Spoonmaker's Diamond
Encyclopedia
The Spoonmaker's Diamond is a 86 carat (17.2 g) pear-shaped diamond
which is considered the pride of the Imperial Treasury exhibitions at the Topkapi Palace Museum and its most valuable single exhibit. Considered the fourth largest diamond of its kind in the world, it is kept under conditions of high security.
Set in silver, surrounded by a double row of 49 Old-mine cut diamonds (brilliants
) and well spotlighted, it hangs in a glass case on the wall of the third room in Imperial Treasury section of Topkapı's "Conqueror’s Pavilion", where it is clearly the most eye-catching jewel.
These surrounding separate brilliants
give it "the appearance of a full moon lighting a bright and shining sky amidst the stars". Providing an additional beauty to the Spoonmaker's Diamond and increasing its value by as much again, the brilliants are considered to have been ordered or arranged either by Ali Pasha
or by Sultan Mahmud II
- though this, as all other details of the diamond's origins, is doubtful and disputed (see below).
Notwithstanding the many other treasures of gold, silver, rubies
and emerald
s of the Topkapı Palace Treasury, the Spoonmaker's Diamond is said to have drawn the adoring, amazed looks of countless Imperial favourites, Queens and mothers of Sultans
.
Several mutually exclusive accounts exist regarding the origin of the Spoonmaker's Diamond. Though mostly having no firm historical confirmation, they continue to circulate, having become part of the Turkish popular culture and being repeated by tourist guides and also published in printed guide books.
near Yenikapi
was wandering idly, empty-handed, along the shore when he found a shiny stone among the litter, which he turned over and over, not knowing what it was.
After carrying it about in his pocket for a few days, he stopped by the jewelers' market, showing it to the first jeweler he encountered. The jeweler took a casual glance at the stone and appeared disinterested, saying "It's a piece of glass, take it away if you like, or if you like I'll give you three spoons. You brought it all the way here, at least let it be worth your trouble."
What was the poor fisherman to do with this piece of glass? What's more, the jeweler had felt sorry for him and was giving three spoons. He said okay and took the spoons, leaving in their place an enormous treasure. It is said that for this reason the diamond came to be named "The Spoonmaker's Diamond". Later, the diamond was bought by a vizier
on behalf of the Sultan (or, by a less likely version, it was the vizier who dealt directly with the fisherman).
Variant versions, published in some Istanbul Travel guides, describe the original finder as "a farmer who found it on the ground, and who sold it to a dealer" from whom it eventually "came to a Sultan in the 17th century".
According to still other tales, the name is derived from the finder having actually been a spoonmaker, or that the diamond was given this name because it resembled the bowl of a spoon.
, who in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries was the Ottoman governor of much of present-day Albania and Greece, and who set himself up as a virtually independent ruler.
The Spoonmaker's Diamond is asserted to have been in Ali Pasha's possession for a short or long time before arriving at the Ottoman capital. By some versions, it had been at one time worn by Kira Vassiliki, Ali Pasha's favorite wife (or mistress). Its eventual passing into the Sultan's hands might have taken place either during Ali Pasha's lifetime, as part of his complicated dealings with the central Ottoman government, or after his execution, when his possessions were confiscated by the Sultan.
The following versions, through mutually contradictory, are all compatible with Ali Pasha having had a part in the diamond's history.
, Epirus
. In 1797 the town was ceded to France and garrisoned by 700 of Napoleon I
's French grenadiers under General La Salchette, together with some 200 armed Prevezian Greek citizens and some 60 Greek Souliotes
. However, in the Battle of Nicopolis
of 12–13 October 1798, this force was overwhelmed by 7.000 Turkish-Albanian warriors under Ali Pasha and his son Muhtar.
In the aftermath, French and Greeks were massacred in Preveza and at Port Salaora on the Ambracian Gulf
. Many prisoners who survived the massacre died from the hardships on the road to Ali Pasha's capital at Ioannina
, where they were paraded in the streets. Nine French officers were sent on to Sultan Selim III
in Istanbul, among them Captain Louis-Auguste Camus de Richemont and another officer named Tissot
. Camus remained in captivity until 1801, when he was ransomed and returned to a long and distinguished military career, eventually attaining the rank of general.
