- Hope Diamond
The most expensive piece of jewelry in the world is worth $ 250 million.
«Cursed stone», «blue Frenchman», «left eye of the god Rama», «stone of the goddess Sita», as soon as this famous cut diamond was not called. Its mass is 45.52 carats, which makes this gem one of the largest diamonds in the world. Experts believe that its unusual sapphire blue color is due to the presence of small amounts of boron atoms. Before the stone turned into Hope’s diamond, it was even bigger than it is now. It is believed to have been mined in one of the Golconda mines in South India. In 1666, it was bought by a French jeweler named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and named Tavernier’s Blue Diamond. After a while, the stone was divided into several parts.
One of the small stones was set in the ring of the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna and is now in the Diamond Fund.
Another — a 69-carat blue Frenchman — was sold to King Louis XIV, for a long time was among the treasures of the French crown, and after the Great French Revolution went under the hammer, after which his traces were lost. Presumably, the re-cut stone was somehow acquired by the English aristocrat Henry Hope.
It seemed that not only humans but also evil forces showed an increased interest in the blue diamond.
The thief, who tried to steal it from the statue of Sita, according to legend, died from lightning that struck him.
On one of his travels, Tavernier unexpectedly fell ill and died in Moscow, on his way from Copenhagen to Persia.
In 1715, Louis XIV, who often wore the stone, showed it to the ambassador of the Shah of Persia to demonstrate the complete safety of the jewel. In the same year, the king of France died.
But Louis XV escaped the curse by ordering to keep the stone in the chest.
Marie Antoinette, who wore a diamond, was executed by guillotine, like her husband, King Louis XVI of France.
These are just the most famous examples because the «blue Frenchman» had many owners. Currently, the blue diamond is one of the stars of the exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in the United States.
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