Fancy blue diamonds

Since 1958, what almost certainly is the world’s most famous fancy blue diamond been on public display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Surprisingly for many of the millions of museum goers who traipse past its display case each year, it does not conform to the image that they generally have of a diamond, because of its color, which is a dark grayish blue.

It is believed that the stone, which later became known as the Hope Diamond, was discovered  at the Kollur mine in Golconda, India.  Its recorded history began in the early 1660s, when the French traveler Jean Baptiste Tavernier purchased a 112.2-carat, crudely cut stone he described as a “beautiful violet.”

Tavernier sold the diamond to King Louis XIV of France in 1668 and it was then recut, resulting in a 67.1-carat stone that became a centerpiece of the French crown jewels. It disappeared in September 1792, during the turmoil that followed the French Revolution, but turned up in london some 40 years later, and then changed hands several times during the century that followed. One of its owners was a certain Henry Philip Hope, from whence it got its name.