The story of the cursed Hope diamond is a tale about the biggest jewellery robbery of all time - and about the disguise and resale of one of the biggest items in 19th century London.
The curse begins in India in the 17th century when French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier acquired a large, crudely triangular, 112-carat blue diamond while traveling. It’s said he had stolen the diamond from the forehead of a statue of the Hindu goddess Sita, triggering years of misfortune.
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Portrait of Tavernier in Persian dress, given to him in 1665 by the King of Persia Pubic domain |
Jean-Baptisete sold the “Tavernier Blue” to King Louis XIV of France in 1668 and was supposedly the first victim, torn apart by wild dogs in Russia - although it’s known that he actually returned to France where he died aged 84.
Royal jeweller Sieur Pitau recut the gem into a 69-carat stone, and it became part of the French Crown Jewels, renamed as the French Blue, and was reset into the Golden Fleece.
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Credit: Link to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toison2010.png A recreation of the Golden Fleece of King Louis XV of France, 218 years after the original jewellery had been stolen and destroyed. |
A recreation of the Golden Fleece of King Louis XV of France, 218 years after the original jewellery had been stolen and destroyed.
It was passed down to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; they both died by guillotine in 1793. Louis was killed in January, accused of treason against the French Republic. Marie Antoinette was killed in October, accused of high treason, incest (falsely), and depleting the national treasury.
They certainly suffered a grim end, curse or no. Prior to that, during the Reign of Terror in 1791, the royal couple had attempted to flee, taking the crown jewels (including the blue diamond) with them but were prevented from leaving.
In August 1792, the monarchy was officially abolished, and the royal possessions, including the famed Crown Jewels, became state property. The treasure, more than 10,000 gems, were held in the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, although it was not a secure building.
The details of the theft are disputed. Over several nights in September, thieves repeatedly entered by breaking windows and forcing doors; they broke open cases and systematically removed jewels. It’s unclear how they could not have been spotted or why the locks on the cupboards housing the diamonds were not forced. Whoever was behind it, it was the largest theft of royal or state property in European history, and it involved the greatest concentration of gemstone wealth by volume ever taken in a single event.
Despite the chaos in France, by October 1792 authorities had recovered about two-thirds of the stolen items. Several thieves were caught and some executed. But the French Blue was not recovered.
Twenty years passed, and the French statute of limitations on the theft expired.
Just two days after that expiry, in 1812, a blue diamond of about 45.5 carats surfaced in London, owned by jeweller Daniel Eliason. Eliason did not exhibit the gem or publicize its sale, but a memorandum of his lists the gem.
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| The Hope Diamond Public domain |
Scholars think this was the French Blue, recut to disguise its origins. Whoever had it had deliberately waited two decades until legal repercussions were no longer possible before attempting to sell it.
Given its history, it’s not surprising perhaps that its status is unclear over the next 20 years. Most historians believe the diamond passed through private collectors or intermediaries in London during this time, wealthy clients of Eliason unwilling to publicly claim ownership of a stolen royal gem.
The diamond then reliably surfaced in the early 1830s when it entered the collection of Henry Philip Hope (1774-1839), a wealthy Anglo-Dutch banker based in London, one of Europe’s foremost gemstone collectors of the time. It was listed in an inventory of his extensive gem collection, compiled around the time of his death.
The stone passed to Hope’s nephew Henry Thomas; he displayed it at The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 - the Hope Diamond’s first public exhibition in the UK. By the 1890s, Lord Francis Hope had inherited it, but he was financially ruined - supposedly another curse victim - and he sold it in 1901 to satisfy his debts. It went to Joseph Frankel of New York in 1902, leaving Britain for ever, after nearly a century, mostly in the hands of private aristocratic collections.
An American socialite, Evalyn Walsh McLean, then bought the Hope Diamond, wearing it frequently. Her son was killed in a car crash, her daughter died of an overdose, and her husband then left her and went insane.
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| Public domain Poster for the American film serial The Hope Diamond Mystery (1921) with Grace Darmond. |
Finally, Harry Winston, one of the most famous US jewellers of the 20th century, donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958. While it may seem surprising that he gave away one of the most valuable gems in the world, he was a patron of gemological education and had a vision, successfully realised, to create a “National Gem Collection” at the Smithsonian. There was one final strike of the curse, though - he sent the gem by mail and the postman who delivered it supposedly injured his leg, crashed his truck, and saw his wife die shortly after. (These stories are considered false.)
The curse narrative is said to have been dreamed up by Pierre Cartier in 1910–11 as a sales tactic to pique Evalyn McLean’s interest in the diamond. US tabloids ran with it. Discounting the superstition, the story of the Hope Diamond is one that epitomises many aspects of European history. There was a violent redistribution of power and wealth by the French mob. London then played a key role in laundering one of the most famous French crown jewels of all time, even at a reduced size. And America ended up with the wealth.
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About the author:
Samuel Mee is founder of The Anique Ring Boutique. He is a member of LAPADA and the Society of Jewellery Historians.
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