The Hope Diamond is a diamond originally extracted in the 17th century from the
Kollur Mine in
Guntur
Guntur () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Guntur district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Guntur is spread across 168.49 km square and is the third-largest city in the state. It is situated to the west of the ...
, India.
It is blue in color due to trace amounts of
boron. Its exceptional size has revealed new information about the formation of diamonds.
The stone is known as one of the
Golconda diamonds. The earliest records of the diamond show that French gem merchant
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier purchased it in 1666 as the
Tavernier Blue.
The stone was cut and renamed the French Blue (''Le bleu de France''); Tavernier sold the stone to
King Louis XIV of France in 1668. It was stolen in 1792 and re-cut, with the largest section of the diamond appearing under the Hope name in an 1839 gem catalogue from the
Hope banking family.
The diamond has had several owners, including Washington socialite
Evalyn Walsh McLean, who was often seen wearing it. New York gem merchant
Harry Winston purchased the diamond in 1949, touring it for several years before donating it in 1958 to the Smithsonian
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. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
in the United States, where it is on permanent exhibition.
Classification
The Hope Diamond, also known as ("the King's Jewel"),
Le bleu de France ("the French Blue"), and the Tavernier Blue, is a large, ,
deep-blue diamond
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...
, studded in a pendant ''Toison d ’or''.
It is currently housed in the National Gem and Mineral collection at the 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. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
in Washington, D.C.
It is blue under ordinary light because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure, and exhibits a red phosphorescence under exposure to ultraviolet
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiati ...
light. It is classified as a type IIb diamond.
The Hope Diamond has changed hands numerous times on its way from Hyderabad
Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...
, India, to France, Great Britain, and the United States, where it is on public display. It has been described as the "most famous diamond in the world".
Physical properties
*Weight: In December 1988, the Gemological Institute of America's laboratory determined the diamond to weigh .
* Size and shape: The diamond has been compared in size and shape to a pigeon egg[ or a ]walnut
A walnut is the edible seed of a drupe of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''.
Although culinarily considered a "nut" and used as such, it is not a tru ...
[ that is pear-shaped.][ The length, width, and depth are 25.60 mm × 21.78 mm × 12.00 mm (1 in × 7/8 in × 15/32 in).][
* Color: It has been described as being a "fancy dark greyish-blue"][ as well as "dark blue in color,"][ or having a "steely-blue" color.][ Blue diamonds similar to the Hope can be shown by ]colorimetric
Colorimetry is "the science and technology used to quantify and describe physically the human color perception".
It is similar to spectrophotometry, but is distinguished by its interest in reducing spectra to the physical correlates of color ...
measurements to be grayer (lower in saturation) than blue sapphires. In 1996, the Gemological Institute of America 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 use 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 sapphire
Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sap ...
—for example, "blue of the most beautiful blue sapphire" (Deulafait)—and describing its color as "a sapphire blue."[Wise, Richard W., ''Secrets of the Gem Trade, The Connoisseur's Guide to Precious Gemstones'', Ch. 38, p. 235. .] Tavernier described it as a "beautiful violet".
* Phosphorescence: The stone exhibits an unusually intense, brilliant red phosphorescence after exposure to short-wave ultraviolet light. This 'glow-in-the-dark' effect 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 is a phenomenon of blue diamonds that helps scientists "fingerprint" them, allowing them to distinguish real ones from artificial ones.][ The red glow occurs because of a mix of boron and ]nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at seve ...
in the stone.
* 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 to measure its chemical composition. After boring a hole one ]nanometer
330px, Different lengths as in respect to the molecular scale.
The nanometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: nm) or nanometer (American and British English spelling differences#-re, ...
deep, preliminary experiments detected the presence of boron, hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...
and possibly nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at seve ...