Onto the above historically attested facts was added an unattested story, according to which Captain Camus was the lover of Napoleon Bonaparte's mother Letizia Ramolino
. Therefore, after receiving the bad news, Letizia has been in contact with Sultan Selim III
, and immediately sent a "Big Diamond" by ship to Preveza as a present for the Sultan, with the expectation of her lover's liberation. The diamond went from Preveza to Ioannina (presumably, in Ali Pasha's custody) and then to Istanbul. An additional detail appearing in some versions is that the diamond had previously belonged to the executed Queen Marie Antoinette
.
Finally, Captain Camus and the other French soldiers had been liberated, while the diamond remained in the Topkapi Palace, in possession of Sultan Selim III and his successors.
As noted, there is no clear historical evidence to either a relationship between Captain Camus and Letizia Ramolino or to her having sent the diamond to the Sultan. It is noteworthy that in some versions Captain Camus is mentioned as having been 47 years old at the time, which would make his age compatible with that of Letizia Ramolino (who was 48 then). However, in fact Camus is known to have been only 27 in 1798. It is also to be noted that at the time Letizia was not yet the Emperor's mother, but simply the mother of a rising young general of Revolutionary France - not so likely to have the power and authority attributed to her in the story.
Much later Camus, by then a General, published his memoirs in three volumes. In one passage he does mention that during their year in possession of Preveza, the French soldiers carrying out fortification work in a place called Mazoma (see http://wikimapia.org/3426814/Mazoma-lagoon) revealed in their excavations the eastern cemetery of Ancient Nicopolis
. There, many treasures came to light (jewelry, lamps, pottery, etc.) all of which were pillaged by the soldiers. However, Camus makes no reference to a big diamond having been among these ancient treasures. In any case, almost all French soldiers were killed in the Battle of Nicopolis
and its aftermath, their belongings being looted by the victorious Turkish and Albanian troops.,.
Despite being historically doubtful, the romantic story is often repeated of Captain Camus having been the lover of Napoleon's mother and of her having sent the Spoonmaker's Diamond to the Sultan in order to ransom him. The account was, for example, included in a recent documentary of Japanese State Television
, "Preveza" (2004),. For his part, Dr. Ilber Ortayli
, Director of the TopKapi Museum, participated at the 2nd International Symposium of History of Preveza held at that city in 2009, though speaking mainly of a later period in Ottoman history rather than of the origins of the Spoonmaker's Diamond,.
) and brought to London
, probably in 1764. On his death in 1777, he bequeathed it to his brothers, Robert and Hugh, and his sister Margaret, the wife of Thomas Fisher.
Dr. George Frederick Kunz
wrote about the mysterious Pigot Diamond in 1897 for the Century Magazine.
Under a private act of parliament passed in July 1800, the stone, a model of which is in the British Museum, was disposed of by way of lottery in two-guinea shares for £23,998, 16s. It was sold as weighing 188 grains at Christie's
on 10 May 1802 for 9,500 guineas.
One version of the story has it that it was at that time offered to Napoleon - then involved in negotiating the ephemeral Peace of Amiens with Britain - and that afterwards it did reach Turkey via Egypt
and eventually came to lodge in TopKapi.
By another version, the diamond remained much longer in Britain; in 1818 it passed into the hands of the jewellers Rundell & Bridge, who shortly afterwards sold it for £30,000 to Ali Pasha
. This still leaves some possibility of its having eventually gotten into the hands of the Sultan (Mahmud II
in this case), either in Ali Pasha's lifetime or after his death.
However, this is contradicted by the version that Ali Pasha held on to the diamond until his last day; when mortally wounded by Reshid Pasha on February 5, 1822, the dying Ali Pasha reportedly ordered that it be crushed to powder in his presence - which was done.
