanied by a label stating that the French Blue was in the possession of a person known as "Mr. Hoppe of London". Other archives at the Muséum suggests that Achard had Mr. Hope as a good customer for many long years, particularly for blue gems.
These findings have helped investigators piece together what may have happened during the rock's anonymous years during the several decades following 1792. According to one line of reasoning, the first "Hope" to have the "Hope Diamond"––Henry Phillip Hope––might have possessed the French Blue that he had acquired some time after the 1792 robbery in Paris, perhaps around 1794-1795, when the Hopes were believed to have left Holland for London to escape Napoleon's armies. At about the same time, Cadet Guillot, who may have been one of the thieves to have stolen the Golden Fleece, arrived in London. This places Mr. Hope and Mr. Guillot in London at the same time. According to a late nineteenth century historian named Bapts, a contract was made between Cadet Guillot and a French aristocrat named Lancry de la Loyelle, in 1796, to sell the 107 carats (21.4 g) spinel
-dragon of the Golden Fleece. According to this line of reasoning, in 1802 Hope sold his assets, and the continental blockade by Napoleon led the Hope's bank into a serious financial crisis by 1808, and the crisis peaked during the winter of 1811-1812 This put Mr. Hope in a financial bind. There is a possibility that, given his financial predicament, Hope pawned the French Blue to jewel merchant Daniel Eliason to get much-needed cash when the British currency, sterling
, was highly depreciated. This is consistent with the entry in Eliason's records about having the stone in 1812. However, the diamond's owners may have felt pressure to recut the stone quickly to disguise its identity, since if the French government had learned of its existence, it may have sued the owners for repossession. Regardless of whether Mr. Hope had lost possession or kept it during these years, by 1824 it was again in his possession. It was around this time that Eliason died; Hope's financial situation has been restored thanks to efforts by the Barings, who saved the Hope bank in the difficult financial years of 1812-1820. Accordingly, if this is correct, then the lead cast of the French Blue and the "Hope" diamond are likely to have been created in the same workshop, possibly in London, and probably a little before 1812.
The lead cast had important ramifications since it gave enough information to curators at the French museum to commission the first exact replicas of both the Tavernier and French Blue diamonds using a material which simulates diamonds called cubic zirconia
, with the help of artisans who work with gems known as lapidaries
, led by Scott Sucher. These replicas have been completed and displayed with the French Crown Jewels
and the Great Sapphire of Louis XIV, a Moghul-cut sapphire of 135.7 carats (27.1 g). Artisans recreated the elaborate piece known as the Golden Fleece of King Louis XV of France, which is arguably the most fabulous work in the history of French jewelry; this happened from 2007–2010. The original Golden Fleece of the Color Adornment, created in 1749 by royal jeweler Pierre-André Jacqumin, was stolen and broken in 1792. The reassembled jewel contained the French Blue and the Bazu diamonds, as well as the Côte de Bretagne spinel and hundreds of smaller diamonds. Three years of work were needed to recreate this jewel, and it required exacting and precise skill which revealed not only the skill of today's lapidaries, but the skill of its original eighteenth-century designers. The reconstructed jewel was presented by Herbert Horovitz, with François Farges of the French museum in attendance, at the former Royal Storehouse in Paris on June 30, 2010, which was the same site where the original had been stolen 218 years before.
Additional recreations were made possible by new discoveries. A previously-unknown drawing of the Golden Fleece was rediscovered in Switzerland
in the 1980s, and two blue diamonds that had ornamented the jewel were found as well, and these recent findings enabled artisans to recreate a copy of the emblem. It led to the construction, using cubic zirconia, of a piece that almost exactly resembles the mythic French Blue 69 carats (13.8 g) masterpiece.
The emblem has another great blue diamond, which was later named "the Bazu" in reference to a dealer who reportedly had sold it to Louis XIV in 1669. This Bazu diamond was recut in 1749 as a baroque cushion weighing 32.62 carats (6.5 g). The 1791 inventory mentioned that the Bazu was "light sky blue", which is consistent with the fact that the Golden Fleece of the Color Adornment was made of a variety of great colored gems. Based on documents kept in a private collection, it could be shown that this particular diamond was not hexagonal-shaped, as some historians had previously thought, but was in a shape best described as "rounded squared", similar to the so-called Régent diamond
. There is a report that a curator from the French museum
will assert that the hexagonal cut from the Bazu is inconsistent historically and gemologically. The Bazu stone referred to another version of Louis XV’s great Golden Fleece, made out of blue sapphires instead of blue diamonds. According to one view, this version appears to have never been manufactured but only suggested to the king as an alternative to the effective final version, bearing two blue diamonds. Nevertheless, replicas of both blue diamonds were cut by Scott Sucher using cubic zirconia, one being colored deep–blue and the other light–blue.
The emblem had a third great gem known as The Côte de Bretagne dragon. Its replica was based on a wax likeness sculpted by Pascal Monney, who had based his recreation from three-dimensional scaled pictures of the original object which had been made by French artist François Farges; Farges, in turn, had seen the original objects displayed at the Louvre's Galerie d’Apollon. In addition, artist Etienne Leperlier cast a "crystal" lead glass duplicate of the wax replica of the carved Côte de Bretagne. Its pigmentation is made out of gold
and manganese pigments to simulate as close as possible the original color of the spinel
.
The 500-plus remaining replicas of diamonds were cut from cubic zirconia using a baroque cushion cut. Colors were used to recall the original artwork: red for the flames, and yellow for the fleece, and in keeping with the original work, the materials used were initially colorless but were painted in the same fashion used by the artist Jacqumin when the original Golden Fleece was completed in 1749. Since the original was most likely made out of gold plated with silver, a choice was made to use a matrix mostly made out of 925-grade silver to keep costs under control without compromising quality. A number of different artists helped with this project:
All stones were set according to 18th century techniques. Finally, a luxury box containing the Golden Fleece was recreated by Frédéric Viollet using crimson-colored Moroccan leather. The box was gilded by Didier Montecot to the arms of Louis XV, using the king’s original iron stamp made by the Simier house. A dark red cramoisi ribbon, made of crimson satin moire, holds the jewel inside the box.
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
, now housed in the Smithsonian
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
Natural History Museum
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron
Boron
Boron is the chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a metalloid. Because boron is not produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in both the solar system and the Earth's crust. However, boron is concentrated on Earth by the...
within its crystal structure, but exhibits red phosphorescence
Phosphorescence
Phosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs. The slower time scales of the re-emission are associated with "forbidden" energy state transitions in quantum...
after exposure to ultraviolet
Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
light. It is classified as a Type IIb diamond
Diamond type
Diamond type is a method of scientifically classifying diamonds by the level and type of their chemical impurities. Diamonds are separated into four types: Type Ia, Type Ib, Type IIa, and Type IIb...
, and is notorious for supposedly being curse
Curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
d. It has a long recorded history with few gaps in which it changed hands numerous times on its way from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
to Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
and to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It has been described as the "most famous diamond in the world" and is said to be the second most-visited artwork in the world, after the Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
.
Physical properties
- Weight. In December 1988, the Gemological Institute of AmericaGemological Institute of AmericaThe Gemological Institute of America, or GIA, is a nonprofit institute dedicated to research and education in the field of gemology and the jewelry arts. Founded in 1931, GIA's mission is to protect all buyers and sellers of gemstones by setting and maintaining the standards used to evaluate...
's Gem Trade Lab determined that the diamond weighed 45.52 carats (9.1 g).
- Size and shape. The diamond has been compared in size and shape to a pigeon egg, walnutWalnutJuglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...
, a "good sized horse chestnut" which is "pear shaped." The dimensions in terms of length, width, and depth are 25.60mm × 21.78mm × 12.00mm (1in × 7/8in × 15/32in).
- Color. It has been described as being "fancy dark greyish-blue" as well as being "dark blue in color" or having a "steely-blue" color. As colored diamond expert Stephen Hofer points out, blue diamonds similar to the Hope can be shown by colorimetricColorimeterFor articles on Colorimeter see:* Colorimeter * Tristimulus colorimeter...
measurements to be grayer (lower in saturationSaturation (color theory)In colorimetry and color theory, colorfulness, chroma, and saturation are related but distinct concepts referring to the perceived intensity of a specific color. Colorfulness is the degree of difference between a color and gray. Chroma is the colorfulness relative to the brightness of another color...