; the boron concentration varies from zero to eight parts per million. The boron is responsible for causing the blue color of the stone.[
* Touch and feel: When ]Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...
reporter Ron Edmonds was allowed by Smithsonian officials to hold the gem in his hands 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 the hardest natural minerals known on ]Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
, but because of weak planes in the bonds of a diamond's crystalline structure, the crystal can fracture along these planes if not handled correctly. These weak planes, allow diamond cutters to split a rough uncut stone into smaller flawless parts before the process of faceting the stone takes place. Only a diamond can scratch another diamond, so to create a faceted diamond, the uncut rough is mounted in a holder, and then the flat surfaces or facets are ground into the surface of the stone using specially made metal wheels impregnated with diamond particles. These facets are ground and polished using ever finer grades/grits of diamond powder until they have a clear mirror surface, ultimately producing a gem that sparkles by refracting/reflecting light in different ways.
History
Geological beginnings
The Hope Diamond was formed deep within the Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
approximately 1.1 billion years ago. Like all diamond
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...
s, it was formed when carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes ...
atoms formed strong bonds with each other. The Hope Diamond was originally embedded in kimberlite and was later extracted and refined to form the current gem. The Hope Diamond contains trace amounts of boron atoms intermixed with the carbon structure, which results in the rare blue color of the diamond.
India
Several accounts, based on remarks written by French gem merchant, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who obtained the gem in India in 1666, suggest that the gemstone originated in India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
, in the Kollur mine in the Guntur
Guntur () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Guntur district in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Guntur is spread across 168.49 km square and is the third-largest city in the state. It is situated to the west of the ...
district of Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to t ...
(which, at the time, was part of the Golconda kingdom), in the seventeenth century.
Several aspects of the gemstone's history are unclear, including its original location, condition, finder, and owner(s). The earliest historical records suggest Tavernier obtained the stone in 1666, possibly through theft. Tavernier brought to Paris a large, uncut stone—the first known precursor to the Hope Diamond. This large stone became known as the Tavernier Blue. It was a crudely cut, triangular stone of . Another estimated weight was before it was cut.
Tavernier's book, the ''Six Voyages'' (French: ''Les Six Voyages de J. B. Tavernier''), contains sketches of several large diamonds that he sold to Louis XIV, possibly in 1668[ or 1669; a blue diamond is shown among these, and Tavernier mentions the mines at "Gani Coulour" (Kollur Mine) as a source of colored diamonds, but no direct mention of the stone is made. Historian ]Richard Kurin
Richard Kurin (born November 27, 1950), an American cultural anthropologist, museum official and author, is the Acting Provost and Under Secretary for Museums and Research at the Smithsonian Institution. He is a key member of the senior team managi ...
has built a highly speculative case for 1653 as the year of acquisition,[Kurin, Richard ''Hope Diamond, The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem'', pp. 29–30] 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
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
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 proposes that the patent of nobility granted to Tavernier by Louis XIV was part of the payment for the Tavernier Blue. According to the theory, ]Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (; 29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683) was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His lasting impact on the organization of the countr ...
(the King's Finance Minister at the time) regularly sold noble offices and titles for cash; an outright patent of nobility, according to Wise, was worth approximately 500,000 livres. That amount, plus the reported sale to the King, would have totaled about 720,000 livres, half the price of Tavernier's initial estimate for the gem. There has been 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 court
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and carry out the administration of justice in Civil law (common law), civil, C ...
jeweler
A bench jeweler is an artisan who uses a combination of skills to make and repair jewelry. Some of the more common skills that a bench jeweler might employ include antique restoration, silversmith, Goldsmith, stone setting, engraving, fabrica ...
Jean Pitau to recut the Tavernier Blue, resulting in a stone[ which royal inventories thereafter listed as the Blue Diamond of the Crown of France (french: diamant bleu de la Couronne de France). Later English-speaking historians have simply called it the French Blue. The king had the stone set on a cravat-pin.][Morel, p. 166]
According to one report, Louis ordered Pitau to "make him a piece to remember," and Pitau worked for two years, resulting in a "triangular-shaped 69-carat gem the size of a pigeon
Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...
's egg that took the breath away as it snared the light, reflecting it back in bluish-grey rays."[ It was set in ]gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
and was supported by a ribbon
A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mater ...
for the neck which was worn by the king during ceremonies.[
In 1749, Louis XIV's great-grandson, ]Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...
