MAGAZINE

The Hope Diamond: From Louis XIV to the Smithsonian, three centuries of a blue found nowhere else

Bought in India by a French merchant, worn by the Sun King, stolen during the Revolution, recut to cover its tracks, resold by Cartier with a curse invented for the occasion — then shipped to the Smithsonian… by mail. The true story of the world’s most famous diamond.

It weighs 45.52 carats, has a deep blue that gemologists call “fancy dark grayish blue,” and is probably the most viewed museum object in the United States. But the Hope Diamond was not born at the Smithsonian: it came from an Indian mine, and it has crossed three centuries, changing cut three times, country six times, and identity at least once.

It all begins with a French merchant and traveler, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who brings back from India — most likely from the mines of Golconda — a rough blue diamond weighing about 112 carats. In 1668, he sells it to Louis XIV along with a whole lot of other stones. The Sun King has it recut into a 67-carat heart, the “Blue Diamond of the French Crown” — the Bleu de France. Louis XV has it set in the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the monarchy’s most sumptuous decoration.

Then comes the Revolution. In September 1792, the Garde-Meuble national, where the Crown Jewels are stored, is looted over five nights. The Bleu de France disappears — forever. For the stone that resurfaces in London twenty years later, in 1812, is a blue diamond of about 45 carats, recut and unrecognizable. Historians note that this is just after the statute of limitations for the theft expires. Proof would have to wait until 2008–2009: researchers, using a lead model of the Bleu de France found at the Paris museum, demonstrate that the Hope was indeed cut from the diamond stolen from Louis XIV.

The name itself comes from a London banker, Henry Philip Hope, whose collection catalogue lists the stone in 1839. After the Hopes, the diamond changes hands until it reaches Pierre Cartier, who understands something essential in 1910: the stone is magnificent, but the story sells better than the stone. He gathers the violent deaths, bankruptcies, and sorrows — real or contrived — of its previous owners into a “curse” and pitches it to a wealthy American heiress, Evalyn Walsh McLean, who had confided that ill-omened objects brought her good luck. In 1911, she buys the Hope for $180,000. She wears it all her life — including, according to family lore, sometimes hiding it in the cushions of her sitting room during receptions, to make her guests search for it.

In 1949, New York jeweler Harry Winston buys the collection of the late Mrs. McLean. For nine years, he takes the Hope around America in his “Court of Jewels,” a traveling exhibition benefiting charitable causes. Then, on November 10, 1958, he makes a gesture that establishes the United States’ national gem collection: he gives the diamond to the Smithsonian. And he ships it from New York to Washington… by post, registered mail, in a brown paper package. The receipt — $145.29, including insurance — is displayed beside the stone.

Since then, the Hope has left the National Museum of Natural History only a handful of times. Tens of millions of visitors have passed by its revolving display case. The “curse” has claimed no further victims — unless you count the sleep of a few curators: the 1958 postal package remains, to this day, the most casual precious-stone transport in museum history.

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