Famous Diamonds

History is filled with extraordinary diamonds that have marked their time — stones whose passage through thrones, vaults and revolutions reads like the history of Europe told in carbon. A handful stand above the rest.

The Cullinan

The largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found, the Cullinan weighed 3,106.75 carats. It was recovered on 26 January 1905 by Frederick Wells, a surface manager at the Premier mine, and named for Sir Thomas Cullinan, the mine’s owner. The Transvaal government bought the stone and presented it to King Edward VII, who entrusted it to the Asscher Brothers of Amsterdam. Months of study passed before anyone dared place it beneath the cleaving blade. It is said the first blow shattered the blade and left the stone untouched; the Cullinan split on the second.

Cleaving yielded nine major diamonds and ninety-six smaller stones. The two greatest went to the King: Cullinan I, the 530.20-carat pear-shaped Star of Africa, set in the British royal sceptre in the Tower of London; and Cullinan II, a 317.40-carat cushion, the front stone in the band of the Imperial State Crown. The remaining major stones — among them the 94.40-carat Cullinan III, the 63.60-carat Cullinan IV and the 18.80-carat Cullinan V — passed to Queen Mary in 1910 and were set into brooches and the circlet of her crown.

The Blue Hope

Many tales cling to the Hope. The superstition holds that it was prised from a statue of the goddess Sita, who cursed the thief and all who would later own it. Its true provenance is unknown; most probably Tavernier bought it in 1653 from the Kollur mine. From his sketches we know the stone was then triangular and weighed roughly 115 carats — the Tavernier Blue.

Tavernier sold it to Louis XIV in 1678, who had it re-cut to 67.125 carats and renamed it the French Blue, set into a cravat pin; Louis XV later mounted it in a pendant for the Order of the Golden Fleece. When the royal storehouse was robbed in September 1792, the stone vanished for decades. It re-emerged in 1839 in the gem collection of Henry Philip Hope — now the Blue Hope — and passed through many hands until Harry Winston bought it and, some years later, gave it to the Smithsonian Institution, where it rests today.

The Dresden Green

Unique among great diamonds for its natural apple-green colour, the Dresden Green announced itself in the London press of 1722:

On Tuesday last, in the afternoon, one Mr. Marcus Moses, lately arrived from India, had the honor to wait on his Majesty with his large diamond, which is of a fine emerald green colour. It is said there never was seen the like in Europe before, being free from any defect in the world. — The Post Boy, London, 25—27 October 1722

Frederick Augustus II of Saxony became its first royal owner, buying it from a Dutch merchant at the Leipzig Fair of 1741 — hence its name, for the capital of Saxony that has been its home for more than two centuries. Set in 1768 into a hat clasp by the jeweller Diessbach, alongside two larger white brilliants, it remains in that setting still, shown to the public in the Green Vault of Dresden Castle.

The Orlov

Held in the Diamond Fund of the Moscow Kremlin, the Orlov is often likened to the half of a hen’s egg. The 189.62-carat stone has origins lost in time, but the favoured tale runs thus: a French deserter, having heard of a diamond that served as the eye of a temple deity at Srirangam, feigned conversion for years to reach the sanctuary, stole the stone and fled. Brought to Amsterdam by an Armenian merchant named Shaffrass, it was acquired by Count Grigory Orlov, who hoped to win back the affection of Catherine the Great. The romance failed; the Empress kept the diamond, named it for the Count, and had it set in the imperial sceptre. Its rose cut and faint bluish tone so resemble the lost Great Mogul that some believe them one and the same — though the claim remains speculation.

Koh-i-Nûr — Mountain of Light

The Koh-i-Nûr, the Mountain of Light, is the oldest of all the famous diamonds. It is recorded in the possession of the rajahs of Malwa from 1304, and when Sultan Babur invaded India two centuries later it passed to the Mogul emperors. The 5th Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, set it as the eye of the peacock in his fabled Peacock Throne. When Nadir Shah of Persia invaded Hindustan in 1739 he carried the throne away; after his assassination in 1747 it was dismantled and dispersed, and the Peacock Throne with its diamonds was never seen again.

The Excelsior

Found at the Jagersfontein mine on 30 June 1893, the Excelsior weighed 970 carats. An African worker hid it from his overseer and carried it straight to the mine manager, receiving a horse with saddle and bridle and £500 for his honesty. The stone carried the rare blue-white tint of Jagersfontein — the colour grade later named Jager — a hue eventually understood to come not from the diamond’s true body colour but from fluorescence under daylight. The Asscher Brothers cleaved it in 1902; its largest fragment, a 69.80-carat marquise, became the Excelsior I.

The Regent

The Regent is said to have been found by a slave at the Parteal mines around 1701, concealed in the bandages of a self-inflicted wound — a tale that ends, as such tales do, in murder and remorse, and which remains unverified. What is certain is that in 1702 Governor Thomas Pitt of Madras bought a 426-carat rough at great price, naming it the Pitt Diamond. Two years of cutting in England produced a 141-carat cushion brilliant, still regarded as among the finest of the great diamonds for its colour and clarity.

In 1717 Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and Regent of France, bought it for some $650,000 — and the Pitt became Le Régent. Louis XV wore it at his coronation in 1722 and later in his hat. Stolen in the 1792 robbery of the royal storehouse, it was recovered a year later from a hole in a Paris garret. Napoleon Bonaparte redeemed it permanently in 1801 and had the goldsmith Nitot set it in the hilt of his sword. It later adorned the crowns of Louis XVIII, Charles X and Napoleon III, and the diadem of the Empress Eugénie. When much of the French crown jewels were auctioned in 1883, the Regent was kept back. It rests today in the Louvre.