The Hope Diamond

Courtesy of author Richard W. Wise,
Author of The French Blue
©2009

On a dark night in September of 1792, someone made off with the 69 carat French Blue diamond. Confiscated from King Louis XVI by the revolutionaries of the French National Assembly, the gem, along with the rest of the French Crown Jewels, had been secreted in a royal storehouse for safe keeping.

Many of the gems stolen that night were subsequently recovered by the French government. The French Blue was never seen or heard of again.

In September of 1812, a deep blue diamond weighing 177 grains (44.25 carats) was reported in the possession of London diamond merchant, Daniel Eliason.

In 1830 this stone, now listed at its correct weight of 44.52 carats, became part of the collection of the Anglo-Dutch financier Henry Philip Hope. Most scholars have come to believe that the Hope Diamond is a recut version of the original French Blue.

Why would anyone recut one of the world’s most valuable diamonds and sacrifice twenty-four very pricey carats? Blue diamonds, whether measured by size or weight, are one of the world’s most valuable substances.

Due to diamond’s extremely tight atomic bonding, rarely are color causing chemical impurities such as boron, the element responsible for the blue color, able to work their way into the diamond’s pure carbon crystal structure.

Even at its reduced state, The Hope is the largest gem-quality blue diamond known and is worth, depending upon whom you ask, somewhere between fifty and two hundred million dollars.

Is the Hope Diamond truly the remains of the French Blue and if so, when was it recut, why and by whom? High tech computer modeling coupled with some remarkable detective work may provide a final answer to both questions.

In January of 2007, François Farges, Curator of the gem collection of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris), located a lead model of the original French Blue diamond along with the model of another famous stone, the Mirror of Portugal.

Lead model of the French Blue Diamond found in the archives of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris). Image courtesy of that institution.

This was no random search; Farges knew exactly what he was looking for. Entries in the museum’s log book show that these models were donated to the museum in 1850 by Charles Archard, the scion of a famous family of French gem cutters. A label found with the lead model translates as :
“Model of a remarkably limpid diamond belonging to Mr Hoppe of London.”

A scan of the original label associated with the lead model of the French Blue: Courtesy: Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris).

Computer model of the Hope Diamond (solid blue) shown within the outline of the original French Blue diamond. Courtesy: Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris). Both show a face-up only view.

Using information from the newly discovered lead model, lapidary/historian Scott Sucher created a computer model and a precise replica which appears to remove all doubt as to the connection between the Hope and the French Blue.

Since scholars first came to believe that the Hope was cut from the French Blue, there have been persistent rumors that two smaller diamonds were cut from the Blue, accounting for a few of those precious missing carats. Computer modeling has put an end to that claim as well .

Financier Henry Philip Hope

Sometime between 1791 and 1812 the stolen French Blue became the Hope Diamond. What remains a mystery is the identity of the person or persons who ordered the recut and their motives for recutting the gem.

The discovery of the lead model, together with its accompanying telltale label, strongly suggests that the French Blue came into the possession of Henry Philip Hope and was recut on his orders, but before we pursue that intriguing theory, a little bit of history.