, had the French Blue set into a more elaborate jeweled pendant for the ''Order of the Golden Fleece
The Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece ( es, Insigne Orden del Toisón de Oro, german: Orden vom Goldenen Vlies) is a Catholic order of chivalry founded in Bruges by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1430, to celebrate his marriag ...
'' by court jeweler André Jacquemin.[ The assembled piece included a red ]spinel
Spinel () is the magnesium/aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula in the cubic crystal system. Its name comes from the Latin word , which means ''spine'' in reference to its pointed crystals.
Properties
...
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.[
The piece fell into disuse after the death of Louis XV. The diamond became the property of his grandson ]Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...
. whose wife, queen Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child ...
, used many of the French Crown Jewels for personal adornment by having the individual gems placed in 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 (; 30 April 1723 – 23 June 1806) 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 wo ...
).
Theft and disappearance
On September 11, 1792, while Louis XVI and his family were imprisoned in the Square du Temple during the early stages of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First French Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public Capital punishment, executions took pl ...
, a group of thieves broke into the Royal Storehouse—the ''Hôtel du Garde-Meuble de la Couronne'' (now ''Hôtel de la Marine
The hôtel de la Marine (also known as the hôtel du Garde-Meuble) is an historic building located on place de la Concorde in Paris, to the east of rue Royale. It was designed and built between 1757 and 1774 by the architect Ange-Jacques Gabrie ...
'')—stealing most of the Crown Jewels in a five-day looting spree. 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 from history.
On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was guillotine
A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at t ...
d; Marie Antoinette was guillotined on October 16 of the same year. 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, 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,][ with the largest remaining piece becoming 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 luster."][
It was long believed that the Hope Diamond was cut from the French Blue,] but confirmation came when a three-dimensional lead
Lead is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metals, heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale of mineral hardness#Intermediate ...
en model of the latter was rediscovered in the archives of the Paris 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. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
in 2005. Previously, the dimensions of the French Blue had been known only from two drawings made in 1749 and 1789; although the model differs slightly 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.
The leaden model revealed 20 unknown facets on the back of the French Blue. It also confirmed the diamond underwent a rather rough recut that removed the three points and reduced the thickness by a few millimeters. The Sun King's blue diamond became unrecognizable and the baroque style of the original cut was definitely lost.
Historians suggested that one burglar, Cadet Guillot, took several jewels, including the French Blue and the ''Côte-de-Bretagne'' spinel
Spinel () is the magnesium/aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula in the cubic crystal system. Its name comes from the Latin word , which means ''spine'' in reference to its pointed crystals.
Properties
...
, to Le Havre
Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, ver ...
and then to London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, where the French Blue was cut in two pieces.
Morel adds that in 1796, Guillot attempted to resell the ''Côte-de-Bretagne'' in France but was forced to relinquish it to fellow thief Lancry de la Loyelle, who put Guillot into debtors' prison
A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe
Western Europe is ...
.
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 Jacques Danton (; 26 October 1759 – 5 April 1794) was a French lawyer and a leading figure in the French Revolution. He became a deputy to the Paris Commune, presided in the Cordeliers district, and visited the Jacobin club. In Augu ...
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 Great Britain in 1806, when his family fled there to join his daughter Caroline of Brunswick. Although Caroline was the wife of the Prince Regent (later ]George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten ...
), 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 blue diamond which was widely thought to be another piece of the French Blue.
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 a sister stone of that size.
United Kingdom
A blue diamond with the same shape, size, and color as the Hope Diamond was recorded by John Francillon
John Francillon (1744–1816) 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 Joh ...
as 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 claims that the Hope Diamond's "authentic history" can only be traced back to 1830.] The jewel was a "massive blue stone of 45.54 carats"[ and weighed 177 grains (4 grains = 1 carat).][ The 1812 date was just days after 20 years since the theft of the French Blue, just as the ]statute of limitations
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In m ...
for the crime had taken effect.[
While the diamond had disappeared for two decades, there were questions whether this diamond now in Great Britain was exactly the same one as had belonged to the French kings. Scientific investigation in 2008 confirmed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the Hope Diamond and that owned by the kings of France were, indeed, the same gemstone.]