) than blue sapphires. In 1996, the Gemological Institute of America's Gem Trade Lab examined the diamond and, using their proprietary scale, graded it fancy deep grayish blue. Visually, the gray modifier (mask) is so dark (indigo) that it produces an "inky" effect appearing almost blackish-blue in incandescent light. Current photographs of the Hope Diamond utilize high-intensity light sources that tend to maximize the brilliance of gemstones. In popular literature, many superlatives have been used to describe the Hope Diamond as a "superfine deep blue", often comparing it to the color of a fine sapphireSapphireSapphire is a gemstone variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide , when it is a color other than red or dark pink; in which case the gem would instead be called a ruby, considered to be a different gemstone. Trace amounts of other elements such as iron, titanium, or chromium can give...
"blue of the most beautiful blue sapphire" (Deulafait), and describing its color as "a sapphire blue". Tavernier had described it as a "beautiful violet".
- Emits a red glow. The stone exhibits an unusually intense and strongly colored type of luminescence: after exposure to short-wave ultraviolet light, the diamond produces a brilliant red phosphorescence ('glow-in-the-dark' effect) that persists for some time after the light source has been switched off, and this strange quality may have helped fuel "its reputation of being cursed." The red glow helps scientists "fingerprint" blue diamonds, allowing them to "tell the real ones from the artificial." The red glow indicates that a different mix of boronBoronBoron is the chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a metalloid. Because boron is not produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in both the solar system and the Earth's crust. However, boron is concentrated on Earth by the...
and nitrogenNitrogenNitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...
is within the stone, according to Jeffrey Post in the journal Geology.
- Clarity. The clarity was determined to be VS1, with whitish graining present.
- Cut. The cut was described as being "cushion antique brilliant with a faceted girdle and extra facets on the pavilion."
- Chemical composition. In 2010, the diamond was removed from its setting in order to scientifically measure its chemical compositionChemical formulaA chemical formula or molecular formula is a way of expressing information about the atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound....
; after boring a hole one nanometre (four-billionths of an inch) deep, preliminary results detected the presence of boronBoronBoron is the chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a metalloid. Because boron is not produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in both the solar system and the Earth's crust. However, boron is concentrated on Earth by the...
, hydrogenHydrogenHydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
and possibly nitrogenNitrogenNitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...
; the boron concentration varies from zero to eight parts per million. According to Smithsonian curator Dr. Jeffrey Post, the element boron may be responsible for causing the blue color of the stones after tests using infrared light measured a chemical spectrum of the gems.
- Touch and feel. When Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reporter Ron Edmonds was allowed by Smithsonian officials to hold the gem in his hand in 2003, he wrote that the first thought that had come into his mind was: "Wow". It was described as "cool to the touch." He wrote:
- Hardness. Diamonds in general, including the Hope Diamond, are considered to be the hardest natural element on the EarthEarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, but because of diamond's crystalline structure, there are weak planes in the bonds which permit jewelers to slice a diamond and, in so doing, to cause it to sparkle by refracting light in different ways. However, there have been reports in October 2011 that researchers at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
have created an even harder man-made substance called an amorphous diamond by using ultrahigh pressure conditions to create a non-crystalline structure which lacks the weak planes.
History
Geological beginnings
The Hope Diamond was formed deep within the EarthEarth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
approximately 1.1 billion years ago. It was made from carbon
Carbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
atoms to form strong bonds making it a diamond. It became embedded with kimberlite
Kimberlite
Kimberlite is a type of potassic volcanic rock best known for sometimes containing diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an diamond in 1871 spawned a diamond rush, eventually creating the Big Hole....
but eroded by wind
Wind
Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...
and rain
Rain
Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...
, resulting in its placement among gravel deposits. The first known diamond mine was in the Golconda region of India, although by 1725 diamonds had been discovered in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. The Hope Diamond contains trace amount of boron atoms intermixed with the carbon structure, which results in the blue color of the diamond, according to the Smithsonian.
India
Several accounts, based on remarks written by the gem's first known owner, French gem merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier, suggest the gemstone originated in IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, in the Kollur mine
Kollur Mine
The Kollur Mine in Guntur district of old Golkonda kingdom, India, was one of the most productive diamond mines in India and the first major diamond center. It is situated on the right bank of the river Krishna. It operated between the sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries...
in the Guntur
Guntur
Guntur , is a city and a municipal corporation in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, located to the north and west of the Bay of Bengal. It is approximately to the south of the national capital, New Delhi and south east of state capital, Hyderabad. Guntur is the fourth largest city in Andhra...
district of Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
(which at the time had been part of the Golconda
Golkonda
Golkonda or Golla konda a ruined city of south-central India and capital of ancient Kingdom of Golkonda , is situated 11 km west of Hyderabad.The most important builder of Golkonda was a Hindu Kakatiya King...
kingdom), in the seventeenth century. It is unclear who had initially owned the gemstone, whether it had been found, by whom, and in what condition. But the first historical records suggest that a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
merchant-traveler named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a French traveller and pioneer of trade with India, and travels through Persia , most known for works in two quarto volumes, Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and diamond merchant for some important diamonds of the century...
obtained the stone, possibly by purchase or by theft, and he brought a large uncut stone to Paris which was the first known precursor to the Hope Diamond. This large stone became known as the Tavernier Blue
Tavernier Blue
The Tavernier Blue was the precursor diamond to the Blue Diamond of the French Crown , and subsequently the Hope Diamond. This has been accepted by many historians and gemologists for years and was scientifically proven with 3D imaging and prototyping technology in 2005...
diamond. It was a crudely cut triangular shaped stone of 115 carats (23 g). Another estimate is that it weighed 112.23 carats (22.4 g) before it was cut. Tavernier's book, the Six Voyages (French: Le Six Voyages de...), contains sketches of several large diamonds that he sold to Louis XIV in possibly 1668 or 1669; while the blue diamond is shown among these, Tavernier mentions the mines at "Gani" Kollur as a source of colored diamonds, but made no direct mention of the stone. Historian Richard Kurin
Richard Kurin
Dr. Richard Kurin is an American cultural anthropologist, museum manager and author. He is the Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture at the Smithsonian responsible for most the Smithsonian’s national museums as well as a variety of cultural and educational programs.For two decades served as...
builds a highly speculative case for 1653 as the year of acquisition, but the most that can be said with certainty is that Tavernier obtained the blue diamond during one of his five voyages to India between the years 1640 and 1667. One report suggests he took 25 diamonds to Paris, including the large rock which became the Hope, and sold all of them to King Louis XIV. Another report suggested that in 1669, Tavernier sold this large blue diamond along with approximately one thousand other diamonds to King Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
for 220,000 livres
French livre
The livre was the currency of France until 1795. Several different livres existed, some concurrently. The livre was the name of both units of account and coins.-Etymology:...
, the equivalent of 147 kilograms of pure gold. In a newly published historical novel, The French Blue, gemologist and historian Richard W. Wise proposed that the patent of nobility granted Tavernier by Louis XIV was a part of the payment for the Tavernier Blue. According to the theory, during that period Colbert, the king's Finance Minister, regularly sold offices and noble titles for cash, and an outright patent of nobility, according to Wise, was worth approximately 500,000 livres making a total of 720,000 livres, a price much closer to the true value of the gem. There has been some controversy regarding the actual weight of the stone; Morel believed that the 112 carats stated in Tavernier's invoice would be in old French carats, thus 115.28 metric carats.
France
In 1678, Louis XIV commissioned the courtCourt
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
jeweller, Sieur Pitau, to recut the Tavernier Blue, resulting in a 67.125 carats (13.4 g) stone which royal inventories thereafter listed as the Blue Diamond of the Crown of France (diamant bleu de la Couronne de France), but later English-speaking historians have simply called it the French Blue. The king had the stone set on a cravat-pin. According to one report, Louis ordered Pitau to "make him a piece to remember", and Pitau took two years on the piece, resulting in a "triangular-shaped 69-carat gem the size of a pigeon's egg that took the breath away as it snared the light, reflecting it back in bluish-grey rays." It was set in gold and was supported by a ribbon for the neck which was worn by the king during ceremonies.
