The famed Hope diamond, the largest of its kind in the world, has been set on a modern necklace in honour of the 50th anniversary of its arrival at Washington’s Smithsonian museum.
The centuries-old 45.52 carat gem, once part of the French crown jewels and rumoured to be cursed, will be mounted on a new platinum and diamond necklace designed by French craftsmen.
“We celebrate the 50th anniversary of this gift,” Cristian Samper, the director of the Museum of Natural History said, calling the diamond, which is the size of a pigeon egg, a “gift to the world”.
The diamond was donated to the museum over 50 years ago by the famed jeweller Harry Winston and has since become the second most-visited work of art in the world, after the Mona Lisa.
“The Smithsonian institution doesn’t put a price on it. It’s priceless, it’s irreplaceable,” Mr Samper says, adding that it has been insured for 250 million dollars.
“What can be done to dress up a stone of this size and this reputation? Not much,” said the setting’s 81-year-old designer Maurice Galli.
“It had to be simple but powerful,” said Mr Galli, who has designed jewellery for Tiffany and Van Cleef & Arpels.
The “Embracing Hope” setting was chosen in an online poll last year in which over 100,000 votes were cast.
The Smithsonian Channel Sunday premiered a new one-hour special on the stone’s storied past, from its origins in India in the Middle Ages, when it was likely over 100 carats, to its arrival at the museum in a simple paper envelope in 1958.
“Hollywood couldn’t make up a drama like the story of the Hope Diamond,” David Royle, the executive vice president of the Smithsonian Channel, said.
Among other strange qualities, the blue gem glows fiery red under ultraviolet light, fuelling its reputation of being cursed.
The diamond was bought by King Louis XIV of France in 1668 and disappeared during the French Revolution shortly before its most famous owners, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, went to the guillotine.
The diamond apparently changed hands a number of times, and at one point may have fallen into the hands of King George IV of England, who likely sold it to pay off his enormous debts, according to the Smithsonian Channel.
It resurfaced again in 1839 in the gem catalogue of Henry Philip Hope, earning its name, and was later displayed at the 1951 London Exhibition. The diamond then made its way to America, where it was briefly owned by Pierre Cartier before being sold to a Washington, DC socialite, Evalyn Walsh McLean.
A darling of high society and a friend of US presidents, Ms McLean would sport the diamond at social events and occasionally let her dog wear it, according to the Smithsonian Channel.
Mr Winston purchased McLean’s entire jewellery collection after her death and over the next nine years exhibited the Hope Diamond worldwide, before sending it to the Museum of Natural History in a simple brown paper package.
“Since the Hope’s arrival at the Smithsonian, the curse appears to have gone dormant,” the Channel said.