In any case, the recorded weight of the Pigot Diamond was just 47.38 carat (9.5 g), which would exclude the possibility of its being the Spoonmaker's Diamond.
was captured by Ali Pasha, the Ottoman Sultan was Selim III
. In 1822, when Ali Pasha was killed, the Sultan was Mahmud II
. Assuming that the above stories contain at least a nucleus of historical truth, and that Ali Pasha was involved in the diamond arriving at TopKapi, one of these was most likely the first Sultan to possess the diamond - though the actual circumstances of its arrival there might have been far more mundane. In case of one of the "Naive Fisherman" versions being the right one, the diamond might have arrived much earlier.
", shot in Kavala
and Istanbul
in 1965 and starring Melina Mercouri
and Peter Ustinov
. However, the robbers depicted in the film are mainly oriented at stealing another Topkapi treasure, the emerald-encrusted dagger of the earlier Sultan Mahmud I
.
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...
which is considered the pride of the Imperial Treasury exhibitions at the Topkapi Palace Museum and its most valuable single exhibit. Considered the fourth largest diamond of its kind in the world, it is kept under conditions of high security.
Set in silver, surrounded by a double row of 49 Old-mine cut diamonds (brilliants
Brilliant (diamond cut)
A brilliant is a diamond or other gemstone, cut in a particular form with numerous facets so as to have exceptional brilliance. The shape resembles that of a cone and provides maximized light return through the top of the diamond....
) and well spotlighted, it hangs in a glass case on the wall of the third room in Imperial Treasury section of Topkapı's "Conqueror’s Pavilion", where it is clearly the most eye-catching jewel.
These surrounding separate brilliants
Brilliant (diamond cut)
A brilliant is a diamond or other gemstone, cut in a particular form with numerous facets so as to have exceptional brilliance. The shape resembles that of a cone and provides maximized light return through the top of the diamond....
give it "the appearance of a full moon lighting a bright and shining sky amidst the stars". Providing an additional beauty to the Spoonmaker's Diamond and increasing its value by as much again, the brilliants are considered to have been ordered or arranged either by Ali Pasha
Ali Pasha
Ali Pasha of Tepelena or of Yannina, surnamed Aslan, "the Lion", or the "Lion of Yannina", Ali Pashë Tepelena was an Ottoman Albanian ruler of the western part of Rumelia, the Ottoman Empire's European territory which was also called Pashalik of Yanina. His court was in Ioannina...
or by Sultan Mahmud II
Mahmud II
Mahmud II was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdulhamid I...
- though this, as all other details of the diamond's origins, is doubtful and disputed (see below).
Notwithstanding the many other treasures of gold, silver, rubies
Ruby
A ruby is a pink to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum . The red color is caused mainly by the presence of the element chromium. Its name comes from ruber, Latin for red. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapphires...
and emerald
Emerald
Emerald is a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the 10 point Mohs scale of mineral hardness...
s of the Topkapı Palace Treasury, the Spoonmaker's Diamond is said to have drawn the adoring, amazed looks of countless Imperial favourites, Queens and mothers of Sultans
Valide Sultan
Valide Sultan was the title held by the mother of a ruling Sultan in the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish pronunciation of the word Valide is . The title is sometimes translated as Queen Mother, although the position of Valide Sultan was quite different.The position was perhaps the most important...
.
Alternate Accounts of the Diamond's Antecedents
Up to the present, it is not known with any certainty how this diamond came to the Topkapı Palace, from whom it was obtained or how. The museum's records do list a ring stone called the Spoonmaker's Diamond, which is noted as having already belonged to the 17th Century Sultan Mehmet IV. However, this stone, along with its gold, is only 10-12 g, which is much smaller than the present Spoonmaker's Diamond.Several mutually exclusive accounts exist regarding the origin of the Spoonmaker's Diamond. Though mostly having no firm historical confirmation, they continue to circulate, having become part of the Turkish popular culture and being repeated by tourist guides and also published in printed guide books.
The Naive Fisherman
According to one tale, a poor fisherman in IstanbulIstanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
near Yenikapi
Yenikapi
Yenikapı is a port and a neighborhood of Istanbul, Turkey, in the metropolitan district of Fatih on the European side of the Bosphorus and along the southern shore of the city's historically central peninsula....
was wandering idly, empty-handed, along the shore when he found a shiny stone among the litter, which he turned over and over, not knowing what it was.