In 1749, Louis' descendant, King Louis XV
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
, had the French Blue set into a more elaborate jewelled pendant for the Order of the Golden Fleece
Order of the Golden Fleece
The Order of the Golden Fleece is an order of chivalry founded in Bruges by Philip III, Duke of Burgundy in 1430, to celebrate his marriage to the Portuguese princess Infanta Isabella of Portugal, daughter of King John I of Portugal. It evolved as one of the most prestigious orders in Europe...
by court jeweler Andre Jacquemin. The assembled piece included a red spinel of 107 carats shaped as a dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
breathing "covetous flames", as well as 83 red-painted diamonds and 112 yellow-painted diamonds to suggest a fleece shape. But the piece fell into disuse after the death of Louis XV. The diamond became the property of his grandson King Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
. During the reign of her husband, Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
used many French Crown Jewels
French Crown Jewels
The French Crown Jewels were the crowns, orb, sceptres, diadems and jewels that were the symbol of royalty and which were worn by many Kings and Queens of France. The set was finally broken up, with most of it sold off in 1885 by the Third French Republic...
for personal adornment by having the individual gems placed into new settings and combinations, but the French Blue remained in this pendant except for a brief time in 1787, when the stone was removed for scientific study by Mathurin Jacques Brisson
Mathurin Jacques Brisson
Mathurin Jacques Brisson was a French zoologist and natural philosopher.Brisson was born at Fontenay-le-Comte. The earlier part of his life was spent in the pursuit of natural history, his published works in this department including Le Règne animal and Ornithologie...
and returned to its setting soon thereafter. On September 11, 1792, while Louis XVI and his family were confined in the Palais des Tuileries near the Place de la Concorde
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.- History :...
during the early stages of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, a group of thieves broke into the Garde-Meuble (Royal Storehouse) and stole most of the Crown Jewels during a five-day looting spree by a gang in September 1792. While many jewels were later recovered, including other pieces of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the French Blue was not among them and it disappeared temporarily from history. In 1793, Louis was guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
d in January and Marie was guillotined in October, and these beheadings are commonly cited as a result of the diamond's "curse", but the historical record suggests that Marie Antoinette had never worn the Golden Fleece pendant because it had been reserved for the exclusive use of the king.
A likely scenario is that the French Blue or sometimes also known as the Blue Diamond was "swiftly smuggled to London" after being seized in 1792 in Paris. But the exact rock known as the French Blue was never seen again, since it almost certainly was recut during this decades-long period of anonymity, probably into two pieces, and the larger one became the Hope Diamond. One report suggested that the cut was a "butchered job" because it sheared off 23.5 carats from the larger rock as well as hurting its "extraordinary lustre." It had long been believed that the Hope Diamond had been cut from the French Blue until confirmation finally happened when a three-dimensional lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
en model of the latter was recently rediscovered in the archives of the French Natural History Museum
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...
in Paris. Previously, the dimensions of the French Blue had been known only from two drawings made in 1749 and 1789; although the model slightly differs from the drawings in some details, these details are identical to features of the Hope Diamond, allowing CAD technology to digitally reconstruct the French Blue around the recut stone. Historians suggested that one robber, Cadet Guillot, took several jewels including the French Blue as well as the Côte-de-Bretagne Spinel and others to Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
and then to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where the French Blue was cut into two pieces. Morel adds that in 1796, Guillot attempted to resell the Côte-de-Bretagne in France but was forced to relinquish it to a fellow thief, Lancry de la Loyelle, who put Guillot into debtors' prison.
In a contrasting report, historian Richard Kurin speculated that the "theft" of the French Crown Jewels was in fact engineered by the revolutionary leader Georges Danton
Georges Danton
Georges Jacques Danton was leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution and the first President of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in theoverthrow of the monarchy and the...
as part of a plan to bribe an opposing military commander, Duke Karl Wilhelm of Brunswick
Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick
Charles William Ferdinand , Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, was a sovereign prince of the Holy Roman Empire, and a professional soldier who served as a Generalfeldmarschall of the Kingdom of Prussia...
. When under attack by Napoleon in 1805, Karl Wilhelm may have had the French Blue recut to disguise its identity; in this form, the stone could have come to Britain in 1806, when his family fled there to join his daughter Caroline of Brunswick
Caroline of Brunswick
Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was the Queen consort of King George IV of the United Kingdom from 29 January 1820 until her death...
. Although Caroline was the wife of the Prince Regent
Prince Regent
A prince regent is a prince who rules a monarchy as regent instead of a monarch, e.g., due to the Sovereign's incapacity or absence ....
George (later George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
), she lived apart from her husband, and financial straits sometimes forced her to quietly sell her own jewels to support her household. Caroline's nephew, Duke Karl Friedrich
Charles II, Duke of Brunswick
Charles II , Duke of Brunswick, ruled the Duchy of Brunswick from 1815 until 1830.-Biography:Charles was the eldest son of Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
, was later known to possess a 13.75 carats (2.8 g) blue diamond which was widely thought to be another piece of the French Blue. However, this smaller diamond's present whereabouts are unknown, and the recent CAD reconstruction of the French Blue fits too tightly around the Hope Diamond to allow for the existence of such a sister stone.
United Kingdom
A blue diamond with the same shape, size, and color as the Hope Diamond was recorded by John FrancillonJohn Francillon
John Francillon was a jeweler and lapidary, an English naturalist and an entomologist of Huguenot descent.Francillon was a London jeweller who was also a dealer in natural history specimens and paintings. He was the agent for John Abbot selling his American bird and natural history illustrations....
in the possession of the London diamond merchant Daniel Eliason
Daniel Eliason
Daniel Eliason was a London diamond merchant in the late 18th century and early 19th century. A blue diamond with the same shape, size, and color as the Hope Diamond was recorded in his possession in September 1812, the earliest point when the history of the Hope Diamond can be definitively fixed....
in September 1812, the earliest point when the history of the Hope Diamond can be definitively fixed, although a second less definitive report suggests that the Hope Diamond's "authentic history" can only be traced back to 1830. The rock was a "massive blue stone of 45.54 carats". It weighed 177 grains (4 grains = 1 carat). It is often pointed out that this date was almost exactly 20 years after the theft of the French Blue, just as the statute of limitations
Statute of limitations
A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...
for the crime had expired. While the diamond had disappeared for several decades, there were questions whether this recovered diamond in Britain was the same as had belonged to the French king, but subsequent scientific investigation in 2008 confirmed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the Hope Diamond and that owned by the French king were, in fact, the same gemstone in the sense that the Hope Diamond had been cut from the same material as the French Blue.
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
, possibly via Caroline of Brunswick
Caroline of Brunswick
Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was the Queen consort of King George IV of the United Kingdom from 29 January 1820 until her death...
; however there is no record of the ownership in the Royal Archives
Royal Archives
The Royal Archives, also known as the Queen's Archives, are a division of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. It is operationally under the control of the Keeper of the Royal Archives, who is customarily the Private Secretary to the Sovereign.Although Sovereigns have kept...
at Windsor, but some secondary evidence exists in the form of contemporary writings and artwork, and George IV tended to co-mingle the state property of the Crown Jewels with family heirlooms and his own personal property. A source at the Smithsonian suggested there were "several references" suggesting that the British king did, indeed, own the diamond. After the king's death in 1830, it has been alleged that some of this mixed collection was stolen by his mistress, Lady Conyngham
Elizabeth Conyngham, Marchioness Conyngham
Elizabeth Conyngham , Marchioness Conyngham , was an English courtier and noblewoman, and the last mistress of George IV of the United Kingdom.- Early life :...
, and some of his remaining personal items were discreetly liquidated to cover the many debts he had left behind him. A conflicting report is that the king's debts were "so enormous" that the diamond was likely sold through "private channels." In either case, the blue diamond was not retained by the British royal family.
There was a report that the gemstone was bought by a wealthy London banker named Henry Thomas Hope for either $65,000 or $90,000. After falling under the ownership of the Hope family, and remaining in its possession for more than half a century, it came to be known officially as the "Hope Diamond". There was a report that Eliason may have been a "front" for Hope, acting not as a diamond merchant but rather as an agent to acquire the diamond for the banker. In 1839, the Hope Diamond appeared in a published catalog of the gem collection of Henry Philip Hope who was a member of the prominent Anglo-Dutch banking family. The stone was set in a fairly simple medallion surrounded by many smaller white diamonds, which he sometimes lent to Louisa Beresford, the widow of his brother, his nephew Henry Thomas Hope, for society balls
Ball (dance)
A ball is a formal dance. The word 'ball' is derived from the Latin word "ballare", meaning 'to dance'; the term also derived into "bailar", which is the Spanish and Portuguese word for dance . In Catalan it is the same word, 'ball', for the dance event.Attendees wear evening attire, which is...
. Henry Philip Hope died in 1839, the same year as the publication of his collection catalog. His three nephews, the sons of his brother Thomas, fought in court for ten years over his inheritance, and ultimately the collection was split up.
The oldest nephew, Henry Thomas Hope
Henry Thomas Hope
Henry Thomas Hope was a British MP and patron of the arts.-Biography:He was the eldest of Thomas Hope and Louisa de la Poer Beresford's three sons, but was estranged from his brothers when he inherited their father's art collections, wealth and property along with...
