Tavernier Blue
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The Tavernier Blue was the precursor diamond to the Blue Diamond of the French Crown (aka the French Blue). Subsequently, most scholars and historians believed that it was re-cut and, after a disappearance and reemergence into the public forum, was renamed the
Hope Diamond The Hope Diamond is a blue-violet diamond that has been famed for its great size since the 17th century. It was extracted in the 17th century from the Kollur Mine in Guntur, India,. The Hope Diamond is a blue diamond. Its exceptional size h ...
. In December 2007, the French mineralogy professor found in the reserves of the
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...
the lead model of the Tavernier Blue. This model came around 1850, and was given by the Parisian jeweller Charles Achard, who explained that the Anglo-Dutch collector Henry Philip Hope was the owner of the original stone. Moreover, the size of the model definitively proved that the Tavernier Blue was bigger than the Hope. This latest piece of evidence proved that the widely held suspicions about the origin of the Hope Diamond were correct.


Diamond details

Weighing 112 3/16 old French carats, the crudely finished gem was described by the French gem dealer
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–1689) was a 17th-century French gem merchant and traveler. Tavernier, a private individual and merchant traveling at his own expense, covered, by his own account, 60,000 leagues in making six voyages to Persia ...
as being "violet" in color. and of perfect clarity. It is believed to have been a Type IIb diamond. The diamond was certainly Indian in origin and likely sourced by Tavernier in 1666 at the
Kollur mine The Kollur Mine was a series of gravel-clay pits on the south bank of the Krishna River in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. It has produced many large diamonds, known as Golconda diamonds, several of which are or have been a part of crown je ...
of the Qutb Shahi dynasty's Golconda kingdom in today's
Guntur district Guntur district is one of the twenty six districts in the Coastal Andhra region of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The administrative seat of the district is located at Guntur, the List of urban agglom ...
,
Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...
. The stone, only slightly finished at this time, was eventually cut to present a more diamond-like appearance, in 1775.


Background and history

Tavernier was a French traveler and trader who returned to France from India with many of the largest gems of the era. He primarily sold merchandise to French royalty and the aristocracy. Tavernier sold the Tavernier Blue to
Louis XIV of France LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...
for cash. He also received a
Patent of Nobility The patent of nobility, also letters of nobility (always ), or diploma of nobility documented the legal act of ennoblement (granting rights of a nobleman to a "new man" and his family). The ennoblement was an event of ultimate importance in a feuda ...
as part of the sales price. The original stone was
set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...
into a cravat-pin in 1674, and became a central element in the elaborate
Order of the Golden Fleece The Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece (, ) is a Catholic order of chivalry founded in 1430 in Brugge by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to celebrate his marriage to Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy, Isabella of Portugal. T ...
pendant in 1715. It and the fleece were placed into the
French Crown Jewels The French Crown Jewels () and Regalia comprise the crowns, orb, sceptres, diadems and jewels that were symbols of Royal or Imperial power between 752 and 1870. These were worn by many Kings and Queens of France as well as Emperor Napoleon. T ...
in 1749. The Tavernier Blue was removed from the fleece and re-cut by court jeweler Jean Pitau into the 68-carat French Blue in 1775, on the orders of
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
. It was then returned to the Crown Jewels. The French Blue was stolen from the French Crown Jewels in 1792 during the turbulence of the French Revolution. It is generally believed that after the theft, the stone was cut into the 45.52-carat
Hope Diamond The Hope Diamond is a blue-violet diamond that has been famed for its great size since the 17th century. It was extracted in the 17th century from the Kollur Mine in Guntur, India,. The Hope Diamond is a blue diamond. Its exceptional size h ...
and several smaller stones in an attempt to prevent its proper identification. This
provenance Provenance () is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, p ...
was accepted by many historians and gemologists for years and was supported by research with 3D imaging and prototyping technology in 2005.


Possible remnants

Another large blue diamond believed to have been taken from the Tavernier was originally set in a ring for Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Russian
Emperor Paul I Paul I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his assassination in 1801. Paul remained overshadowed by his mother, Catherine the Great, for most of his life. He adopted the laws of succession to the Russian throne—rules that lasted ...
. It was given to the State Diamond Fund in 1860 by her daughter-in-law, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Later, it was mounted into a stick pin. The 7.6-carat stone is preserved in the collection of the
Alexander Palace The Alexander Palace (, ''Alexandrovskiy dvorets'', ) is a former imperial residence near the town of Tsarskoye Selo in Russia, on a plateau about south of Saint Petersburg. The Palace was commissioned by Catherine the Great in 1792. Due t ...
in
Tsarskoye Selo Tsarskoye Selo (, , ) was the town containing a former residence of the Russian House of Romanov, imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of Saint Petersburg. The residence now forms part of the Pushkin, Saint Peter ...
, near
St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
. The Russian stone's provenance as part of the Tavernier Blue is disputed.


Research into the origin of the Hope diamond and the Crown blue diamond


Research in France and the United States

A great deal of research has been carried out to determine whether the Hope Diamond was actually cut from the Crown Blue Diamond in order to conceal its French origin.N. Attaway, ''Lapidary Journal'', nov. 2005, p. 24-28. As early as 1856, the jeweller Charles Barbot compared the two diamonds by consulting the work of the historian Germain Bapst, which contained the only known representation of the blue diamond at the time (two imprecise engravings by Lucien Hirtz, depicting the actual size of the jewel on both sides). However, the Hope diamond does not ‘fit’ completely into the blue diamond. In his anthology of the Jewels of the French Crown, historian Bernard Morel attempts to reconstruct this diamond on the basis of these two engravings by Baptiste Morel. He assumes that these two engravings are approximate and has slightly but significantly stretched Hirtz's drawing of the blue diamond to Brisson's dimensions so that it can contain the Hope diamond. Recent American studies showing that the Hope was ‘undoubtedly’ cut from the Crown Blue Diamond are therefore subject to Brisson's intrinsic errors. Kurin in 2006 points out that these inaccuracies suggest that a reliable model of the Crown Blue Diamond needs to be known in order to definitively settle this question.


Latest discoveries

The one and only lead model of the French royal diamond was finally discovered in December 2007 by mineralogy professor during the cleaning of a mineralogical collection in the reserves of the
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...
. The back of the lead shows a corolla of 7 petals characteristic of the ‘Paris rose’ cut of Tavernier's blue diamond. François Farges then carried out historical research on this lead: he found in the mineralogical collections the original label of the lead, which had been donated around 1850 by the Parisian jeweller Charles Achard, who provided vital information on this mould: it stated that ‘Mr Hoppe icof London ’ had indeed owned the blue diamond in London. This discovery showed that the blue diamond was much better cut than previously thought. The model also shows that the Hope diamond was cut between 1792 (when the French diamond was stolen) and 1812 (when the English blue diamond appeared). Finally, according to the Museum's archives, it was Henry Philip Hope, after the death of his brother Thomas, who was the legal owner of the cut diamond until his death in 1839. It would appear that the London jewellers Eliason and Françillon acted as fronts to conceal the actual origin of the diamond, and that it was therefore a case of concealment.


See also

*
List of diamonds Diamond (gemstone), Diamonds occur naturally and vary in size, color, and quality, so the largest of a particular color may not be large in absolute terms, but may still be considered very desirable. Diamonds may also have high valuations in sal ...


Notes


References


Externalink link

* {{Commonscatinline Diamonds originating in India Blue diamonds Individual diamonds