Really Big Diamonds
The Cullinan Diamond is the largest rough diamond which was discovered by John Wells who was the manager of the Premier Diamond Mining Company based in Cullinan in South Africa in 1905. It weighed more than 3,000 carats and is named after Sir Thomas Cullinan who owned the mine.
The Transvaal Government purchased this stone and had it cut into three parts and subsequently into eleven large gemstones. The story goes that when the diamond cleaver, Joseph Asscher, prepared to cut the diamond he had a doctor standing by and when he struck the diamond and it broke perfectly into two he fainted.
The Cullinan I or the Great Star of Africa is the largest polished gem from the stone. It was presented to King Edward VII and is now mounted in the head of the Sceptre with the Cross. The Cullinan II of Lesser Star of Africa is the third largest diamond in the world and forms part of the Imperial State Crown. Both are now part of the British Crown Jewels and are on display at the Tower of London.
The Koh-i-Noor (Persian: Mountain of Light) is also in the Crown Jewels. It originated in India and was once the largest diamond known in the world. It belonged to various Indian and Persian rulers, regularly being seized as a spoil of war. It was given to Queen Victoria two years after she became Empress of India in 1851. Prince Albert subsequently had the stone cut to its current 105 carats to increase its brilliance but reducing the weight by a vast 42%! It was then mounted in a tiara with more than two thousand other diamonds. The Koh-in-Nor is now set in the crown of the late Queen Mother and it rested on top of her coffin in 2002 as she lay in state.
The Darya-i-Noor< is one of the largest diamonds in the world. It is pale pink, which is one of the rarest colours in diamonds and weighs 182 carats (36.4 g). Its colour - pale pink - is one of the rarest to be found in diamonds. It currently forms part of the Iranian Crown Jewels which are held in the Central bank in Tehran but the Crown in which it sits can be seen in the Royal Treasure Museum.
Like the Koh-i-Noor this diamond was mined at the Golconda mines in Southern India. When the Nadir Shah of Persian invaded India in 1739 he stole the Darya-i-Noor and it has remained in Persia ever since.
Farah Pahlavi was a former empress of Iran who was exiled along with her husband in the late 1970s. She was forced to leave her amazing collection of jewels behind and amongst the items withheld was the Pahlavi Crown with the Darya-i-Noor as its centrepiece. This was made for her coronation by Van Cleef & Arpels. It took them six months to make and was studded with pearls, ruby emeralds and diamonds.
The Taylor-Burton< was a diamond purchased by the late actor Richard Burton for his wife Elizabeth Taylor’s fortieth birthday in 1972. The diamond weighted 69.42 carats after it was cut into a pear shape by Hollywood jeweller Harry Winston.
Following her divorce from Richard Burton six years later Miss Taylor announced she was putting the diamond up for sale to raise some money to build a hospital in Botswana. Henry Lambert, a New York jeweller, bought the Taylor-Burton for nearly $5,000,000 and subsequently sold it several months later to its present owner, Robert Mouawad. Mr Mouawad had the stone re-cut to straighten the edges slightly and it now weighs 68.09 carats
The Tiffany Yellow< is set in Jean Schlumberger's stunning Bird on the Rock brooch and has been seen by millions during almost seventy years of continuous display in Tiffany's store in New York. In 1971 the Tiffany Yellow returned to South Africa for an exhibition which marked the centennial celebrations of the Kimberly Mine, and fter an absence of forty years from London when Tiffany's re-opened their branch in Old Bond Street in 1986 they displayed the diamond at the opening.
The Tiffany Yellow was discovered in the 1870s in South Africa. The head of Tiffany's in Paris bought it for $18,000, on behalf of the firm and imported it to the United States in 1879. It was used to promote the famous film Breakfast at Tiffany’s which starred Audrey Hepburn as the delightful heroine Holly Golightly.
The Blue Heart or Eugenie Blue is a rare deep blue heart shaped diamond which weighs 30.82 carats.