, received eight of the most valuable gems including the Hope Diamond. It was displayed in the Great Exhibition of London in 1851 and Paris Exhibition Universelle in 1855, but was usually kept in a bank vault. In 1861, his only child, Henrietta, married Henry Pelham-Clinton, Earl of Lincoln
Earl of Lincoln
Earl of Lincoln is a title that has been created eight times in the Peerage of England.-Earls of Lincoln, First Creation :*William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Lincoln and 1st Earl of Arundel Earl of Lincoln is a title that has been created eight times in the Peerage of England.-Earls of Lincoln, First...
. When Hope died on December 4, 1862, his wife Anne Adele inherited the gem, but feared that the profligate lifestyle of her son-in-law, the 6th Duke of Newcastle, might cause him to sell the Hope properties. Upon Adele's death in 1884, the entire Hope estate, including the Hope diamond, was entrusted to Henrietta's younger son, Henry Francis, on the condition that he change his surname when he reached legal majority. As Lord Francis Hope
Francis Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne
Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne was an English nobleman.He was educated at Eton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge....
, this grandson received his legacy in 1887. However, Francis had only a life interest
Life estate
A life estate is a concept used in common law and statutory law to designate the ownership of land for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms it is an estate in real property that ends at death when there is a "reversion" to the original owner...
to his inheritance, meaning he could not sell any part of it without court permission.
Francis Hope met American concert hall singer May Yohé
May Yohé
Mary Augusta "May" Yohé was an American musical theatre actress. After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performing in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893...
who had been described as "the sensation of two continents in 1894". She became his mistress; they married in 1894; one account suggested that Yohe wore the Hope diamond at one point. She later claimed she had worn the diamond at social gatherings and had an exact replica made for her performances, but he claimed otherwise. Lord Francis lived beyond his means, and it eventually caught up with him, leading to marriage troubles, financial reverses, and he found that he had to sell the diamond. In 1896, his bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
was discharged, but, as he could not sell the Hope Diamond without the court's permission, he was supported by his wife during these intervening years. In 1901, the financial situation had changed and after a "long legal fight," he was free to sell the Hope Diamond by an "order of the Master in Chancery" to "pay off debts," But May Yohe ran off with a rival named Putnam Strong, who was the son of the former New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
mayor William L. Strong
William L. Strong
William Lafayette Strong was the Mayor of New York from 1895 to 1897. He was the last mayor of New York before the Consolidation of the City of New York on January 1, 1898.-Biography:...
. Francis Hope and May Yohe were divorced in 1902.
Lord Francis sold the diamond for £29,000 (£ as of ), to Adolph Weil, a London jewel merchant. Weil later sold the stone to a New York-based or London-based (accounts differ) diamond dealer Simon Frankel, who took it to New York. There, it was evaluated to be worth $141,032 (equal to £28,206 at the time).
United States (1902-present)
Accounts vary about what happened to the diamond during the years 1902-1907; one account suggested that it lay in the Frankel safe during these years while the jewelers took it out periodically to show it to wealthy Americans; a rival account, probably invented to help add "mystery" to the Hope Diamond story, suggested that some persons had bought it but apparently sold it back to Frankel. There were reports in one story in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
of several owners of the gem, perhaps who had bought it from Frankel and owned it temporarily who met with ill-fortune, but this report conflicts with the more likely possibility that the gem remained in the hands of the Frankel jewelry firm during these years. Like many jewelry firms, the Frankel business ran into financial difficulties during the depression of 1907 and referred to the gem as the "hoodoo diamond."
In 1908, Frankel sold the diamond for $400,000 to a Salomon or Selim Habib, a wealthy Turkish diamond collector, reportedly in behalf of Sultan Abdul Hamid
Abdul Hamid II
His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...
of Turkey; however, on June 24, 1909, the stone was included in an auction of Habib's assets to settle his own debts, and the auction catalog explicitly stated that the Hope Diamond was one of only two gems in the collection which had never been owned by the Sultan. A contrary report, however, suggested that Sultan Hamid did own the gem but ordered Habib to sell it when his throne "began to totter." Habib reportedly sold the stone in Paris in 1909 for $80,000. The Parisian jewel merchant Simon Rosenau bought the Hope Diamond for 400,000 francs and resold it in 1910 to Pierre Cartier
Pierre Cartier (jeweler)
Pierre Camille Cartier was a French jeweler. He was one of three sons of Alfred Cartier and the brother of Jaques Cartier and Louis Cartier...
for 550,000 franc
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...
s. In 1910, it was offered for $150,000, according to one report.
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
based in Washington D.C. named Evalyn Walsh McLean
Evalyn Walsh McLean
Evalyn Walsh McLean was an American mining heiress and socialite who was famous for being the last private owner of the Hope Diamond as well as another famous diamond, the Star of the East...
and her husband in 1910, Cartier was a consummate salesman who used an understated presentation to try to entice the Washington-based socialite. He described the gem's illustrious history to her while keeping it concealed underneath special wrapping paper. The suspense worked: McLean became impatient to the point where she suddenly requested to see the stone. And she recalled later that Cartier "held before our eyes the Hope Diamond." Nevertheless, she initially rejected the offer perhaps because of her distaste for the Hope family's old setting. Cartier had it reset, and she found the stone much more appealing in this new modern style, and stories about its supposed "cursed" effects may have helped persuade her and her husband to buy it. There were conflicting reports about the sale in the New York Times; one account suggested that the young McLean couple had agreed to purchase the diamond, but after having learned about its unfortunate supposed history, the couple had wanted to back out of the deal since they knew nothing of the "history of misfortunes that have beset its various owners."
The brouhaha over the diamond's supposed "ill luck" prompted a worried editor of The Jewelers' Circular-Weekly to write:
The tenuous deal involved wrangling among attorneys for both Cartier and the McLeans, but finally, in 1911, the couple bought the gem for over $300,000, although there are differing estimates of the sales price at $150,000 and $180,000. An alternative scenario is that the McLeans may have fabricated concern about the supposed "curse" to generate publicity to increase the value of their investment.
A description was that the gemstone "lay on a bed of white silk and surrounded by many small white diamonds cut pear shaped". The new setting was the current platinum framework surrounded by a row of sixteen diamonds which alternated between Old Mine Cut and pear-shaped variants. Ms. McLean wore it to a "brilliant reception" in February 1912 when it was reported that it was the first time it had been worn in public since it had "changed owners." She would "sport the diamond at social events" and wore it numerous social occasions that she had organized.
There were reports that she misplaced it at parties, deliberately and frequently, and then make a children's game out of "finding the Hope", and times when she hid the diamond somewhere on her estate during the "lavish parties she threw and invite guests to find it." The stone prompted elaborate security precautions:
But the stone was not stolen during their ownership. When Ms. McLean died in 1947, she bequeathed the diamond to her grandchildren through a will which insisted that her former property would remain in the custody of trustee
Trustee
Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...
s until the eldest child had reached 25 years of age. This requirement would have prevented any sale for the next two decades. However, the trustees gained permission to sell her jewels to settle her debts, and in 1949 sold them to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
diamond merchant Harry Winston
Harry Winston
Harry Winston was an American jeweler. He donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958 after owning it for a decade, and traded the Portuguese Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1963.-History:...
. He purchased McLean's "entire jewelry collection". Over the next decade, Winston exhibited McLean's necklace in his "Court of Jewels," a tour of jewels around the United States, as well as various charity balls and the August 1958 Canadian National Exhibition
Canadian National Exhibition
Canadian National Exhibition , also known as The Ex, is an annual event that takes place at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada during the 18 days leading up to and including Labour Day Monday. With an attendance of approximately 1.3 million visitors each season, it is Canada’s largest...
. At some point, he also had the Hope Diamond's bottom facet
Facet
Facets are flat faces on geometric shapes. The organization of naturally occurring facets was key to early developments in crystallography, since they reflect the underlying symmetry of the crystal structure...
slightly recut to increase its brilliance.
Smithsonian ownership
Smithsonian mineralogist George SwitzerGeorge Switzer (mineralogist)
George Shirley Switzer was an American mineralogist who is credited with starting the Smithsonian Institution's famed National Gem and Mineral Collection by acquiring the Hope Diamond for the museum in 1958...
is credited with persuading Harry Winston to donate the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for a proposed national gem collection to be housed at the museum. On November 10, 1958, Winston donated the diamond to the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, where it became Specimen #217868, sending it through U.S. Mail
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
in a box wrapped in brown paper, insured via registered mail
Registered mail
Registered mail describes letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and need a chain of custody that provides more control than regular mail. The posted item has its details recorded in a register to enable its location to be tracked, sometimes with added insurance to cover loss...
at a cost of $145.29. Winston had never believed in any of the tales about the curse; he donated the diamond with the hope that it would help the United States "establish a gem collection." Winston died many years later, in 1978, of a heart attack. Winston's gift, according to Smithsonian curator Dr. Jeffrey Port, helped spur additional gifts to the museum.
