History[edit]
Geological beginnings[edit]
The Hope Diamond was formed deep within the Earth approximately 1.1 billion years ago.[22] It was made from carbon atoms forming strong bonds, making it a diamond.[22] It became embedded with kimberlite and eroded by wind and rain, resulting in its placement among gravel deposits.[22] The first known diamond mine was in the Kollur Mine region of Guntur District in Andhra Pradesh of India, although by 1725 diamonds had been discovered in Brazil.[22] The Hope Diamond contains trace amount of boron atoms intermixed with the carbon structure, which results in the blue color of the diamond.[22]
India[edit]
Tavernier's original sketch of the Tavernier Blue
Cubic zirconia replica of the Tavernier Blue
Several accounts, based on remarks written by the gem's first known owner, French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, suggest the gemstone originated in India, in the Kollur mine in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh (which at the time had been part of the Golconda kingdom), in the seventeenth century.[23][24][25] It is unclear who had initially owned the gemstone, where it had been found, by whom, and in what condition. But the first historical records suggest that a French merchant-traveler named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier obtained the stone, possibly by purchase[12] or by theft,[17] and he brought a large uncut stone to Paris which was the first known precursor to the Hope Diamond. This large stone became known as the Tavernier Blue diamond. It was a crudely cut triangular shaped stone of 115 carats (23.0 g).[11] Another estimate is that it weighed 112.23 carats (22.446 g) before it was cut.[17] Tavernier's book, the Six Voyages (French: Les Six Voyages de...), contains sketches of several large diamonds that he sold to Louis XIV in possibly 1668[2] or 1669; while the blue diamond is shown among these, Tavernier mentions the mines at "Gani" Kollur as a source of colored diamonds, but made no direct mention of the stone. Historian Richard Kurin builds a highly speculative case for 1653 as the year of acquisition,[26] 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.[27] Another report suggested that in 1669, Tavernier sold this large blue diamond along with approximately one thousand other diamonds to King Louis XIV of France for 220,000 livres, the equivalent of 147 kilograms of pure gold.[11][28] In a newly published historical novel, The French Blue, gemologist and historian Richard W. Wise proposed that the patent of nobility granted Tavernier by Louis XIV was a part of the payment for the Tavernier Blue. According to the theory, during that period Colbert, the king's Finance Minister, regularly sold offices and noble titles for cash, and an outright patent of nobility, according to Wise, was worth approximately 500,000 livres making a total of 720,000 livres, a price much closer to the true value of the gem.[29] There has been some controversy regarding the actual weight of the stone; Morel believed that the 1123⁄16 carats[17] stated in Tavernier's invoice would be in old French carats, thus 115.28 metric carats.
France[edit]
In 1678, Louis XIV commissioned the court jeweller, Sieur Pitau, to recut the Tavernier Blue, resulting in a 67.125-carat (13.4250 g) stone[9] which royal inventories thereafter listed as the Blue Diamond of the Crown of France (diamant bleu de la Couronne de France[30]). Later English-speaking historians have simply called it the French Blue. The king had the stone set on a cravat-pin.[31] According to one report, Louis ordered Pitau[32] to "make him a piece to remember", and Pitau took two years on the piece, resulting in a "triangular-shaped 69-carat gem the size of a pigeon's egg that took the breath away as it snared the light, reflecting it back in bluish-grey rays."[12] It was set in gold and was supported by a ribbon for the neck which was worn by the king during ceremonies.[9]
At the diamond's dazzling heart was a sun with seven facets––the sun being Louis' emblem, and seven being a number rich in meaning in biblical cosmology, indicating divinity and spirituality.
—report in Agence France-Presse, 2008[12]
Marie Antoinette before her public execution by guillotine in 1793.
In 1749, Louis' descendant, King Louis XV, had the French Blue set into a more elaborate jewelled pendant for the Order of the Golden Fleece by court jeweler Andre Jacquemin.[9] The assembled piece included a red spinel of 107 carats shaped as a dragon breathing "covetous flames", as well as 83 red-painted diamonds and 112 yellow-painted diamonds to suggest a fleece shape.[12] The piece fell into disuse after the death of Louis XV. The diamond became the property of his grandson King Louis XVI.[11] During the reign of her husband, Marie Antoinette used many French Crown Jewels for personal adornment by having the individual gems placed into new settings and combinations, but the French Blue remained in this pendant except for a brief time in 1787, when the stone was removed for scientific study by Mathurin Jacques Brisson and returned to its setting soon thereafter. On September 11, 1792,[33] while Louis XVI and his family were confined in the Palais des Tuileries near the Place de la Concorde[12] during the early stages of the French Revolution, a group of thieves broke into the Garde-Meuble (Royal Storehouse) and stole most of the Crown Jewels during a five-day looting spree.[12] While many jewels were later recovered, including other pieces of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the French Blue was not among them and it disappeared temporarily from history.[2] In 1793, Louis was guillotined in January and Marie was guillotined in October, and these beheadings are commonly cited as a result of the diamond's "curse", but the historical record suggests that Marie Antoinette had never worn the Golden Fleece pendant because it had been reserved for the exclusive use of the king.[citation needed]
A likely scenario is that the French Blue or sometimes also known as the Blue Diamond[12] was "swiftly smuggled to London" after being seized in 1792 in Paris.[12] 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,[12] probably into two pieces, and the larger one became the Hope Diamond. One report suggested that the cut was a "butchered job" because it sheared off 23.5 carats from the larger rock as well as hurting its "extraordinary lustre."[12] It had long been believed that the Hope Diamond had been cut from the French Blue[34] until confirmation finally happened when a three-dimensional leaden model of the latter was rediscovered in the archives of the French Natural History Museum in Paris in 2005. Previously, the dimensions of the French Blue had been known only from two drawings made in 1749 and 1789; although the model slightly differs from the drawings in some details, these details are identical to features of the Hope Diamond, allowing CAD technology to digitally reconstruct the French Blue around the recut stone.[35][36] Historians suggested that one robber, Cadet Guillot, took several jewels, including the French Blue and the Côte-de-Bretagne spinel, to Le Havre and then to London, 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.
In a contrasting report, historian Richard Kurin speculated that the "theft" of the French Crown Jewels was in fact engineered by the revolutionary leader Georges Danton as part of a plan to bribe an opposing military commander, Duke Karl Wilhelm of Brunswick.[12] When under attack by Napoleon in 1805, Karl Wilhelm may have had the French Blue recut to disguise its identity; in this form, the stone could have come to Britain in 1806, when his family fled there to join his daughter Caroline of Brunswick. Although Caroline was the wife of the Prince Regent George (later George IV of the United Kingdom), she lived apart from her husband, and financial straits sometimes forced her to quietly sell her own jewels to support her household. Caroline's nephew, Duke Karl Friedrich, was later known to possess a 13.75-carat (2.750 g) 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[edit]
A blue diamond with the same shape, size, and color as the Hope Diamond was recorded by John Francillon 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,[9][12] although a second less definitive report claims that the Hope Diamond's "authentic history" can only be traced back to 1830.[34] The jewel was a "massive blue stone of 45.54 carats"[12] and weighed 177 grains (4 grains = 1 carat).[9] It is often pointed out that this date was almost exactly twenty years after the theft of the French Blue, just as the statute of limitations for the crime had taken effect.[12] 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, but 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, in the sense that the Hope Diamond had been cut from the French Blue.[9
History[edit]
Geological beginnings[edit]
The Hope Diamond was formed deep within the Earth approximately 1.1 billion years ago.[22] It was made from carbon atoms forming strong bonds, making it a diamond.[22] It became embedded with kimberlite and eroded by wind and rain, resulting in its placement among gravel deposits.[22] The first known diamond mine was in the Kollur Mine region of Guntur District in Andhra Pradesh of India, although by 1725 diamonds had been discovered in Brazil.[22] The Hope Diamond contains trace amount of boron atoms intermixed with the carbon structure, which results in the blue color of the diamond.[22]
India[edit]
Tavernier's original sketch of the Tavernier Blue
Cubic zirconia replica of the Tavernier Blue
Several accounts, based on remarks written by the gem's first known owner, French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, suggest the gemstone originated in India, in the Kollur mine in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh (which at the time had been part of the Golconda kingdom), in the seventeenth century.[23][24][25] It is unclear who had initially owned the gemstone, where it had been found, by whom, and in what condition. But the first historical records suggest that a French merchant-traveler named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier obtained the stone, possibly by purchase[12] or by theft,[17] and he brought a large uncut stone to Paris which was the first known precursor to the Hope Diamond. This large stone became known as the Tavernier Blue diamond. It was a crudely cut triangular shaped stone of 115 carats (23.0 g).[11] Another estimate is that it weighed 112.23 carats (22.446 g) before it was cut.[17] Tavernier's book, the Six Voyages (French: Les Six Voyages de...), contains sketches of several large diamonds that he sold to Louis XIV in possibly 1668[2] or 1669; while the blue diamond is shown among these, Tavernier mentions the mines at "Gani" Kollur as a source of colored diamonds, but made no direct mention of the stone. Historian Richard Kurin builds a highly speculative case for 1653 as the year of acquisition,[26] 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.[27] Another report suggested that in 1669, Tavernier sold this large blue diamond along with approximately one thousand other diamonds to King Louis XIV of France for 220,000 livres, the equivalent of 147 kilograms of pure gold.[11][28] In a newly published historical novel, The French Blue, gemologist and historian Richard W. Wise proposed that the patent of nobility granted Tavernier by Louis XIV was a part of the payment for the Tavernier Blue. According to the theory, during that period Colbert, the king's Finance Minister, regularly sold offices and noble titles for cash, and an outright patent of nobility, according to Wise, was worth approximately 500,000 livres making a total of 720,000 livres, a price much closer to the true value of the gem.[29] There has been some controversy regarding the actual weight of the stone; Morel believed that the 1123⁄16 carats[17] stated in Tavernier's invoice would be in old French carats, thus 115.28 metric carats.
France[edit]
In 1678, Louis XIV commissioned the court jeweller, Sieur Pitau, to recut the Tavernier Blue, resulting in a 67.125-carat (13.4250 g) stone[9] which royal inventories thereafter listed as the Blue Diamond of the Crown of France (diamant bleu de la Couronne de France[30]). Later English-speaking historians have simply called it the French Blue. The king had the stone set on a cravat-pin.[31] According to one report, Louis ordered Pitau[32] to "make him a piece to remember", and Pitau took two years on the piece, resulting in a "triangular-shaped 69-carat gem the size of a pigeon's egg that took the breath away as it snared the light, reflecting it back in bluish-grey rays."[12] It was set in gold and was supported by a ribbon for the neck which was worn by the king during ceremonies.[9]
At the diamond's dazzling heart was a sun with seven facets––the sun being Louis' emblem, and seven being a number rich in meaning in biblical cosmology, indicating divinity and spirituality.
—report in Agence France-Presse, 2008[12]
Marie Antoinette before her public execution by guillotine in 1793.
In 1749, Louis' descendant, King Louis XV, had the French Blue set into a more elaborate jewelled pendant for the Order of the Golden Fleece by court jeweler Andre Jacquemin.[9] The assembled piece included a red spinel of 107 carats shaped as a dragon breathing "covetous flames", as well as 83 red-painted diamonds and 112 yellow-painted diamonds to suggest a fleece shape.[12] The piece fell into disuse after the death of Louis XV. The diamond became the property of his grandson King Louis XVI.[11] During the reign of her husband, Marie Antoinette used many French Crown Jewels for personal adornment by having the individual gems placed into new settings and combinations, but the French Blue remained in this pendant except for a brief time in 1787, when the stone was removed for scientific study by Mathurin Jacques Brisson and returned to its setting soon thereafter. On September 11, 1792,[33] while Louis XVI and his family were confined in the Palais des Tuileries near the Place de la Concorde[12] during the early stages of the French Revolution, a group of thieves broke into the Garde-Meuble (Royal Storehouse) and stole most of the Crown Jewels during a five-day looting spree.[12] While many jewels were later recovered, including other pieces of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the French Blue was not among them and it disappeared temporarily from history.[2] In 1793, Louis was guillotined in January and Marie was guillotined in October, and these beheadings are commonly cited as a result of the diamond's "curse", but the historical record suggests that Marie Antoinette had never worn the Golden Fleece pendant because it had been reserved for the exclusive use of the king.[citation needed]
A likely scenario is that the French Blue or sometimes also known as the Blue Diamond[12] was "swiftly smuggled to London" after being seized in 1792 in Paris.[12] 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,[12] probably into two pieces, and the larger one became the Hope Diamond. One report suggested that the cut was a "butchered job" because it sheared off 23.5 carats from the larger rock as well as hurting its "extraordinary lustre."[12] It had long been believed that the Hope Diamond had been cut from the French Blue[34] until confirmation finally happened when a three-dimensional leaden model of the latter was rediscovered in the archives of the French Natural History Museum in Paris in 2005. Previously, the dimensions of the French Blue had been known only from two drawings made in 1749 and 1789; although the model slightly differs from the drawings in some details, these details are identical to features of the Hope Diamond, allowing CAD technology to digitally reconstruct the French Blue around the recut stone.[35][36] Historians suggested that one robber, Cadet Guillot, took several jewels, including the French Blue and the Côte-de-Bretagne spinel, to Le Havre and then to London, 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.
In a contrasting report, historian Richard Kurin speculated that the "theft" of the French Crown Jewels was in fact engineered by the revolutionary leader Georges Danton as part of a plan to bribe an opposing military commander, Duke Karl Wilhelm of Brunswick.[12] When under attack by Napoleon in 1805, Karl Wilhelm may have had the French Blue recut to disguise its identity; in this form, the stone could have come to Britain in 1806, when his family fled there to join his daughter Caroline of Brunswick. Although Caroline was the wife of the Prince Regent George (later George IV of the United Kingdom), she lived apart from her husband, and financial straits sometimes forced her to quietly sell her own jewels to support her household. Caroline's nephew, Duke Karl Friedrich, was later known to possess a 13.75-carat (2.750 g) 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[edit]
A blue diamond with the same shape, size, and color as the Hope Diamond was recorded by John Francillon 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,[9][12] although a second less definitive report claims that the Hope Diamond's "authentic history" can only be traced back to 1830.[34] The jewel was a "massive blue stone of 45.54 carats"[12] and weighed 177 grains (4 grains = 1 carat).[9] It is often pointed out that this date was almost exactly twenty years after the theft of the French Blue, just as the statute of limitations for the crime had taken effect.[12] 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, but 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, in the sense that the Hope Diamond had been cut from the French Blue.[9
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