There are conflicting reports about what happened to the diamond during these years. Eliason's diamond may have been acquired by George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten ...
,[ possibly through Caroline of Brunswick;][ however, there is no record of the ownership in the ]Royal Archives
The Royal Archives, also known as the King's Archives, is 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 Secreta ...
at Windsor, although some secondary evidence exists in the form of contemporary writings and artwork, and George IV tended to mix up the Crown 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 George had indeed owned the diamond.[ After his death in 1830, it has been alleged that some of this mixed collection was stolen by George's last mistress, Elizabeth Conyngham, and some of his personal effects were discreetly liquidated to cover the many debts he had left behind him. Another report states that the king's debts were "so enormous" that the diamond was probably sold through "private channels".][ In either case, the blue diamond was not retained by the British royal family.
The stone was later reported to have been acquired by a rich London banker named Thomas Hope, for either $65,000][ or $90,000.][ It has been suggested that Eliason may have been a "front" for Hope,][ acting not as a diamond merchant venturing money on his own account, 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 his brother Henry Philip Hope, members of the Anglo-Dutch banking family Hope & Co.][
The stone was set in a fairly simple medallion surrounded by many smaller white diamonds, which he sometimes lent to Louisa de la Poer Beresford, the widow of his brother, Thomas Hope, for society balls. After falling into the ownership of the Hope family, the stone came to be known as the "Hope Diamond".]
Henry Philip Hope died in 1839, the same year as the publication of his collection catalog. His three nephews, the sons of Thomas and Louisa, 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 (30 April 1808 – 4 December 1862) was a British MP and patron of the arts.
Biography
Henry Thomas Hope was born in London on 30 April 1808, the eldest of the three sons of the connoisseur Thomas Hope (1769–1831) and his ...
, received eight of the most valuable gems, including the Hope Diamond. It was displayed in the Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took pl ...
of London in 1851 and at the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris, but was usually kept in a bank vault. In 1861, Henry Thomas Hope's only child, Henrietta, married Henry Pelham-Clinton (and later Duke of Newcastle).
When Hope died on December 4, 1862, his wife Anne Adele inherited the gem, but she feared that the profligate lifestyle of her son-in-law 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 Pelham-Clinton, on the condition that he add the name of "Hope" to his own surnames when he reached the age of legal majority.
As Lord Francis Hope, this grandson received his legacy in 1887. However, he had only a life interest in his inheritance, meaning that he could not sell any part of it without court permission.
In 1894, Lord Francis Hope met the American concert hall singer May Yohé
Mary Augusta "May" Yohé (April 6, 1866 – August 29, 1938) 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 performances in the United St ...
, who has been described as "the sensation of two continents", and they were married the same year; one account suggests that Yohé wore the Hope Diamond on at least one occasion.
She later claimed that she had worn it at social gatherings and had an exact replica made for her performances, but her husband claimed otherwise. Lord Francis lived beyond his means, and this eventually caught up with him, leading to marriage troubles and 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 financially by his wife during these intervening years. In 1901, the financial situation had changed, and after a "long legal fight," he was given permission to sell the Hope Diamond by an order of the Master in Chancery to "pay off debts". But May Yohé ran off with a gentleman friend named Putnam Strong, who was a son of the former New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
mayor William L. Strong
William Lafayette Strong (March 22, 1827 – November 2, 1900) was the 90th Mayor of New York City from 1895 to 1897. He was the last mayor of New York City before the consolidation of the City of Greater New York on January 1, 1898.
Early life ...
. Francis Hope and May Yohé were divorced in 1902.
Francis sold the diamond for £29,000 (£ million today), to Adolph Weil, a London jewel merchant. Weil sold the stone in 1901 to the diamond dealer Simon Frankel, based in New York and/or London[ who took it to New York. One report stated that he had paid $250,000 ($ million today).] However, in New York it was evaluated to be worth $141,032 ($ million today).