For its first four decades in the National Museum of Natural History
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
, the Hope Diamond lay in its necklace inside a glass-fronted safe as part of the gems and jewelry gallery, except for a few brief excursions: a 1962 exhibition to the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
; the 1965 Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg, South Africa; and two visits back to Harry Winston's premises in New York City, once in 1984, and once for a 50th anniversary celebration in 1996.
When the Smithsonian's gallery was renovated in 1997, the necklace was moved onto a rotating pedestal inside a cylinder made of 3 inches (76.2 mm) thick bulletproof glass in its own display room, adjacent to the main exhibit of the National Gem Collection in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals. The Hope Diamond is the most popular jewel on display and the collection's centerpiece. In 1988, specialists with the Gemological Institute of America
Gemological Institute of America
The Gemological Institute of America, or GIA, is a nonprofit institute dedicated to research and education in the field of gemology and the jewelry arts. Founded in 1931, GIA's mission is to protect all buyers and sellers of gemstones by setting and maintaining the standards used to evaluate...
graded it and noticed "evidence of wear" and its "remarkably strong phosphorescence" with its clarity "slightly affected by a whitish graining which is common to blue diamonds." A highly sensitive colorimeter
Colorimeter
For articles on Colorimeter see:* Colorimeter * Tristimulus colorimeter...
found tiny traces of a "very slight violet component" which is imperceptible to normal vision.
In 2005, the Smithsonian published a year-long computer-aided geometry research which officially acknowledged that the Hope Diamond is, in fact, part of the stolen French Blue crown jewel.
In 2009, the Smithsonian
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
announced a temporary new setting for the jewel to celebrate a half-century at the National Museum of Natural History
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
. Starting in September 2009, the 45.52 carats (9.1 g) diamond will be exhibited as a stand-alone gem with no setting. It was removed from its setting for cleaning from time to time, but this is the first time it will be on public view by itself. Previously it had been shown in a platinum setting, surrounded by 16 white pear-shaped and cushion-cut diamonds, suspended from a chain containing forty-five diamonds.
The Hope returned to its traditional setting in late 2010.
On November 18, 2010, the Hope Diamond was unveiled and displayed at the Smithsonian in a temporary newly-designed necklace called "Embracing Hope," created by the Harry Winston firm. Three designs for the new setting, all white diamonds and white metal, were created and the public voted on the final version. The Hope Diamond also is resting on a new dark blue neck form, which the Harry Winston firm commissioned from display organization, Pac Team Group. Previously, the Hope Diamond had been displayed as a loose gem since late summer of 2009 (see above image) when it was removed from its former Cartier-designed setting. A Smithsonian curator described it as "priceless" because it was "irreplaceable", although it was reported to be insured for $250 million. In 2012 the diamond will be returned to its historic setting, and the current necklace will be implanted with another diamond worth "at least a million dollars," and the necklace with the new diamond will be sold to benefit the Smithsonian.
In 2010, the Smithsonian licensed its gem and jewelry collection to create a "line of bracelets, brooches and other baubles" to be sold on the TV shopping network QVC; the jewelry line will not have real diamonds, but will serve as costume jewelry with semiprecious stones, and benefits the museum by being an additional source of revenue.
Changes in ownership
| Date acquired | Owner | Change in diamond | Value when sold | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1653 | Tavernier Jean-Baptiste Tavernier Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a French traveller and pioneer of trade with India, and travels through Persia , most known for works in two quarto volumes, Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and diamond merchant for some important diamonds of the century... |
112.5 Old French karats, 116 Metric carats. | 220,000-720,000 livres. Tavernier received Patent of Nobility as part payment worth 450,000 livres | Time of acquisition: between 1640-1667 possibly 1653 |
| 1673-4 | King Louis XIV Louis XIV of France Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days... |
triangular-shaped 69 metric-carat gem set on a cravat-pin 1674. | bequeathed | |
| 1722 | King Louis XV Louis XV of France Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723... |
Assembled into elaborate pendant Order of the Golden Fleece | bequeathed | |
| 1775 | King Louis XVI Louis XVI of France Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793.... |
69 Metric carats | stolen | |
| 1792 | uncertain ownership | |||
| 1805? | King George IV of the United Kingdom George IV of the United Kingdom George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later... |
Conflicting claims whether he owned it | ||
| 1830 | Daniel Eliason, a London jeweler | 45.52 carats | $65,000; $90,000 | May have been acting as agent for Henry Phillip Hope |
| Henry Phillip Hope (1769–1831) | Became known as the "Hope Diamond" | bequeathed | ||
| 1839 | Thomas Hope | bequeathed | displayed at the 1851 London Exhibition | |
| 1861 | Henry Pelham-Clinton Henry Pelham-Clinton, 6th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne Henry Pelham Alexander Pelham-Clinton, 6th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne was an English nobleman, styled Lord Clinton until 1851 and Earl of Lincoln until he inherited the dukedom in 1864.... |
bequeathed | Hope gave his daughter the gem after she married the 6th Duke of Newcastle | |
| 1884 | Lord Francis Hope Francis Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne was an English nobleman.He was educated at Eton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.... |
$250,000 | ||
| 1894 | May Yohé May Yohé Mary Augusta "May" Yohé was an American musical theatre actress. After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performing in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893... |
£29,000 (£ as of 2011) | May Yohe was the wife of Lord Henry Francis Hope | |
| 1901 | Adolph Weil, London jewel merchant | $141,032 (approx £28,206). second est:$148,000 | ||
| 1901 | Simon Frankel | |||
| 1908 | Selim Habib (Salomon? Habib) | |||
| 1908 | Sultan Abdul Hamid Abdul Hamid II His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire... |
Weighed 44 3/8 carats | 400,000 francs; second estimate: $80,000. | Note: disputed whether Sultan owned it |
| 1909 | Simon Rosenau | 550,000 francs | ||
| 1910 | Pierre Cartier Pierre Cartier (jeweler) Pierre Camille Cartier was a French jeweler. He was one of three sons of Alfred Cartier and the brother of Jaques Cartier and Louis Cartier... |
reset to appeal to Evalyn McLean; diamond mounted as a headpiece on three-tiered circlet of large white diamonds; became pendant | $150K; $300K+; $185K | conflicting estimates of sales price |
| 1911 | Edward Beale McLean Edward Beale McLean Edward Beale "Ned" McLean was the publisher and owner of the Washington Post newspaper from 1916 until 1933.Edward McLean was born into a publishing fortune founded by his paternal grandfather Washington McLean, who owned the Washington Post and the Cincinnati Enquirer... and Evalyn Walsh McLean Evalyn Walsh McLean Evalyn Walsh McLean was an American mining heiress and socialite who was famous for being the last private owner of the Hope Diamond as well as another famous diamond, the Star of the East... |
weight thought to be 44.5 carats | (undisclosed amount) | Entire McLean collection sold to Winston |
| 1947 | Harry Winston Harry Winston Harry Winston was an American jeweler. He donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958 after owning it for a decade, and traded the Portuguese Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1963.-History:... |
Diamond's bottom facet Facet Facets are flat faces on geometric shapes. The organization of naturally occurring facets was key to early developments in crystallography, since they reflect the underlying symmetry of the crystal structure... slightly recut to increase brilliance |
NYC jeweler; he took it around the US to popularize it | |
| 1958 | Smithsonian Museum | Settings, mountings, scientific study; weight found to be 45.52 carats in 1974 | $200–$250 million (if sold in 2011) | Insured for $250 million; |
Superstitions, publicity, marketing
The diamond has been surrounded by a mythologyMythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
of a reputed curse to the effect that it brings misfortune and tragedy to persons who own it or wear it, but there are strong indications that such stories were not grounded in solid fact and were likely to have been fabricated to enhance the stone's mystery and appeal, since increased publicity usually raised the gem's value and newsworthiness.
According to specious accounts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the original form of the Hope Diamond was stolen from an eye of a sculpted statue of the goddess Sita
Sita Devi
Sita is the wife of Rama, the seventh Avatar of Vishnu in the Hindu tradition. Sita is one of the principal characters in the Ramayana, a Hindu epic named after her husband Rama....
, the wife of Rama
Rama
Rama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
, the seventh Avatar
Avatar
In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....
of Vishnu
Vishnu
Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
. However, much like the "curse of Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun , Egyptian , ; approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty , during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom...
", this general type of "legend" was most likely the invention of Western authors during the Victorian era, and the specific legends about the Hope Diamond's "cursed origin" were invented in the early 20th century to add mystique to the stone and increase its sales appeal as well as increase newspaper sales. It fueled speculation that humans possessing the gemstone were fated to have bad luck with varying reports of undetermined veracity. A report in 2006 in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, however, suggested that "any hard evidence linking it to tragedy has yet to be officially proven."
