This week Seventy Seven Diamonds brings you a list of the most exquisite and famous blue-coloured diamonds that have featured throughout history. Find about their history, their diamond credentials, and what it is that makes them so famous.
The Regent Diamond
This diamond was also commonly known as the Pitt Diamond and was discovered by a slave in the legendary Golconda mine, India, in 1698. The sparkler wasn’t hard to miss; it weighed an impressive 410 carats. However, the slave hid the stone and managed to escape to the coast – only to be murdered for the stone by an English sea captain.
The captain sold the stone to an Indian diamond merchant for an estimated £3,431. Thomas Pitt, Governor of Fort George in Madras, then bought the blue stone from the merchant in 1702 for £68,610. Thomas Pitt was grandfather to the famous American Revolutionist William Pitt and he was the one who transported the diamond to England for cutting.
The Regent Diamond is a cushion-shaped, brilliant cut diamond, white in colour but with a faint blue tinge. It now weighs approximately 140.50 carats and measures around 32mm x 34mm x 25mm. The moulding of the stone took 2 years before it was turned into the charming Regent Diamond – thought to be one of the finest cut diamonds in existence!
The Hope Diamond
A large, deep blue diamond, weighing 45.52 carats. The cryptic tale of the stone is equally as legendary as the diamond itself; a gem which supposedly brings a curse upon all whom possess it.
Some accounts show the original form of the Blue Hope diamond was stolen from the eye of a sculpted idol of the Hindu goddess Sita, the wife of Rama, the Sixth Avatar of Vishnu. But others propose it was found at the Kollur Mine in the Guntur district of the old Golkonda Kingdom, India. It was smuggled to Paris by merchant traveller Jean Baptists Tavernier and eventually sold to King Louis XIV.
The Hope Diamond was cut from its precursor, the Tavernier Blue (named after its’ smuggler), which was 112.5 carats in rough form. The diamond appears a brilliant blue to the naked eye due to trace amounts of boron existent within the diamond, but emits red phosphorescence under ultraviolet light. It is currently displayed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.
Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond
Another of the large blues is this 31.06 carats (6.21 g) fancy diamond with internally flawless clarity, deep blue in hue. The original Wittelsbach Diamond, also known as Der Blaue Wittelsbacher had been part of both the Austrian and Bavarian Crown jewels and was a 35.56-carat (7.11 g) fancy deep greyish-blue diamond with VS2 clarity.
The Mouawad Blue
This pear-shaped fancy blue-coloured diamond weighs 42.92 carats and is probably of Indian origin. First owned by the Tereschenko family of Russia, it was sold before the Russian Revolution in 1916 and was most recently sold by Christie’s (Geneva) in 1984 to a Saudi Arabian dealer. The final bid of £3.2 million, was the highest price ever paid for a diamond at auction at that time. This diamond also goes by the name Tereschenko, but Robert Mouawad remains the owner today.
The Eugenie Blue
The 30.82 carats diamond is also referred to as the Blue Heart diamond is a heart-shaped fancy vivid deep blue diamond. Legend tells it that the Blue Heart was once owned by Empress Eugenie (Eugénie de Montijo) – wife of Napolean III. The country of origin is unknown but it was cut into its heart shape around 1909/10 by Atanik Ekyanan of Paris. It has been purchased by Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels and jeweller Harry Winston. It was most recently donated by its last private owner to the Smithsonian Museum , where it is displayed as part of their diamond collection.