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 William & Theodore 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 Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' 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 $400,000 ($ million today) to a Salomon or Selim Habib, a wealthy Turkish diamond collector,][ reportedly on behalf of Sultan ]Abdulhamid ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd ( ALA-LC romanization of ar, عبد الحميد) is a Muslim male given name, and in modern usage, surname. It is built from the Arabic words '' ʻabd'' and ''al-Ḥamīd'', one of the names of God in the Qur'an, which gave rise ...
of Ottoman Empire; 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 Abdul 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 $80,000 ($ million today).][ 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 francs. In 1910, it was offered for $150,000 ($ million today), according to one report.]
Pierre Cartier tried to sell the Hope Diamond to Washington, D.C., socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean and her husband in 1910.[ Cartier was a consummate salesman who used an understated presentation to entice Mrs. McLean.][ 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. She recalled later that Cartier "held before our eyes the Hope Diamond."] Nevertheless, she initially rejected the offer. Cartier had it reset. She found the stone much more appealing in this new modern style. There were conflicting reports about the sale in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''; 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 (over $ million today),] 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. Mrs. 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 to 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 Mrs. 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 (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to ...
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 promotional events and charity balls. The diamond appeared on the television quiz show '' The Name's the Same'', in an episode which first aired on August 16, 1955,] when a teenaged contestant with the actual name ''Hope Diamond'' was one of the mystery guests, as well as at the August 1958 Canadian National Exhibition
The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), also known as The Exhibition or The Ex, is an annual event that takes place at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on the third Friday of August leading up to and including Canadian Labour Day ...
.[ At some point, Winston also had the Hope Diamond's bottom facet slightly recut to increase its brilliance.
]
Smithsonian ownership
Smithsonian mineralogist George Switzer
George Switzer (born 13 October 1973) is an English former association football, footballer most famous for being part of Manchester United F.C., Manchester United's 1992 FA Youth Cup-winning team. A Defender (association football)#Full-back, l ...
is credited with persuading jeweler Harry Winston to donate the Hope Diamond for a proposed national gem collection to be housed at the 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. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
. On November 10, 1958,[ Winston acquiesced, sending it through U.S. Mail in a box wrapped in brown paper as simple registered mail][ insured for $1 million at a cost of $145.29, of which $2.44 was for postage and the balance insurance.][ Upon its arrival it became Specimen #217868.
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 Post, indeed helped spur additional gifts to the museum.]
For its first four decades in the 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. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
, 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 Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
;[ 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.][
To guard against theft during the diamond's trip to the 1962 Louvre exhibition, Switzer traveled to Paris with the Hope Diamond tucked inside a velvet pouch sewn by his wife.] The Hope Diamond was placed into the pouch, which was pinned inside Switzer's pants pocket for the flight.
When the Smithsonian's gallery was renovated in 1997, the necklace was moved onto a rotating pedestal inside a cylinder made of thick bulletproof glass in its own display room, adjacent to the main exhibit of the National Gem Collection, in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Janet Annenberg Hooker (formerly Kahn and Neff; October 13, 1904 – December 13, 1997) was an American philanthropist.
She was born in Chicago to Sadie Cecilia ( Friedman) and Moses Annenberg; Moses was the founder of a publishing empire based on ...
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, cut from 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
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. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
. Starting in September 2009 it was exhibited as a stand-alone gem with no setting. It had been removed from its setting for cleaning from time to time, but this was the first time it would be on public display 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 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.
On January 13, 2012 the diamond was returned to its historic setting, and the current necklace was implanted with another diamond worth "at least a million dollars". The necklace with the new diamond will be sold to benefit the Smithsonian.
Changes over time
Curse mythology
Superstitions, publicity, marketing
The diamond has been surrounded by a mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...
of a reputed "curse" to the effect that it brings misfortune and tragedy to anyone who owns it or wears it, but there are strong indications that such fabrications enhance the stone's mystery and appeal, since increased publicity usually raised the gem's value and newsworthiness.
According to many 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 Hindu goddess Sita
Sita (; ) also called as Janaki and Vaidehi is a Hindu goddess and the female protagonist of the Hindu epic, '' Ramayana''. She is the consort of Rama, the avatar of the god Vishnu, and is regarded as a form of Vishnu's consort, Lakshmi ...
