The Hope Diamond is the most famous blue diamond ever found. It is a 45.52ct cushion shaped diamond and has one of the richest histories of any diamond. Iconic jeweller Harry Winston was the last paying owner of the diamond and he donated it in 1958 to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington where it is currently displayed.

Lets talk about what makes the Hope Diamond blue.

There are different types of diamonds depending on their chemical makeup. Yes all diamonds are made of carbon but depending on the elements in each stone depends on its type.

The Hope Diamond and any blue diamond are Type IIb. Type IIb diamonds have boron atoms within their structure and its the born that make them blue.
Blue diamonds make up 0.1-0.2% of all diamonds. They are incredibly rare.

The Cursed Diamond

If you know the Hope you may know it is the “Diamond of Disaster” or that it brings bad luck to anyone who ownes it, both of course are untrue.

The claims of bad luck against the Hope Diamond stem from awful things happening to the owners of the stone. This includes:

Jean Baptiste Tavernier (who sold the stone to King Louis XIV of France) being killed by wild dogs.
King Louis XIV of France had immense political trouble in his reign.
King Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette were both executed during the French Revolution.
Evalyn Walsh McLean suffered the deaths of her son and husband and her daughter had many mental challenges.
James Todd, who is the only person who didn’t own the diamond but was the postman delivering the diamond to the Smithsonian Institute, suffered a crushed leg and house fire.

These are widely discredited and seen as coincidence.

As we said above the Hope Diamond has one of the richest histories. We won’t go in to every detail but the Hope’s first known whereabouts was in 1668 when it was sold to Louis XIV of France by Jean Baptiste Tavernier. It is unclear how he became in possession of the stone.
It is not known the exact shape and weight of the Hope at this time but it is thought to have been around 110.50ct.

The Hope has been owned by French Royalty, included in the French crown jewels, had different names and re-cut multiple times. In 1673 Louis XIV instructed his goldsmith to recut the diamond into a heart shape. This re-cutting is said to have reduced the size to 69.03ct.

During a time of unrest in France in 1791, which lead to the executions of the King and Queen, the ruling Constituent Assembly enforced an inventory to be made of the crown jewels which resulted in them being moved to Garde Meuble which was in part, a museum.

Members of the public were able to visit the jewels which resulted in a robbery where the Hope diamond was stolen. The Hope was then taken to England by the head of the gang.

From here the Hope diamond was owned by multiple families and most notably when it was purchased by Pierre Cartier in 1910. Cartier purchased the Hope and had it reset and sold it to Evalyn Walsh McLean the following year.

Evalyn Walsh McLean wearing the Hope diamond

Following her death, Harry Winston purchased Evalyn Walsh McLean’s entire jewellery collection for between $1,250.000 and $1,500.000 in 1949.

Harry Winston is the final paying owner of the Hope diamond as in 1958 he presented it to the Smithsonian Institute stating he hoped this would be the start of a national collection which in time, will hopefully rival that in the Tower of London.

The Hope diamond is currently set into a necklace with a white diamond halo of 16 large diamonds in a variety of shapes along with a diamond set chain of 45 white diamonds.

GIA (Gemological Institute of America) has graded The Hope diamond as natural fancy deep grayish blue with even colour distribution and VS1 clarity. They also graded it to have no fluorescence however it does have strong red phosphorescence after exposure to UV light.

The Hope diamond displaying red phosphorescence