After carrying it about in his pocket for a few days, he stopped by the jewelers' market, showing it to the first jeweler he encountered. The jeweler took a casual glance at the stone and appeared disinterested, saying "It's a piece of glass, take it away if you like, or if you like I'll give you three spoons. You brought it all the way here, at least let it be worth your trouble."
What was the poor fisherman to do with this piece of glass? What's more, the jeweler had felt sorry for him and was giving three spoons. He said okay and took the spoons, leaving in their place an enormous treasure. It is said that for this reason the diamond came to be named "The Spoonmaker's Diamond". Later, the diamond was bought by a vizier
Vizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
on behalf of the Sultan (or, by a less likely version, it was the vizier who dealt directly with the fisherman).
Variant versions, published in some Istanbul Travel guides, describe the original finder as "a farmer who found it on the ground, and who sold it to a dealer" from whom it eventually "came to a Sultan in the 17th century".
According to still other tales, the name is derived from the finder having actually been a spoonmaker, or that the diamond was given this name because it resembled the bowl of a spoon.
Ali Pasha of Tepelena
A persistent element in several accounts of the diamond's origin links it with the well-known Ali Pasha of TepelenaAli Pasha
Ali Pasha of Tepelena or of Yannina, surnamed Aslan, "the Lion", or the "Lion of Yannina", Ali Pashë Tepelena was an Ottoman Albanian ruler of the western part of Rumelia, the Ottoman Empire's European territory which was also called Pashalik of Yanina. His court was in Ioannina...
, who in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries was the Ottoman governor of much of present-day Albania and Greece, and who set himself up as a virtually independent ruler.
The Spoonmaker's Diamond is asserted to have been in Ali Pasha's possession for a short or long time before arriving at the Ottoman capital. By some versions, it had been at one time worn by Kira Vassiliki, Ali Pasha's favorite wife (or mistress). Its eventual passing into the Sultan's hands might have taken place either during Ali Pasha's lifetime, as part of his complicated dealings with the central Ottoman government, or after his execution, when his possessions were confiscated by the Sultan.
The following versions, through mutually contradictory, are all compatible with Ali Pasha having had a part in the diamond's history.
Captain Camus and Napoleon's Mother
A widespread strand of stories link the origins of the Spoonmaker's Diamond with historic events at the town of PrevezaPreveza
Preveza is a town in the region of Epirus, northwestern Greece, located at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the regional unit of Preveza, which is part of the region of Epirus. An immersed tunnel, completed in 2002 which runs between Preveza and Actium, connects the town...
, Epirus
Epirus (periphery)
Epirus , formally the Epirus Region , is a geographical and administrative region in northwestern Greece. It borders the regions of West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, West Greece to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and the country of Albania to the north. The...
. In 1797 the town was ceded to France and garrisoned by 700 of Napoleon I
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
's French grenadiers under General La Salchette, together with some 200 armed Prevezian Greek citizens and some 60 Greek Souliotes
Souliotes
Souliotes were a warlike community from the area of Souli, in Greece, who became famous across Greece for their resistance against the local Ottoman Pashalik of Yanina ruled by the Muslim Albanian Ali Pasha...
. However, in the Battle of Nicopolis
Battle of Nicopolis
The Battle of Nicopolis took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied army of Hungarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German and assorted troops at the hands of an Ottoman force, raising of the siege of the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis and leading to the end of the...
of 12–13 October 1798, this force was overwhelmed by 7.000 Turkish-Albanian warriors under Ali Pasha and his son Muhtar.
In the aftermath, French and Greeks were massacred in Preveza and at Port Salaora on the Ambracian Gulf
Ambracian Gulf
The Ambracian Gulf, also known as the Gulf of Arta or the Gulf of Actium, and in some official documents as the Amvrakikos Gulf , is a gulf of the Ionian Sea in northwestern Greece. About long and wide, it is one of the largest enclosed gulfs in Greece...
. Many prisoners who survived the massacre died from the hardships on the road to Ali Pasha's capital at Ioannina
Ioannina
Ioannina , often called Jannena within Greece, is the largest city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a population of 70,203 . It lies at an elevation of approximately 500 meters above sea level, on the western shore of lake Pamvotis . It is located within the Ioannina municipality, and is the...