Cartier purchased the diamond in 1910 and sold it to an Argentinian lady. It was set in a lily-of-the-valley corsage until Van Cleef & Arpels bought the gem in 1953 and reset it in a pendant of a necklace valued at $300,000 which was subsequently sold it to a European titled family. In 1959 Harry Winston, who is the famous Hollywood jeweller who supplies all the stunning pieces to stars during ceremonies like the Oscars, acquired the gem and sold it five years later mounted in a ring to Marjorie Merriweather Post who eventually donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC where it can still be seen.
The Porter Rhodes Diamond was considered to be the finest American diamond found up to 1880. It was discovered at the Kimberley Mine in South Africa by Mr Porter Rhodes who subsequently showed it to Queen Victoria who loved its great purity and beauty and Empress Eugénie said that it was "simply perfection”.
The Porter Rhodes was eventually sold to the London jewellery firm Jerwood & Ward, who had it re-cut in Amsterdam down to 56.60 carats and sold it to the Maharaja of Indore. He was a very wealthy man who abdicated in 1926 after a scandal had erupted over his affair with a dancer. In 1930 the second Duke of Westminster purchased it becoming the first of a long line of collectors ending with an influential American family who kept it for over thirty years before selling it to Lawrence Graff in 1987 who had it re-polished into a 54.04 carat diamond and mounted into a ring.
The history of the Hope Diamond began when the French merchant traveller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, purchased a large diamond from the Kollur mine in Golconda in India. It was triangular in shape and crudely cut with a colour was described as a "beautiful violet." It was believed to be cursed as it was the eye of an idol and had been stolen.
It was sold to King Louis XIV of France in 1668 and re-cut by Sieur Pitau, who was the court jeweller, into a 67 carat stone. It then became known as the "Blue Diamond of the Crown," or the "French Blue” and was set in gold and suspended on a neck ribbon which the king wore on ceremonial occasions.
After an attempt by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to flee France (they were subsequently beheaded) the jewels of the French Royal Treasury were turned over to the government and the French Blue diamond was stolen. In reappeared in 1812 when it was found in the possession of London diamond merchant, Daniel Eliason.
Rumour has it that it was acquired by King George IV of England, but when he died in 1830, debts were so enormous that the blue diamond was sold through private channels to the mega-rich Henry Philip Hope - the man from whom the diamond now takes its name. The Hope family were said to have been tainted with the diamond's curse as they went bankrupt. It remained in the family and eventually passed to Lord Francis Hope who ran up enormous gambling debts and was requested to sell the Hope diamond. Simon Frankel, an American jeweller, bought it in 1901 and took the diamond to the United States where it changed hands several times ending up with Pierre Cartier who mounted it in a pendant surrounded by sixteen white diamonds which are pear-shapes and cushion cuts. He sold it to Evelyn McLean who wore the Hope Diamond as a good luck charm, and a ball 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 chain also contains 45 white diamonds.
It began its curse on the family when Mrs McLean’s first born son died in a car crash when he was only nine, her daughter committed suicide at 25 and her husband was declared insane and confined to a mental institution until his death in 1941. The diamond was put on sale two years after her death in 1949 in order to settle debts from her estate, and was bought by Harry Winston who loaned the Hope to socialites and celebrities on numerous occasions to be worn at balls to raise money for charity. Winston donated the Hope diamond to the Smithsonian Institute in 1958 to act as the focal point of a new gem collection and to inspire others to donate.
The Hope Diamond’s most recent claim to fame is in the film Titanic starring Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet where the design of the infamous diamond necklace “The Heart of the Ocean” is based on the Hope Diamond.
This article was produced by The Diamond Store, an online Jewellery Store that specializes in the sale of all jewellery including: Diamond Stud Earrings, Diamond Hoop Earrings, Diamond Tennis Bracelets and Diamond Crosses.
posted by The Diamond Chicks at 5:32 PM
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