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One of the most famous diamonds in history, the Hope diamond, came from India and weighed 112 3/16 carats when it was acquired around 1642 by French merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier,mens Cartier bracelet, who was struck by its "beautiful violet" color. He sold it to the King of France, Louis XIV, who had it re-cut to a 67 1/8 carat stone which royal inventories thereafter listed as the Blue Diamond of the Crown of France. The blue diamond passed through ownership by French and British royalty, famed jeweler Pierre Cartier, and U.S. socialites before it was purchased by jeweler Harry Winston along with the 94.8 carat Star of the East diamond,Cartier love Leve Necklace pink gold, 1949. In 1958, Winston donated the Hope diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, where it quickly became a star attraction.
Resetting and re-cuttings over the centuries reduced the Hope diamond to its present 45.52 carats, 40% of its original size. Today, it is set in a spectacular pendant surrounded by sixteen white diamonds, and still attracts countless admirers at the Smithsonian.
The Hope Diamond was long believed to have been cut from the French Blue, but this remained unconfirmed until a three-dimensional leaden model of the latter was recently rediscovered in the archives of the French Natural History Museum in Paris. Previously, the dimensions of the French Blue had been known only from two drawings made in 1749 and 1789; although the model slightly differs from the drawings in some details, these details are identical to features of the Hope Diamond, allowing CAD technology to digitally reconstruct the French Blue around the re-cut stone.
Many superlatives have been used to describe the hope diamond as a "superfine deep blue", often comparing it to the color of a fine sapphire "blue of the most beautiful blue sapphire". As colored diamond expert Stephen Hofer points out, blue diamond similar to the Hope can be shown by colorimetric measurements to be grayer than blue sapphires. In 1996, it was examined by using of proprietary scale, graded it fancy deep grayish blue. Visually, the gray modifier is so dark that it produces an "inky" effect appearing almost blackish-blue in incandescent light. Current photographs of the Hope utilize high-intensity light sources that tend to maximize the brilliance of gemstones.
Even jewelers who may have handled the Hope Diamond were not spared from its reputed malice: The insanity and suicide of Jacques Colot, who supposedly bought it from Eliason, and the financial ruin of the jeweler Simon Frankel, who bought it from the Hope family, were linked to the stone. But although he is documented as a French diamond dealer of the correct era, Colot has no recorded connection with the stone, and Frankel's misfortunes were in the midst of economic straits that also ruined many of his peers.
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