, where they were paraded in the streets. Nine French officers were sent on to Sultan Selim III
Selim III
Selim III was the reform-minded Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. The Janissaries eventually deposed and imprisoned him, and placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV...
in Istanbul, among them Captain Louis-Auguste Camus de Richemont and another officer named Tissot
Tissot
Tissot is a luxury Swiss watchmaker company founded in 1853 by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son Charles-Émile Tissot who established the Tissot factory in the Swiss city of Le Locle, in the Neuchâtel area of the Jura Mountains....
. Camus remained in captivity until 1801, when he was ransomed and returned to a long and distinguished military career, eventually attaining the rank of general.
Onto the above historically attested facts was added an unattested story, according to which Captain Camus was the lover of Napoleon Bonaparte's mother Letizia Ramolino
Letizia Ramolino
Nobile Maria Letizia Buonaparte née Ramolino was the mother of Napoleon I of France....
. Therefore, after receiving the bad news, Letizia has been in contact with Sultan Selim III
Selim III
Selim III was the reform-minded Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. The Janissaries eventually deposed and imprisoned him, and placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV...
, and immediately sent a "Big Diamond" by ship to Preveza as a present for the Sultan, with the expectation of her lover's liberation. The diamond went from Preveza to Ioannina (presumably, in Ali Pasha's custody) and then to Istanbul. An additional detail appearing in some versions is that the diamond had previously belonged to the executed Queen 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....
.
Finally, Captain Camus and the other French soldiers had been liberated, while the diamond remained in the Topkapi Palace, in possession of Sultan Selim III and his successors.
As noted, there is no clear historical evidence to either a relationship between Captain Camus and Letizia Ramolino or to her having sent the diamond to the Sultan. It is noteworthy that in some versions Captain Camus is mentioned as having been 47 years old at the time, which would make his age compatible with that of Letizia Ramolino (who was 48 then). However, in fact Camus is known to have been only 27 in 1798. It is also to be noted that at the time Letizia was not yet the Emperor's mother, but simply the mother of a rising young general of Revolutionary France - not so likely to have the power and authority attributed to her in the story.
Much later Camus, by then a General, published his memoirs in three volumes. In one passage he does mention that during their year in possession of Preveza, the French soldiers carrying out fortification work in a place called Mazoma (see http://wikimapia.org/3426814/Mazoma-lagoon) revealed in their excavations the eastern cemetery of Ancient Nicopolis
Nicopolis
Nicopolis — or Actia Nicopolis — was an ancient city of Epirus, founded 31 BC by Octavian in memory of his victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium the previous year. It was later the capital of Epirus Vetus...
. There, many treasures came to light (jewelry, lamps, pottery, etc.) all of which were pillaged by the soldiers. However, Camus makes no reference to a big diamond having been among these ancient treasures. In any case, almost all French soldiers were killed in the Battle of Nicopolis
Battle of Nicopolis
The Battle of Nicopolis took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied army of Hungarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German and assorted troops at the hands of an Ottoman force, raising of the siege of the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis and leading to the end of the...
and its aftermath, their belongings being looted by the victorious Turkish and Albanian troops.,.
Despite being historically doubtful, the romantic story is often repeated of Captain Camus having been the lover of Napoleon's mother and of her having sent the Spoonmaker's Diamond to the Sultan in order to ransom him. The account was, for example, included in a recent documentary of Japanese State Television
Television in Japan
Television broadcasting in Japan started in 1939, making the country one of the first in the world with an experimental television service. In spite of that, because of the beginning of World War II in the Pacific region, this first experimentation lasted only a few months...
, "Preveza" (2004),. For his part, Dr. Ilber Ortayli
Ilber Ortayli
İlber Ortaylı , is a leading Turkish historian, professor of history at the Galatasaray University in Istanbul and at Bilkent University in Ankara...
, Director of the TopKapi Museum, participated at the 2nd International Symposium of History of Preveza held at that city in 2009, though speaking mainly of a later period in Ottoman history rather than of the origins of the Spoonmaker's Diamond,.
