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Napoleon I Diamond Necklace


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The Napoleon necklace was a gift from Emperor Napoleon I to his second wife, Marie-Louise to celebrate the birth of their boy, Napoleon II, the Emperor of Rome, in 1811. The Ag and amber posed necklace, designed by Etienne Nitot et Fils of Paris was completed in 1811 and consists of 234 diamonds: 28 ellipse and cushion-manicuring diamonds, suspending a periphery ofxixbriolette-cut ellipse and boscs shaped diamonds and tonic by smalls, round diamonds and sparklers set motives. The diamonds are cut in the "past mine" variety, the precursor to the modern brilliant cut, consequent in achievers dispersion (flash of color as the stone move in shaft), but LE glare right to LE ray birefringence through the chapiter of the rock. The necklace has an estimated total barbell of 263 carat, the largest bingle ice weighing approximately 10.4 carat. When Marie-Louise died in 1847, the necklace was precondition to her sister-in-instrument, Archduchess Sophie of Austria, WHO removed deuce stones to shorten the necklace. Earrings were made with the deuce removed stones, the location of which are region. In 1872, the necklace was bequeathed to the Archduchess’ boy, Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria. In 1948, Archduke Ludwig’s grandchild, Prince Franz Joseph of Liechtenstein, sold the necklace to a French aggregator WHO then sold it to Harry Winston in 1960. Marjorie Merriweather Post obtained the necklace from Winston and donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1962.www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/dynamicearth/6_0_0_GeoGallery/g…