. However, much like the " curse of Tutankhamun", this general type of "legend" was most likely the independent creation 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 persons 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 Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', 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 ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...
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, lthoughwhen 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
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'' in 1908. In 1909 upon reporting on the sale of the Hope Diamond The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...
also gave an account of its history, noting "its possession is the story of a long series of tragedies - murder, suicide, madness, and various other misfortunes."
These were followed by another ''New York Times'' article in 1911 which gave a 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 India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
to Paris was "torn to pieces by wild dogs in Constantinople."
* King Louis gave it to Madame de Montespan whom later he abandoned.
* Nicholas Fouquet
Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux (27 January 1615 – 23 March 1680) was the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661 under King Louis XIV. He had a glittering career, and acquired enormous wealth. ...
, an "Intendant of France", borrowed it temporarily to wear it but was "disgraced and died in prison."
* A temporary wearer, Princess de Lamballe
Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince.
Princess as a subst ...
, 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 died by suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and ...
.
* Some years (after Hendrik) "it was sold to Francis Deaulieu, who died in misery and want."
The mainstream view is that these accounts are specious and speculative since there are few, if any, independent confirmations to back them up. A few months later, perhaps compounded by inaccurate reports in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' 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 object 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
The Koh-i-Noor ( ; from ), also spelled Kohinoor and Koh-i-Nur, is one of the List of diamonds, largest cut diamonds in the world, weighing . It is part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. The diamond is currently set in the Crown of Quee ...
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 (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
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 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
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of V ...
; the beheadings of Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...
and Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child ...
and the rape and mutilation of the Princesse de Lamballe during the French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
; 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 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
Marat may refer to:
People
*Marat (given name)
*Marat (surname)
**Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793), French political theorist, physician and scientist
Arts, entertainment, and media
*'' Marat/Sade'', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss
* ''Marat/Sade'' (fi ...
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.][
]
Owners and their fates
Replicas
In 2007, a lead cast of the French Blue diamond was discovered in the gemological collections of the 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. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
in Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
. This triggered an investigation by an international team of researchers into the stone's history, which previously had to rely on two-dimensional
In mathematics, a plane is a Euclidean ( flat), two-dimensional surface that extends indefinitely. A plane is the two-dimensional analogue of a point (zero dimensions), a line (one dimension) and three-dimensional space. Planes can arise ...
sketches of the diamond. The three-dimensional structure allowed researchers to apply techniques such as computer-aided drawing analysis.
The methods for digitally-reconstructing the gem are reviewed in this articles "Theft and Disappearance" section. The emblem of the Golden Fleece of Louis XV was reconstructed around the French Blue, including the "Côte de Bretagne" spinel
Spinel () is the magnesium/aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula in the cubic crystal system. Its name comes from the Latin word , which means ''spine'' in reference to its pointed crystals.
Properties
...
of , the "Bazu" diamond of , 3 oriental topazes (yellow sapphires), five brilliant
Brilliant may refer to:
Music
* ''Brilliant'' (album), a 2012 album by Ultravox
*Brilliant (band), a British pop/rock group active in the 1980s
* "Brilliant" (song), a song by D'espairsRay
*Brilliant Classics, Dutch classical music record label
* ...
s of up to and nearly 300 smaller diamonds.
As part of the investigation, the "Tavernier Blue" diamond was reconstructed from the original French edition of Tavernier's ''Voyages'' (rather than the later London edition, which had distorted and modified Tavernier's original figures). The Smithsonian Institution provided ray-tracing and optical spectroscopic data about the Hope diamond.
The lead cast 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, because 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. Hope of London". Other archives at the Muséum suggests that Hope was a customer of Achard for many years, particularly for blue gems.[Farges et al. ''Revue de Gemmologie'' 165, 17–24.]
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 spinel
Spinel () is the magnesium/aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula in the cubic crystal system. Its name comes from the Latin word , which means ''spine'' in reference to its pointed crystals.
Properties
...
