History Of Diamonds 2

The Great Mogul was discovered in the 17th century. The stone was named after Shah Jehan who built the Taj Mahal. The rough is said to have weighed 793 carats. It was found in the mid-seventeenth century in Hyderabad, India. It is said that the stone was so badly cut that the lapidary, instead of being paid by the Shah, was forced to pay a heavy fine. Its whereabouts are not presently known, and it may no longer exist as a single large Stone. It has been confused with several other famous diamonds, most importantly the Orloff, which has also been described as a faintly blue rose-cut stone.

The Orloff is thought to have weighed about 300 carats when it was found. At one time it was confused with the Great Mogul. One tale told is that the Orloff was set as the eye of a god in the temple of Sri Rangen and was stolen by a French soldier disguised as a Hindu. He is said to have escaped by swimming down a raging river during a storm. It was eventually sold to Prince Gregory Orloff. In an attempt to win back her heart, he gave it to Catherine the Great, who collected lovers and precious gems with equal passion. She had the diamond mounted on top of the double eagle in the Imperial scepter. It is in the Russian Diamond Fund, Moscow.

A flattened pear shaped stone the size of a bantam's egg, its polished size is 70.20 carats. This is another famous diamond that was once set in the eye of an idol before it was stolen. Legend also has it that it was given as a ransom for Princess Rasheetah by the Sheik of Kashmir to the Sultan of Turkey who had abducted her.

A truly historic diamond discovered in 1701 by an Indian slave near Golconda, it weighed 410 carats in the rough. Once owned by William Pitt, the English Prime Minister, it was cut into a cushion shaped brilliant of 140.50 carats and, until it was sold to the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France when Louis XV was a boy in 1717, was called The Pitt. It was then renamed The Regent and set in the crown Louis XV wore at his coronation. After the French revolution, it was owned by Napoleon Bonaparte who set it in the hilt of his sword. It is now on display in the Louvre.

It's your choice to believe in curses or not but when it comes to this diamond, it was said to be cursed after it was stolen from an idol in India. More notorious than any other diamond, the Hope was once owned by Louis XIV and was officially designated "the blue diamond of the crown." Stolen during the French Revolution, it turned up in London in 1830 and was bought by Henry Philip Hope, after whom it is currently named. It was while the diamond was in the possession of the Hope family that it acquired its gruesome reputation for bad luck. All his family died in poverty. A similar misfortune befell a later owner, Mr. Edward McLean. It is now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.