A Curse in Blue

Greetings Dear Reader!

As many of you might know, diamond is the gemstone of the month of April. So today I'm going to tell you the mysterious and unbelievable story of one such diamond. The fancy dark grayish-blue-coloured diamond, alternatively believed to be of steel-blue colour is the topic of discussion for the day.

Hope Diamond is the gemstone which has left behind a blood trail on its journey which started from India, followed by France, the United Kingdom and currently rests in the United States. 'Diamonds Are Forever' they say. And so are legends. Let us have an insight into the history of the world's most notorious diamond.

Hope Diamond was among the many diamonds which had been taken out from the Golconda mines in 1518 A.D. The original diamond which was of 112 carats was used in Lord Ram's statue that adorned the Ram-Sita Temple in the south of India. No one knows for how many years had the diamond stayed safe in the temple, but on hearing attractive tales about Golconda, French trader Jean Baptiste Tavernier reached the place in 1676. And then, he set eyes on this precious stone for the first time. Tavernier had the diamond removed from the temple by tempting the temple priest by a hefty amount. Thus the unique and priceless diamond had crossed over the Indian border forever. And thus started a string of misfortune.

Jean Baptiste Tavernier

Tavernier was in search of a rich person who would pay the proper price of the exquisite diamond. He showed it to King Louis XIV and struck a deal with him thus earning huge profits in return. In order to earn even heftier profits from the diamonds in Golconda, Tavernier undertook a second journey to India. However, on his journey he was attacked and killed by a tiger.

Meanwhile King Louis XIV decided to cut the diamond to make it even more compact and attractive. So the size and value of the diamond were reduced to become 45.5 carats. King Louis who had conquered the region around Mississippi River in the USA and named it Louisiana after his own name was adversely affected by the inauspicious stone in a way that he became an object of great abhorrence and had to sell the region of Louisiana for 15 million dollars to America.

King Louis XIV

The successor of Louis XIV, i.e. King Louis XV also lost a lot of territory they had previously conquered in Africa, Canada as well as India. Finally the diamond became a part of King Louis XVI's proud queen Antoniette's necklace. People in King Louis XVI's reign were starving but the king did not care. Queen Marie Antoniette passed a callous statement saying that if they don't have bread let them eat cake to satiate their hunger. This comment proved to fuel the already burning flames of anger. The revolution of people became aggressive and in 1793, both King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoniette were beheaded publicly.

Queen Marie Antoniette

After that the diamond along with the royal treasure of King Louis XVI was sent to a museum in Paris where it was looted by a French soldier Guillot. In order to remain in hiding, he reached England where he found it difficult to earn his livelihood. So he sold the fateful diamond to an English jeweller named James Fox in 1796.  The jeweller came to know that Guillot was of French origin and made him arrest in order to get rewarded. Guillot was arrested and was sentenced to 15 years if imprisonment by the British government.

Meanwhile, James Fox's son stole the diamond from him and sold it to another jeweller named Francis and committed suicide. Francis made a deal to sell the diamond with England's famous diamond  merchant Daniel Eliason. Three days after selling the diamond, Francis was found dead on his bed. Daniel Eliason made a deal to sell the diamond for 18,000 pounds with Henry Philip Hope in 1830. Thus the diamond got its name from that owner. Mr. Hope did not believe in the superstitions attached with the diamond. When he died in 1839, the diamond was inherited by his nephew who in turn bequeathed it to his beloved grandson Francis Hope.

Francis Hope went bankrupt and had to sell the diamond for 29,000 pounds to pay off his debts. The purchaser of the diamond was a French jeweller named Jacques Celot who became insane and committed suicide. Thereafter Prince Kanitowski of Czar ruled Russia became the new owner of the diamond. He presented the necklace to a French actress. A few years later the actress became a victim of her own pistol, while Kanitowski himself was stabbed with daggers by revolutionary Russian peasants. Thereafter the diamond passed into the hands of diamond merchant Simon Montharides who drowned in the sea off Gibraltar coast.

The diamond changed hands once again and was now owned by Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II who purchased it for 90,000 pounds in an auction held in Paris. He presented the diamond in a necklace to his queen Begum Subaya. Few years later, Sultan Hamid II had her wife beheaded when he became suspicious about her and the Sultan himself was dethroned and kept in house-arrest by Young Turks. Before dying, the Sultan had packed the diamond, sealed it and dispatched it secretly to Paris with one of his trusted courtiers.

Finally,the Hope Diamond was bought by the famous diamond jeweller Pierre Cartier, A diamond is never unlucky in the eyes of a jeweller; nevertheless Cartier made a deal for the diamond soon with American millionaire Edward McLean in 1911. His wife Evalyn loved the blue-coloured precious stone and Cartier decided to redesign the necklace such that the Hope Diamond was displayed as a pendant in the center of sixteen smaller diamonds. When Evalyn and Edward had gone to Kentucky in 1918, their 9-year old son escaped the eye of his bodyguards and ran out on to the heavy traffic road where he was mowed down by a car in full speed.

Evalyn McLean

A few years later, the circulation of Edward's newspaper 'The Washington Post' suddenly went down due to new government policies and he suffered heavy monetary losses. Edward lost the ownership of his newspaper. He divorced Evalyn and became a drunkard and finally breathed his last in abject poverty. Evalyn, who now owned the Hope Diamond continued her lavish and spendthrift lifestyle. In 1949, her 25-year old daughter died of an overdose of sleeping pills. The shock of her daughter's death proved fatal to Evalyn who passed away the next year. All of the diamonds she possessed, including the Hope Diamond were auctioned.

Harry Winston the famous diamond king purchased all the diamonds, the Hope Diamond included for a lump sum of 11,00,000 dollars. After some time, he sold all the diamonds except the Hope Diamond for 20,00,000 dollars. He organised a long program all over America to exhibit the lovely diamond and raise funds for a charitable cause. During the worldwide travels, the fame that the diamond got was mostly negative.The mysterious and unlucky past of the diamond made it difficult for Winston to find a buyer for this ill-omened, notorious diamond.

Harry Winston

Finally, in 1957 he thought of presenting the necklace of Hope Diamond along with 62 other diamonds to the famous Smithsonian Institution in Washington for permanent display. On November 10, 1958, the diamond was received at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. After about 56 years, even today the Hope Diamond is on display amid high security. To this day, the Hope Diamond continues to woo its viewers with its exquisite beauty, mystery and intrigue.

You can also read about the physical properties of the Hope Diamond here.

The legend of the Hope Diamond is as spellbinding as any other. Truly said ,'Diamonds are forever'. To sum up, the journey of the Hope Diamond from the Golconda mines of India to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington has remained notable. I hope that you enjoyed the story of this notorious diamond. Now, to conclude this post, this is Vandit signing off until we meet again. The 7th of this month, when I shall be back with the next post, marks the birthday of a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film director, producer and singer. The next post will be dedicated to this famous personality. Bye!