-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 Eliason to get much-needed cash when the British currency, sterling
Sterling may refer to:
Common meanings
* Sterling silver, a grade of silver
* Sterling (currency), the currency of the United Kingdom
** Pound sterling, the primary unit of that currency
Places United Kingdom
* Stirling, a Scottish city w ...
, was highly depreciated.[Buist, M.G. (1974) At spes non fracta: Hope & Co. 1770–1815. Merchant bankers and diplomats at work. Den Haag, Martinus Nijhoff..] 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 . Artisans recreated the elaborate parure of different-colored gems 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 parure, created in 1749 by royal jeweler Pierre-André Jacquemin, 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 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[Farges et al., 2009] the mythic ''French Blue'' 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 . 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,[Farges et al., 2008] 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
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
'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 is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
and manganese pigments to simulate as close as possible the original color of the spinel
Spinel () is the magnesium/aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula in the cubic crystal system. Its name comes from the Latin word , which means ''spine'' in reference to its pointed crystals.
Properties
...
.
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 Jacquemin 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
Matrix most commonly refers to:
* ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise
** '' The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film
** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchi ...
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
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situ ...
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.[the official bookbinders of the kings of France] A dark red cramoisi ribbon, made of crimson satin moire, holds the jewel inside the box.
File:PlombDBC.jpg, Lead cast of the "French Blue" diamond, discovered in 2007 at the National Museum of Natural History (France) by Farges (ca. 31 × 26 mm)
File:Diamantbleu.gif, Computer reconstruction of the "French Blue" diamond, as cut by Jean Pitau for King Louis XIV of France in 1673 (ca. 31 × 25 mm)
File:Presentation.png, The recreated great Golden Fleece of King Louis XV of France, presented by H. Horovitz (left) and (right) at the Hôtel de la Marine, formerly the royal Storehouse in Paris, on June 30, 2010
File:Toison2010.png, Detailed view of the recreated great Golden Fleece of king Louis XV of France. Below the spinel Côte de Bretagne hangs the French Blue diamond and the fleece itself, set with hundreds of yellow diamond replicas
See also
* Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom
The Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, originally the Crown Jewels of England, are a collection of royal ceremonial objects kept in the Tower of London which include the Coronation of the British monarch, coronation regalia and vestments worn ...
* List of diamonds
Explanatory notes
References
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 & Gemology'')
* Marian Fowler, ''Hope: Adventures of a Diamond'', Ballantine (March 2002), hardcover, .
* Stephen C. Hofer, ''Collecting and Classifying Coloured Diamonds'', Ashland Press 1998, .
* Janet Hubbard-Brown, ''The Curse of the Hope Diamond (History Mystery)'', Harpercollins Children's Books (October 1991), trade paperback, .
* Richard Kurin, ''Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem'', New York: HarperCollins Publishers & Smithsonian Press, 2006. hardcover, .
* Robert C. Marley. Inspector Swanson und der Fluch des Hope-Diamanten. Dryas, Frankfurt a. M., Germany 2014,
* Susanne Steinem Patch
Susanne Steinem Patch (February 19, 1925 – November 2, 2007) was an American gem expert and staff lawyer at the Federal Trade Commission.
Early life
Susanne Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio, the daughter of Leo Steinem and Ruth Nuneviller Steine ...
, ''Blue Mystery: The Story of the Hope Diamond'', Random House (April 1999), trade paperback,
* Shipley, Robert M. & A. McC. Beckley (July-August 1935). ''Famous Diamonds of the World'', pp. 5–8. Gemological Institute of America, USA, Vol. 1, No. 10
* Edwin Streeter, ''The Great Diamonds of the World'', George Bell & Sons, (1882), hardcover,
* Richard W. Wise, ''Secrets of the Gem Trade: The Connoisseur's Guide to Precious Gemstones'', Brunswick House Press (2003)
* Richard W. Wise, ''The French Blue'', Brunswick House Press, (2010)
External links
Video of Hope Diamond via ''The Guardian''
Smithsonian Institution – The Hope Diamond
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hope Diamond
Blue diamonds
Curses
Golconda diamonds
Hope family
Individual diamonds
Individual necklaces
Jewellery in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution