Features and history of the Hope diamond

Diamonds have always been of particular value. Many of them are associated with dark and frightening stories, ancestral curses. One of these is the Hope Diamond.

The Hope diamond is currently stored at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA). The exhibit is on display. It is considered one of the largest and weighs 45.52 carats (9.104 g). Its cut is called "cushion". The rounded corners and convex sides visually resemble a pillow, therefore another name for the cut is "pillow". The diamond has the following dimensions: length - 25.60 mm, width - 21.78 mm, height - 12 mm.

The purity of a diamond was determined in 1988 by experts from the Gemological Institute (USA). The result obtained corresponds to the VS1 indicator. The existing inclusions and defects are practically invisible even at 10 times magnification. Hope is now the centerpiece of the opulent necklace. It is surrounded by 45 colorless diamonds (pear cut, cushion cut). The second name of the diamond is "Blue Frenchman".

Hope owes its appearance to Europe to Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a French merchant specializing in the jewelry trade. The main occupation of the trader was the purchase of precious stones in India for the purpose of their further resale and increasing the initial value many times over.

Legend has it that a sapphire-colored diamond was used to decorate the statue of the goddess Sita (Rama's wife). How he ended up in Tavernier's hands is unknown. It is doubtful that the merchant personally stole him from the temple, but the fact remains. The original weight of the stone was 23 grams, the shape is triangular. The cut was done roughly, but this did not affect the condition of the diamond. Jean-Baptiste called its color "marvelous purple".

The Indians believed that the attempt on the statue of the deity would not go unpunished. Anyone who turns out to be the owner of the crystal will inevitably be punished: failure, misfortune and even death. But despite this, Tavernier returned to his homeland (though 26 years later), sold the stone to the court jeweler of Louis XIV who was reigning at that time, for which he received the title of nobleman. The merchant spent the last years of his life in Russia, where he was buried. Nothing is known about any tragic moments in his life.

In ancient times, he adorned the ring of Empress Maria Feodorovna. The king of France began to own the larger stone. It was he who gave the second name to the luxurious crystal - "Blue Frenchman".

The pendant was a favorite adornment of the Bourbons and brought the wrath of the Indian gods not only on this dynasty. The Sun King presented the diamond to his favorite, the Marquise de Montespan, who had been pleasing him for many years. However, after such a generous gift, Louis XIV suddenly lost interest in his mistress and expelled her, not forgetting to take the diamond. Seven months later, the king fell from his horse while hunting and injured his leg. The strongest gangrene began, which became the reason for his death.

The series of tragedies did not end there: in a year, death took away all the heirs to the throne. Only his grandson survived, who began to rule France. The diamond was in the royal treasury for many years, as Louis XV was superstitious and afraid of the curse of the stone. The king did not immediately decide to decorate his costume with it. The Marquise Dubarry partially repeated the fate of the Marquise de Montespan. Having received a diamond pendant from Louis XV as a gift, the favorite quickly fell out of favor. Later she was accused of adherence to counter-revolutionism and executed.

The family of Louis XVI did not escape the curse of the "Blue Frenchman". The life of the royal family was interrupted by a guillotine. Moreover, the friend of Marie Antoinette, who several times wore a luxurious necklace, tragically died at the hands of a raging drunk crowd.

The second coming of the ominous stone falls on the year 1820. The cut and weight of the diamond had changed by that time. King George IV became the owner of the diamond. The talent and intelligence of the monarch seemed to dissolve in a transparent crystal. According to contemporaries, the changes that have taken place in the personality of the king turned out to be out of the ordinary. Wild orgies and drunkenness became the eternal companions of the ruler. After his death, the jewel was put up for auction, where it was acquired by Henry Philip Hope for 18 thousand pounds sterling (1839). It was at this time that the diamond received another loud name.

Banker Hope has become another victim of the ill-fated jewelry. The owner died for an unknown reason, and the stone began to pass from one heir to another. But he did not bring them anything good: the son was poisoned, the grandson went bankrupt. After Henrietta, Philip's great-granddaughter, married the Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme, the diamond began to belong to a new dynasty.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Hope diamond ended up in the East. Initially, it was acquired by a collector from Turkey, but he was not destined to possess such a treasure for long.The ship was caught in a violent storm, thrown from side to side, like the people on board. A fracture of the cervical vertebrae interrupted the collector's life. This is not the end of the dark journey of the crystal in the East. It passes into the hands of Abdul-Hamid II. The Sultan of Turkey gives a blue diamond to his beloved concubine, and after a while she is killed by robbers. An evil fate befell Abdul-Hamid himself. Deposed from the throne in 1909, he spent the last years of his life in prison.

For some time the owner of the stone was Prince Kandovitsky. The Russian prince presented a blue diamond to his beloved - a famous dancer, distinguished by her frivolity. The prince, blinded by jealousy, shot his girlfriend, but he himself also did not escape the curse of the stone. The native dancers avenged her death by hiring a hitman.

By the end of the 20th century, the Hope again had the diamond. The Earl of Lincoln, who lived in the United States, was the direct heir to the banker. The stone brought ruin and poverty with it. The earl's wife, unable to withstand such a plight, left her husband, giving preference to the rich and well-to-do mayor of New York. The critical situation led to the sale of the jewelry.

The famous jeweler Pierre Cartier gave the jewelry a modern design. The Frenchman paid a fabulous sum for his purchase - 550 thousand francs. But Cartier did not stop there: a new cut (cushion), a frame of 16 white diamonds. This is how an expensive and luxurious necklace was born.

Researchers believe that the Hope family deliberately created a halo of ominous mystery around the stone. After all, this directly affected its cost. Collectors had large sums of money and did not hesitate to give them at auctions for a blue diamond, on which lay the curse of the Indian gods. All this was taken into account by Pierre Cartier. As a successful businessman, he decided to sell the necklace.

The jeweler skillfully fueled interest in jewelry, using the mysterious and tragic stories associated with the "Blue Frenchman". As a result, Evelyn McLean becomes the new owner. She felt both terror and awe of the diamond. The dark stories of the previous owners prompted her to cover the purchase at the church, but this attempt was unsuccessful. Eyewitnesses claimed that the love for the necklace was in the nature of an obsession: Evelyn did not part with the diamond. Further, a series of tragic events occurs in the family: against the background of alcohol addiction, Evelyn's husband ends up in a clinic for the mentally ill, her son dies under the wheels of a car, her daughter commits suicide.

After her death, McLean bequeathed the crystal to her grandchildren. They did not tempt fate and sold the inheritance to the jeweler Harry Winston, thereby paying off the debts of their grandmother. A pragmatist by nature, the jeweler did not attach importance to the sinister historical side of the phenomenon, although he had heard about the tragic fate that befell all the owners of the stone. He was, perhaps, the only and last owner who did not suffer from the Blue Frenchman. Winston hosted a variety of charity events and evenings where he showed off the Hope Diamond.

In 1958, Harry Winston sold the necklace to the Smithsonian Institution, where it remains to this day. The payment for the luxurious exhibit was purely symbolic - $ 146. The decoration was mailed, wrapped in rough brown paper.

See the next video for the Hope Diamond.