The Pigot Diamond
It has sometimes been suggested that the gem is one and the same as the Pigot Diamond, which was obtained by Lord Pigot during his term as British governor of Madras (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...
) and brought 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...
, probably in 1764. On his death in 1777, he bequeathed it to his brothers, Robert and Hugh, and his sister Margaret, the wife of Thomas Fisher.
Dr. George Frederick Kunz
George Frederick Kunz
George Frederick Kunz was an American mineralogist and mineral collector.- Overview :Kunz was born in New York City, USA, and began an interest in minerals at a very young age. By his teens, he had amassed a collection of over four thousand items, which he sold for four hundred dollars to the...
wrote about the mysterious Pigot Diamond in 1897 for the Century Magazine.
Under a private act of parliament passed in July 1800, the stone, a model of which is in the British Museum, was disposed of by way of lottery in two-guinea shares for £23,998, 16s. It was sold as weighing 188 grains at Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
on 10 May 1802 for 9,500 guineas.
One version of the story has it that it was at that time offered to Napoleon - then involved in negotiating the ephemeral Peace of Amiens with Britain - and that afterwards it did reach Turkey via Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and eventually came to lodge in TopKapi.
By another version, the diamond remained much longer in Britain; in 1818 it passed into the hands of the jewellers Rundell & Bridge, who shortly afterwards sold it for £30,000 to Ali Pasha
Ali Pasha
Ali Pasha of Tepelena or of Yannina, surnamed Aslan, "the Lion", or the "Lion of Yannina", Ali Pashë Tepelena was an Ottoman Albanian ruler of the western part of Rumelia, the Ottoman Empire's European territory which was also called Pashalik of Yanina. His court was in Ioannina...
. This still leaves some possibility of its having eventually gotten into the hands of the Sultan (Mahmud II
Mahmud II
Mahmud II was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdulhamid I...
in this case), either in Ali Pasha's lifetime or after his death.
However, this is contradicted by the version that Ali Pasha held on to the diamond until his last day; when mortally wounded by Reshid Pasha on February 5, 1822, the dying Ali Pasha reportedly ordered that it be crushed to powder in his presence - which was done.
In any case, the recorded weight of the Pigot Diamond was just 47.38 carat (9.5 g), which would exclude the possibility of its being the Spoonmaker's Diamond.
Which Sultan first got the diamond?
In 1798, when PrevezaPreveza
Preveza is a town in the region of Epirus, northwestern Greece, located at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the regional unit of Preveza, which is part of the region of Epirus. An immersed tunnel, completed in 2002 which runs between Preveza and Actium, connects the town...
was captured by Ali Pasha, the Ottoman Sultan was Selim III
Selim III
Selim III was the reform-minded Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. The Janissaries eventually deposed and imprisoned him, and placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV...
. In 1822, when Ali Pasha was killed, the Sultan was Mahmud II
Mahmud II
Mahmud II was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the son of Sultan Abdulhamid I...
. Assuming that the above stories contain at least a nucleus of historical truth, and that Ali Pasha was involved in the diamond arriving at TopKapi, one of these was most likely the first Sultan to possess the diamond - though the actual circumstances of its arrival there might have been far more mundane. In case of one of the "Naive Fisherman" versions being the right one, the diamond might have arrived much earlier.
In Film
The Spoonmaker's Diamond is the big diamond is referenced in the film "TopkapiTopkapi (film)
Topkapi is a heist film made by Filmways Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was produced and directed by the emigre American film director, Jules Dassin...
", shot in Kavala
Kavala
Kavala , is the second largest city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala peripheral unit. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos...
and Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
in 1965 and starring Melina Mercouri
Melina Mercouri
Melina Mercouri , born as Maria Amalia Mercouri was a Greek actress, singer and politician.As an actress she made her film debut in Stella and met international success with her performances in Never on Sunday, Phaedra, Topkapi and Promise at Dawn...
and Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
. However, the robbers depicted in the film are mainly oriented at stealing another Topkapi treasure, the emerald-encrusted dagger of the earlier Sultan Mahmud I
Mahmud I
Mahmud I , called the Hunchback was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1730 to 1754.-Biography:...
.