|
The Hope Diamond dates back to 1642, it is a diamond noted for its remarkable color, size, clarity, beauty, and history. The Hope Diamond is a very brilliant deep blue faceted ovoid diamond that measures 25.60 millimeters by 21.78 millimeters by 12.00 millimeters and weights 45.52 carats. The diamond is set in a pendent in which it is encircled by sixteen white diamonds. The Hope’s color is a combination of blue, caused by boron, as in all blue diamonds, and gray. The depth and intensity of its color and the occasional highlights that flash from its facets are unique. Vivid reds, yellows, and greens can be seen from different angles.
Three or four kings owned it. It disappeared from the public eye for twenty years before probably surfacing in an altered form, then returned to obscurity for twenty-seven more years. Its alteration is said to have produced other magnificent stones that may or may not exist today. It is most famous for bringing great misfortune upon whoever owns or wears it.
The story of the “blue” begins in the seventeenth century in India, with Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a French jewel trader. Tavernier made a half dozen journeys to the Orient during his lifetime. At the end of his second trip to India, he acquired a 112 3/16-carat, rough-cut deep blue diamond that may have come from the nearby Kollur mine in the great diamond market of Golconda, or stolen from an idol of the hindu goddess, Sita. What Tavernier paid or exchanged for the diamond or from whom he purchased it is not known. In his memoirs he wrote of his visits to the diamond mines but never mentioned his commercial transactions. It was the law of the mines that all gems belonged to the Grand Mogul, so Tavernier may have dealt with the ruler himself in acquiring the large stone.
Tavernier’s blue diamond became part of the magnificent French crown jewels in 1668 when King Louis XIV purchased it along with fourteen others shown to him by the trader. This diamond, which became known as the French Blue, was set later by Louis XV’s court jeweler in another of the French crown jewels, the Golden Fleece. During the one hundred twenty years it remained a crown jewel, it passed from Louis XIV to Louis XV, and to Louis XV’s grandson, Louis XVI, who was crowned in 1774 and continued the extravagant ways of his forebears.
During the eighteenth century in France, the peasantry and working class grew restless under the oppressive rule of the monarchy. By 1789 the country under King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette went bankrupt and the revolution finally erupted. Mobs stormed the Bastille prison in Paris, poor people around the country invaded the homes of the upper class; men and women attacked the Versailles palace.
Under a new constitution in 1791, the king was granted limited powers. The indignant Louis XVI sought assistance from other European leaders to quash the uprising. In June 1791 the king and Marie Antoinette attempted to flee to Austria where the queen’s brother, Joseph II, was emperor, but they were stopped and returned to Paris. Shortly after, custody of the French crown jewels was returned to the National Assembly. They were stored in Paris in a repository called the Garde Meuble and put on public display.
The Garde Meuble then became the scene of a bizarre spree of burglaries. The repository was usually well guarded or sealed tightly, and on a few evenings in September 1792, when bands of men came to steal it valuable contents, one of the metal bars that were supposed to keep the windows shut was unsecured, granting the men easy access. With that, the French Blue disappeared from history because no blue diamond of its weight and appearance was ever recovered.
There is documentation that a large blue diamond of almost forty-five carats was owned in 1812 by one Daniel Eliason, a Kindon diamond merchant who died in 1824. The diamond was described and sketched in color by an English jeweler, John Francillon, in a legal memorandum that he signed and dated London, September 19, 1812. This blue diamond was in fact what came to be called the Hope Diamond by 1839. The description and measurements of the traced stone matched with the Hope; Francillon’s writing and illustrations are the first recorded evidence of the Hope Diamond.
Claims have been made that certain other blue diamonds of European vintage are the issue of the re-cutting of the French Blue. These diamonds have ranged in weight from one to fourteen carats and most prominently include the so-called Brunswick Blue. But scholars who have compared the dimensions and shape of the sixty-seven carat French Blue in illustrations with those of the forty-five carat Hope gem and concluded that the cutting could have resulted from no other stone.
While the mysteries of the diamond may never be solved, one thing is known for sure: it is a magnificent jewel whose fame and beauty and true history are surpassed by few other gems.
|
| |