There is evidence of several newspaper accounts which helped spread the curse story. A New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
newspaper article in 1888 described the supposedly lurid history of the Hope Diamond, including a claim that it was "said once to have formed the single eye of a great idol", as part of a confused description that also claimed that its namesake owner had personally "brought it from India", and that the diamond's true color was "white, [although] when held to the light, it emits the most superb and dazzling blue rays." An article entitled "Hope Diamond Has Brought Trouble To All Who Have Owned It" appeared in the Washington Post in 1908. An additional account of the Hope Diamond's "cursed origins" was a fanciful and anonymously written newspaper article in 1909. It was followed by another article in 1911 which detailed a rather lengthy list of supposed cases of ill-fortune but with few confirmations from other sources:
- Jacques Colet bought the Hope Diamond from Simon Frankel and committed suicide.
- Prince Ivan Kanitovski bought it from Colet but was killed by Russian revolutionists.
- Kanitovski loaned it to Mlle Ladue who was "murdered by her sweetheart."
- Simon Mencharides, who had once sold it to the Turkish sultan, was thrown from a precipice along with his wife and young child
- Sultan Hamid gave it to Abu Sabir to "polish" but later Sabir was imprisoned and tortured.
- Stone guardian Kulub Bey was hanged by a mob in Turkey.
- A Turkish attendant named Hehver Agha was hanged for having it in his possession.
- Tavernier, who brought the stone from IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to Paris was "torn to pieces by wild dogs in Constantinople." - King Louis gave it to Madama de Montespan whom later he abandoned.
- Nicholas Fouquet, an "Intendant of France", borrowed it temporarily to wear it but was "disgraced and died in prison."
- A temporary wearer, Princess de Lamballe, was "torn to pieces by a French mob."
- Jeweler William Fals who recut the stone "died a ruined man."
- William Fals' son Hendrik stole the jewel from his father and later committed suicideSuicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
." - Some years (after Hendrik) "it was sold to Francis Deaulieu, who died in misery and want."
-
- Source: The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, January 29, 1911
- Source: The New York Times
The mainstream academic view is that these accounts are specious and speculative since there are few, if any, independent confirmations or historical scholarship to back them up. A few months later, perhaps compounded by inaccurate reports in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
on November 17, 1909, it was incorrectly reported that the diamond's former owner, Selim Habib, had drowned in a shipwreck of the steamer Seyne near Singapore; in fact, it was a different person with the same name, not the owner of the diamond. There was speculation that jeweler Pierre Cartier
Pierre Cartier (jeweler)
Pierre Camille Cartier was a French jeweler. He was one of three sons of Alfred Cartier and the brother of Jaques Cartier and Louis Cartier...
further embroidered the lurid tales to intrigue Evalyn Walsh McLean into buying the Hope Diamond in 1911.
The theme of greedy robbers stealing a valuable metal from the tomb or shrine of an ancient god or ruler, and then being punished by it, is one which repeats in many different forms of literature. A likely source of inspiration for the fabrications was the Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces...
' 1868 novel The Moonstone
The Moonstone
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the English language. The story was originally serialized in Charles Dickens' magazine All the Year Round. The Moonstone and The Woman in White are considered Wilkie...
, which created a coherent narrative from vague and largely disregarded legends which had been attached to other diamonds such as the Koh-i-Noor
Koh-i-Noor
The Kōh-i Nūr which means "Mountain of Light" in Persian, also spelled Koh-i-noor, Koh-e Noor or Koh-i-Nur, is a 105 carat diamond that was once the largest known diamond in the world. The Kōh-i Nūr originated in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India along with its double, the Darya-ye Noor...
and the Orloff diamond. The theme can be seen in films such as The Mummy as well as stories about the curse of Egyptian king Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun , Egyptian , ; approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty , during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom...
and in more recent films such as the Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
films. In keeping with these scripts, according to the legend, Tavernier did not buy the Hope diamond but stole it from a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
temple where it had been set as one of two matching eyes of an idol, and the temple priests then laid a curse on whoever might possess the missing stone. Largely because the other blue diamond "eye" never surfaced, historians dismissed the fantastical story. The stories generally do not bear up to more pointed examination; for example, the legend that Tavernier's body was "torn apart by wolves" is inconsistent with historical evidence which shows that he lived to 84 and died of natural causes.
It is possible that the overblown story of the curse, possibly fueled by Cartier and others, may have caused some hesitation on the part of the prospective buyers, the McLeans, around 1911. When a lawsuit between buyer and seller erupted about the terms of the deal, newspapers kept alive reports of the diamond's "malevolent influence" with reports blaming like this one, which blamed the stone's "curse" on having caused, of all things, the lawsuit itself:
The Hope Diamond was also blamed for the unhappy fates of other historical figures vaguely linked to its ownership, such as the falls of Madame Athenais de Montespan and French finance minister Nicolas Fouquet
Nicolas Fouquet
Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV...
during the reign of Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
; the beheadings of Louis XVI
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....
and Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
and the rape and mutilation of the Princesse de Lamballe during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
; and the forced abdication of Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid
Abdul Hamid II
His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...
who had supposedly killed various members of his court for the stone (despite the annotation in Habib's auction catalog). Even jewelers who may have handled the Hope Diamond were not spared from its reputed malice: the insanity and suicide of Jacques Colot, who supposedly bought it from Eliason, and the financial ruin of the jeweler Simon Frankel, who bought it from the Hope family, were linked to the stone. But although he is documented as a French diamond dealer of the correct era, Colot has no recorded connection with the stone, and Frankel's misfortunes were in the midst of economic straits that also ruined many of his peers. The legend includes deaths of numerous other characters who had been previously unknown: Diamond cutter Wilhelm Fals, killed by his son Hendrik, who stole it and later committed suicide; Francois Beaulieu, who received the stone from Hendrik but starved to death after selling it to Daniel Eliason; a Russian prince named Kanitowski, who lent it to French actress Lorens Ladue and promptly shot her dead on the stage, and was himself stabbed to death by revolutionaries; Simon Montharides, hurled over a precipice with his family. However, the existence of only a few of these characters has been verified historically, leading researchers to conclude that most of these persons are fictitious.
The actress May Yohe made repeated attempts to capitalize on her identity as the former wife of the last Hope to own the diamond, and sometimes blamed the gemstone for her misfortunes. In July 1902, months after Lord Francis divorced her, she told police in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
that her lover, Putnam Strong, had abandoned her and taken her jewels. In fact, the couple reconciled, married later that year, but divorced in 1910. On her third marriage in 1920, she persuaded film producer George Kleine to back a 15-episode serial The Hope Diamond Mystery
The Hope Diamond Mystery
The Hope Diamond Mystery is a 1921 action film serial directed by Stuart Paton and featuring Boris Karloff.-Cast:* Harry Carter - Ghung / Sidney Atherton* Grace Darmond - Bibi / Mary Hilton* George Chesebro - John Baptiste Tavanier / John Gregge...
, which added fictitious characters to the tale, but the project was not successful. In 1921, she hired Henry Leyford Gates to help her write The Mystery of the Hope Diamond, in which she starred as Lady Francis Hope. The film added more characters, including a fictionalized Tavernier, and added Marat
Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...
among the diamond's "victims". She also wore her copy of the Hope, trying to generate more publicity to further her career.
Evalyn Walsh McLean added her own narrative to the story behind the blue jewel, including that one of the owners had been Catherine the Great, although there are no confirmations that the Russian ruler ever owned the diamond. McLean would bring the Diamond out for friends to try on, including Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
and Florence Harding
Florence Harding
Florence Mabel Kling "Flossie" Harding , wife of President Warren G...
.
Since the Smithsonian acquired the gemstone, the "curse appears to have gone dormant." Owning the diamond has brought "nothing but good luck" for the nonprofit national museum, according to a Smithsonian curator, and has helped it build a "world-class gem collection" with rising attendance levels.
Owners and their fate
| Date acquired | Owner | Fate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1653 | Jean-Baptiste Tavernier Jean-Baptiste Tavernier Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a French traveller and pioneer of trade with India, and travels through Persia , most known for works in two quarto volumes, Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and diamond merchant for some important diamonds of the century... |
Lived 1605-1685 died age 84 | Time of acquisition: between 1640-1667 possibly 1653 |
| 1668 | King Louis XIV Louis XIV of France Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days... |
Long prosperous reign; lived 1638-1715 died age 76 | |
| 1722 | King Louis XV Louis XV of France Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723... |
Lived 1710-1774 died age 64 | |
| 1775 | King Louis XVI Louis XVI of France Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793.... |
Guillotined 1793 | |
| 1775 | Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I.... |
Guillotined 1793 | wife of Louis XVI |
| 1792 | |||
| 1805? | King George IV of the United Kingdom | Lived 1762-1830 died age 67 | Note: doubtful whether he ever owned it |
| 1812 | Daniel Eliason, a London jeweler | ||
| 1830 | Thomas Hope | Lived 1769–1831 died age 62 | |
| 1839 | Henry Philip Hope | ||
| 1861 | Henry Pelham-Clinton Henry Pelham-Clinton, 6th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne Henry Pelham Alexander Pelham-Clinton, 6th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne was an English nobleman, styled Lord Clinton until 1851 and Earl of Lincoln until he inherited the dukedom in 1864.... |
Lived 1834-1879 died age 45 | |
| 1884 | Lord Francis Hope Francis Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne was an English nobleman.He was educated at Eton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.... |
bankruptcy; forced to sell it; lived 1866–1941 died age 75 | |
| 1894 | May Yohé May Yohé Mary Augusta "May" Yohé was an American musical theatre actress. After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performing in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893... |
Musical actress, divorced, remarried several times, died poor age 72 | A wife of Lord Francis Hope |
| 1901 | Adolph Weil, London jewel merchant | ||
| 1901 | Simon Frankel | ||
| 1908 | Selim Habib (Salomon? Habib) | possibly acting as agent for Turkish Sultan Hamid | |
| 1908 | Sultan Abdul Hamid Abdul Hamid II His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire... of Turkey |
Deposed 1909; died 1918 age 75 | Note: it is disputed whether the Sultan ever owned it |
| 1909 | Simon Rosenau | ||
| 1910 | Pierre Cartier Pierre Cartier (jeweler) Pierre Camille Cartier was a French jeweler. He was one of three sons of Alfred Cartier and the brother of Jaques Cartier and Louis Cartier... |
Lived 1878–1964, died age 86 | |
| 1911 | Edward Beale McLean Edward Beale McLean Edward Beale "Ned" McLean was the publisher and owner of the Washington Post newspaper from 1916 until 1933.Edward McLean was born into a publishing fortune founded by his paternal grandfather Washington McLean, who owned the Washington Post and the Cincinnati Enquirer... and Evalyn Walsh McLean Evalyn Walsh McLean Evalyn Walsh McLean was an American mining heiress and socialite who was famous for being the last private owner of the Hope Diamond as well as another famous diamond, the Star of the East... |
Couple divorced 1932; Edward had mental illness; Evalyn died from pneumonia in 1947 | |
| 1947 | Harry Winston Harry Winston Harry Winston was an American jeweler. He donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958 after owning it for a decade, and traded the Portuguese Diamond to the Smithsonian in 1963.-History:... |
Lived 1896–1978 died age 83 | Jeweler who gave it to Smithsonian 1958 |
| 1958 | Smithsonian Museum | Prospered, attendance up | |
Real diamonds
- Koh-i-noorKoh-i-NoorThe Kōh-i Nūr which means "Mountain of Light" in Persian, also spelled Koh-i-noor, Koh-e Noor or Koh-i-Nur, is a 105 carat diamond that was once the largest known diamond in the world. The Kōh-i Nūr originated in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India along with its double, the Darya-ye Noor...
. This rock originated in India but was taken by Britain after the war in 1849 as a "spoil of war" and it has become part of the British crown jewelsCrown Jewels of the United KingdomThe collective term Crown Jewels denotes the regalia and vestments worn by the sovereign of the United Kingdom during the coronation ceremony and at other state functions...
. Stories surrounding the Koh-i-noor suggest that it brings good luck to female owners and misfortune or death to any male who wears or owns it."
- Cullinan DiamondCullinan DiamondThe Cullinan diamond is the largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found, at .The largest polished gem from the stone is named Cullinan I or the Great Star of Africa, and at was the largest polished diamond in the world until the 1985 discovery of the Golden Jubilee Diamond, , also from the...
. Found in 1905, the 3,106 carats rock was the "largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found." It was cut into 105 gems, including the Cullinan I or the Great Star of Africa, which has 530 carats making it the "largest cut diamond."
Fictitious diamonds
- Heart of the OceanHeart of the OceanThe Heart of the Ocean is the name of a fictitious blue diamond featured prominently in the 1997 film Titanic.-Origin:Historically, there was a blue sapphire pendant on the Titanic...
is a fictitious diamond from the 1997 movie TitanicTitanic (1997 film)Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
based on the Hope Diamond.
- A supposed "diamond" found in South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in 2007, supposedly twice the size of the Cullinan, proved to be a "piece of plastic".
Replicas
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...
in Paris, reported in a bilingual French–English press release, and the unique finding triggered an investigation by an international team of researchers into the stone's history. It was an important event since previously investigators had to rely on two dimensional sketches of the diamond, but now they had a three dimensional
Three-dimensional space
Three-dimensional space is a geometric 3-parameters model of the physical universe in which we live. These three dimensions are commonly called length, width, and depth , although any three directions can be chosen, provided that they do not lie in the same plane.In physics and mathematics, a...
structure with which to apply techniques such as computer-aided drawing analysis. It allowed creation of the first numeric reconstruction of the French Blue including a virtual snapshot video. Even the emblem of the Golden Fleece of Louis XV was numerically reconstructed around the French Blue, including the "Côte de Bretagne" spinel
Spinel
Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4. Balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety.-Spinel group:...
of 107 carats (21.4 g), the "Bazu" diamond of 32.62 carats (6.5 g), 3 oriental topazes (yellow sapphires), five brillants of up to 5 carats (1,000 mg) brillants and nearly 300 smaller diamonds. Special care was taken to reconstruct the major gemstones precisely by using CAD analysis as well as knowledge of historical gemsetting techniques. As part of the investigation, the "Tavernier Blue" diamond was also reconstructed from the original French edition of Tavernier's Voyages (rather than the later London edition that somewhat distorted and modified Tavernier's original figures), and the Smithsonian Institution provided ray-tracing
Ray tracing (physics)
In physics, ray tracing is a method for calculating the path of waves or particles through a system with regions of varying propagation velocity, absorption characteristics, and reflecting surfaces. Under these circumstances, wavefronts may bend, change direction, or reflect off surfaces,...
and optical spectroscopic data about the Hope diamond. These events culminated in an event and a documentary to celebrate the making of these replicas, with celebrations by the French museum
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...
including H. Horovitz, Martin du Daffoy who was the historian and jeweller from the Place Vendôme
Place Vendôme
Place Vendôme is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix. Its regular architecture by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and pedimented screens canted across the...
in Paris, as well as directors and leaders from the museum. The event was filmed by Gédéon programmes for a documentary on the French Blue diamond, to be presented by 2011 worldwide.
The lead cast of the French Blue, itself, has a history. It had been catalogued at the French museum in 1850 and was provided by a prominent Parisian jeweler named Charles Archard who lived during the same generation as René Just Haüy
René Just Haüy
René Just Haüy – 3 June 1822 in Paris) was a French mineralogist, commonly styled the Abbé Haüy after he was made an honorary canon of Notre Dame. He is often referred to as the "Father of Modern Crystallography." -Biography:...
, who died in 1822. Most likely, the lead cast was made near 1815, since that was the year that similar entries from the 1850 catalogue had been made. The model was accompanied by a label stating that the French Blue was in the possession of a person known as "Mr. Hoppe of London". Other archives at the Muséum suggests that Achard had Mr. Hope as a good customer for many long years, particularly for blue gems.
These findings have helped investigators piece together what may have happened during the rock's anonymous years during the several decades following 1792. According to one line of reasoning, the first "Hope" to have the "Hope Diamond"––Henry Phillip Hope––might have possessed the French Blue that he had acquired some time after the 1792 robbery in Paris, perhaps around 1794-1795, when the Hopes were believed to have left Holland for London to escape Napoleon's armies. At about the same time, Cadet Guillot, who may have been one of the thieves to have stolen the Golden Fleece, arrived in London. This places Mr. Hope and Mr. Guillot in London at the same time. According to a late nineteenth century historian named Bapts, a contract was made between Cadet Guillot and a French aristocrat named Lancry de la Loyelle, in 1796, to sell the 107 carats (21.4 g) spinel
Spinel
Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4. Balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety.-Spinel group:...
-dragon of the Golden Fleece. According to this line of reasoning, in 1802 Hope sold his assets, and the continental blockade by Napoleon led the Hope's bank into a serious financial crisis by 1808, and the crisis peaked during the winter of 1811-1812 This put Mr. Hope in a financial bind. There is a possibility that, given his financial predicament, Hope pawned the French Blue to jewel merchant Daniel Eliason to get much-needed cash when the British currency, sterling
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
, was highly depreciated. This is consistent with the entry in Eliason's records about having the stone in 1812. However, the diamond's owners may have felt pressure to recut the stone quickly to disguise its identity, since if the French government had learned of its existence, it may have sued the owners for repossession. Regardless of whether Mr. Hope had lost possession or kept it during these years, by 1824 it was again in his possession. It was around this time that Eliason died; Hope's financial situation has been restored thanks to efforts by the Barings, who saved the Hope bank in the difficult financial years of 1812-1820. Accordingly, if this is correct, then the lead cast of the French Blue and the "Hope" diamond are likely to have been created in the same workshop, possibly in London, and probably a little before 1812.
The lead cast had important ramifications since it gave enough information to curators at the French museum to commission the first exact replicas of both the Tavernier and French Blue diamonds using a material which simulates diamonds called cubic zirconia
Cubic zirconia
Cubic zirconia is the cubic crystalline form of zirconium dioxide . The synthesized material is hard, optically flawless and usually colorless, but may be made in a variety of different colors. It should not be confused with zircon, which is a zirconium silicate...
, with the help of artisans who work with gems known as lapidaries
Lapidary
A lapidary is an artist or artisan who forms stone, mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials into decorative items such as engraved gems, including cameos, or cabochons, and faceted designs...
, led by Scott Sucher. These replicas have been completed and displayed with the French Crown Jewels
French Crown Jewels
The French Crown Jewels were the crowns, orb, sceptres, diadems and jewels that were the symbol of royalty and which were worn by many Kings and Queens of France. The set was finally broken up, with most of it sold off in 1885 by the Third French Republic...
and the Great Sapphire of Louis XIV, a Moghul-cut sapphire of 135.7 carats (27.1 g). Artisans recreated the elaborate piece known as the Golden Fleece of King Louis XV of France, which is arguably the most fabulous work in the history of French jewelry; this happened from 2007–2010. The original Golden Fleece of the Color Adornment, created in 1749 by royal jeweler Pierre-André Jacqumin, was stolen and broken in 1792. The reassembled jewel contained the French Blue and the Bazu diamonds, as well as the Côte de Bretagne spinel and hundreds of smaller diamonds. Three years of work were needed to recreate this jewel, and it required exacting and precise skill which revealed not only the skill of today's lapidaries, but the skill of its original eighteenth-century designers. The reconstructed jewel was presented by Herbert Horovitz, with François Farges of the French museum in attendance, at the former Royal Storehouse in Paris on June 30, 2010, which was the same site where the original had been stolen 218 years before.
Additional recreations were made possible by new discoveries. A previously-unknown drawing of the Golden Fleece was rediscovered in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in the 1980s, and two blue diamonds that had ornamented the jewel were found as well, and these recent findings enabled artisans to recreate a copy of the emblem. It led to the construction, using cubic zirconia, of a piece that almost exactly resembles the mythic French Blue 69 carats (13.8 g) masterpiece.
The emblem has another great blue diamond, which was later named "the Bazu" in reference to a dealer who reportedly had sold it to Louis XIV in 1669. This Bazu diamond was recut in 1749 as a baroque cushion weighing 32.62 carats (6.5 g). The 1791 inventory mentioned that the Bazu was "light sky blue", which is consistent with the fact that the Golden Fleece of the Color Adornment was made of a variety of great colored gems. Based on documents kept in a private collection, it could be shown that this particular diamond was not hexagonal-shaped, as some historians had previously thought, but was in a shape best described as "rounded squared", similar to the so-called Régent diamond
Regent Diamond
The Regent Diamond is a diamond which is on display in the Louvre. In 1698, a slave found the 410 carat uncut diamond in a Golkonda mine, more specifically Paritala-Kollur Mine in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India and concealed it inside of a large wound in his leg. An English sea captain stole...
. There is a report that a curator from the French museum
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle is the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.- History :The museum was formally founded on 10 June 1793, during the French Revolution...
will assert that the hexagonal cut from the Bazu is inconsistent historically and gemologically. The Bazu stone referred to another version of Louis XV’s great Golden Fleece, made out of blue sapphires instead of blue diamonds. According to one view, this version appears to have never been manufactured but only suggested to the king as an alternative to the effective final version, bearing two blue diamonds. Nevertheless, replicas of both blue diamonds were cut by Scott Sucher using cubic zirconia, one being colored deep–blue and the other light–blue.
The emblem had a third great gem known as The Côte de Bretagne dragon. Its replica was based on a wax likeness sculpted by Pascal Monney, who had based his recreation from three-dimensional scaled pictures of the original object which had been made by French artist François Farges; Farges, in turn, had seen the original objects displayed at the Louvre's Galerie d’Apollon. In addition, artist Etienne Leperlier cast a "crystal" lead glass duplicate of the wax replica of the carved Côte de Bretagne. Its pigmentation is made out of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
and manganese pigments to simulate as close as possible the original color of the spinel
Spinel
Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4. Balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety.-Spinel group:...
.
The 500-plus remaining replicas of diamonds were cut from cubic zirconia using a baroque cushion cut. Colors were used to recall the original artwork: red for the flames, and yellow for the fleece, and in keeping with the original work, the materials used were initially colorless but were painted in the same fashion used by the artist Jacqumin when the original Golden Fleece was completed in 1749. Since the original was most likely made out of gold plated with silver, a choice was made to use a matrix mostly made out of 925-grade silver to keep costs under control without compromising quality. A number of different artists helped with this project:
- The silver matrix was carved by Jean Minassian of Geneva who used historical drawings of the delicate three-dimensional elements of the dragon's wings and tail as well as the palms around which the dragon is suspended.
- Casts were made by Andreas Altmann. This will allow even more copies to be made in the future.
- Amico Bifulci gilded parts of the matrix to recreate the elegant original gold and silver arrangement of the original.
All stones were set according to 18th century techniques. Finally, a luxury box containing the Golden Fleece was recreated by Frédéric Viollet using crimson-colored Moroccan leather. The box was gilded by Didier Montecot to the arms of Louis XV, using the king’s original iron stamp made by the Simier house. A dark red cramoisi ribbon, made of crimson satin moire, holds the jewel inside the box.
See also
- List of diamonds
- Heart of the OceanHeart of the OceanThe Heart of the Ocean is the name of a fictitious blue diamond featured prominently in the 1997 film Titanic.-Origin:Historically, there was a blue sapphire pendant on the Titanic...
- Crown Jewels of the United KingdomCrown Jewels of the United KingdomThe collective term Crown Jewels denotes the regalia and vestments worn by the sovereign of the United Kingdom during the coronation ceremony and at other state functions...
- French Crown JewelsFrench Crown JewelsThe French Crown Jewels were the crowns, orb, sceptres, diadems and jewels that were the symbol of royalty and which were worn by many Kings and Queens of France. The set was finally broken up, with most of it sold off in 1885 by the Third French Republic...
Further reading
- François Farges, Scott Sucher, Herbert Horovitz and Jean-Marc Fourcault (September 2008), Revue de Gemmologie, vol. 165, pp. 17–24 (in French) (English version to be published in 2009 in Gems & GemologyGems & GemologyGems & Gemology is a quarterly scientific journal published by the Gemological Institute of America. Each issue is devoted to research on diamonds, gemstones, and pearls. Topics include geographic sources, imitations and synthetics, treatments, and identification techniques...
) - Marian Fowler, Hope: Adventures of a Diamond, Ballantine (March 2002), hardcover, ISBN 0-345-44486-8.
- Stephen C. Hofer, Collecting and Classifying Coloured Diamonds, Ashland Press 1998, ISBN 0-9659410-1-9
- Janet Hubbard-Brown, The Curse of the Hope Diamond (History Mystery), Harpercollins Children's Books (October 1991), trade paperback, ISBN 0-380-76222-6.
- Richard Kurin, Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem, New York: HarperCollins Publishers & Smithsonian Press, 2006. hardcover, ISBN 0060873515.
- Susanne Steinem Patch, Blue Mystery : The Story of the Hope Diamond, Random House (April 1999), trade paperback, ISBN 0-8109-2797-7; hardcover ISBN 0-517-63610-7.
- Edwin Streeter, The Great Diamonds of the World, George Bell & Sons, (Jan, 1898), hardcover, no ISBN known.
- Richard W. Wise, Secrets Of The Gem Trade, The Connoisseur's Guide To Precious Gemstones, Brunswick House Press (2003) ISBN 0-9728223-8-0
- Richard W. Wise, The French Blue, Brunswick House Press, (2010) ISBN978-0-9728223-6-7
- Sally and Quetzalcoatl Magana, Lost Hope, (2011) ISBN978-1461003854