The Hope Diamond


Image by dbking
The Hope Diamond…The yesteryear of the stone which was eventually named the Hope diamond began when the French merchant traveller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, purchased a 112 3/16-kt diamond. This diamond, which was most likely from the Kollur mine in Golconda, India, was somewhat triangular in regulate and crudely cut. Its color was described by Tavernier as a "beautiful viola." Tavernier sold the diamond to King Louis XIV of France in 1668 withxivother large diamonds and several smaller I. In 1673 the stone was recut by Sieur Pitau, the court jeweler, resulting in a 67 1/8-carat stone. In the royal inventories, its color was described as an intense steely-blueness and the stone became known as the "Blue Diamond of the Crown," or the "French Blue." It was set in gold and suspended on a neck thread which the king wore on ceremonial occasions. King Louis XV, in 1749, had the rock device by tribunal jeweler Andre Jacquemin, in a portion of ceremonial jewelry for the Order of the Golden Fleece (Toison D’Or). In 1791, after an endeavor by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to flee France, the jewels of the French Royal Treasury were turned maiden to the regime. During a week-long robbery of the crown jewels in September of 1792, the French Blue ice was stolen. In 1812 a deep blue diamond described by John Francillion as weighing 177 grains (4 ingrained = 1 carat) was documented as being in the ownership of London ice merchant, Daniel Eliason. Strong evidence indicates that the rock was the recut French Blue and the same stone known today as the Hope Diamond. Several references suggest that it was acquired by King George IV of England. At his decease, in 1830, the king’s debts were so tremendous that the blueish diamond was probable sold through private channels. The first reference to the ice’s next owner is wage in the 1839 unveiling of the gem collection catalog of the well-known Henry Philip Hope, the man from whom the ice takes its agnomen. Unfortunately, the catalog does not reveal where or from whom Hope acquired the diamond or how much he paid for it. Following the death of Henry Philip Hope in 1839, and after much litigation, the diamond passed to his nephew Henry Thomas Hope and ultimately to the nephew’s grandson Lord Francis Hope. In 1901 Lord Francis Hope obtained permission from the Court of Chancery and his sisters to sell the lapidate to help pay off his debts. It was sold to a London dealer who quickly sold it to Joseph Frankels and Sons of New York City, WHO retained the stone in New York until they, in turn, needed cash. The diamond was next sold to Selim Habib who put it up for auction in Paris in 1909. It did not sale at the auctioneered but was sold soon after to C.H. Rosenau and then resold to Pierre Cartier that Lapplander year. In 1910 the Hope diamond was shown to Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, of Washington D.C., at Cartier’s in Paris, but she did not sort the setting. Cartier had the diamond reset and took it to the U.S. where he position it with Mrs. McLean for a weekend. This strategy was successful. The sale was made in 1911 with the diamond mounted as a headpiece on a three-tiered circlet of vauntingly white diamonds. Sometime later it became the pendant on a diamond necklace as we know it today. Mrs. McLean’s flamboyant community of the stone lasted until her expiry in 1947. Harry Winston Inc. of New York City purchased Mrs. McLean’s entire jewelry collection, including the Hope ice, from her belongings in 1949. This collection also included the 94.8-carat Star of the East diamond, the 15-carat Star of the South diamond, a 9-carat green sparkler, and a 31-carat diamond which is nowadays called the McLean diamond. For the nexttenyear the Hope diamond was shown at many exhibits and benevolent events world wide by Harry Winston Inc., including as the central attraction of their Court of Jewels exhibition. On November 10, 1958, they donated the Hope diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, and almost immediately the great blue rock became IT PM attraction. The Hope diamond has left the Smithsonian only four times since it was donated. In 1962 it was exhibited for a month at the Louvre in Paris, France, as portion of an evidences entitled Ten Centuries of French Jewelry. In 1965 the Hope diamond traveled to South Africa where it was exhibited at the Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg. In 1984 the diamond was lent to Harry Winston Inc., in New York, as portion of the house’sLth anniversary celebration. In 1996 the Hope diamond was again sent to Harry Winston Inc., in New York, this time for cleaning and some tiddler Restoration washing.The weight of the Hope sparklers for many years was reported to be 44.5 carats. In 1974 it was taking from its setting and found actually to weigh 45.52 carats. It is classified as a type IIb sparkler, which are semiconductive and usually phosphoresce. The Hope diamond phosphoresces a strong red color, which will conclusions for several seconds after windage to parcel breakers ultra-viola light. The sparkler’s blue coloration is attributed to hint amounts of B in the stone. In the pendant surrounding the Hope ices arexviCaucasian diamonds, both bosc-shapes and cushion cuts. A bail is soldered to the pendant where Mrs. McLean would often attach other diamonds including the McLean diamond and the Star of the East. The necklace concatenations contains 45 Caucasian diamonds. In December of 1988, a squad from the Gemological Institute of America visited the Smithsonian to grade the great bluish rock victimizations present day techniques. They observed that the gem shows evidence of wear, has a remarkably strong phosphorescence, and that its clarity is slightly affected by a whitish graining which is greens to discoloured diamonds. They described the color as a fancy dark grayish-blue. An examination on the same tomorrow by another gemologist using a very sensitive colorimeter revealed that there is a very slight violet component to the deep blue colour which is unperceivable to the naked eye. Still, one can only wonder that the original 112 3/16-carat rock bought by Tavernier was described as "un beau purplish" (a beautiful viola).The Legend Behind The Hope DiamondThis great blue diamond is perhaps the most notorious gem in history. It has left bottom it a trail of so many unlucky owners that it has been popularly said to be cursed. The Hope was mined in India, and the 112-carat gem was brought to France in 1668. It was said that a curse rested on it, for a thief was reputed to have stolen the ice from the oculus of a statue of the Hindu goddess Sita, battle-axe of Rama. Tavernier, WHO brought the gem from India to France, sold it to Louis XIV, who had it step-down into a 67-karat heart-determined stone and named it the Blue Diamond of the Crown. Tavernier is said to have been killed by wild dogs on his next flight to India. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette inherited the French Blue, as it was popularly known. In 1792, about the clips of their executions, the French Blue was stolen from the Garde-Meuble together with all of the French crown jewels. Some of the gems taken in this robbery were recovered, but not the Blue Diamond of the Crown. It is intriguing to line that a gem resembling the Hope is worn by Queen Maria Louisa of Spain in a self-portrait painted by Goya in 1800. There are reports that the stolen French Blue was recut to its present size by Wilhelm Fals, a Dutch diamond cutter. Fals is told to have died of heartache after his son, Hendrick stole the gemstone from him. Hendrick, in turn, committed suicide. In 1830, there appeared in London a 44.5-carat deep blueness oval-step-down sparklers the gem experts agree was the French Blue recut to conceal its identity. Henry H

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