Ancient artifacts have excited historians for centuries. The discovery of old gemstones and jewelry crafted by our ancestors has enabled us to re-discover the past and understand who we were as a people. With each new found treasure comes the potential to unlock information about the life and times of the civilization to which it belonged.
These adornments paint a picture. They tell a story. The gemstones and pieces of gold, mined from the earth, carry the earth’s vibrations. But what if they are capable of more? What if these natural materials can absorb other vibrations? What if the jewelry we wear can take in OUR vibrations? Our deepest and darkest thoughts? Our fears, our hatred, and our sickness? And if these precious stones can absorb the darkness within us, can they conversely exude the darkness of former owners? Can jewelry be cursed? In this article we examine whether THIS diamond is a girl’s best friend or a treacherous force.
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a 17th century Protestant gem merchant from France. He became obsessed with travel at a young age, a passion that was no doubt inspired by his cartographer father. By the time he was a teenager, he had travelled all through Europe and had a working knowledge of all its languages. As a travelling merchant, he led a comfortable, but unremarkable life. This would change in his later years.
At the age of 61, Tavernier would go down in history for his acquisition of a 116-carat blue diamond in India. It was so large it was given a name: “Tavernier Blue”. The enormous gem was rumored to have been stolen from a sculpture of the Hindu goddess Sita; however, whether it was stolen by a smuggler or Jean-Baptiste himself is not clear. Tavernier held on to his treasure for two years before selling it to the King of France, Louis XIV, for the equivalent value of 10,750 pounds of pure gold, plus a letter of ennoblement. Unfortunately, he would only be able to enjoy his fortune and noble status for a short time.
In 1679, King Louis XIV instituted the “Verification of Nobility” act, which stripped Protestant nobles of their titles if they refused conversion to Catholicism. Protestants were also prohibited from leaving France, but Tavernier would not be kept from his travels. In 1687, after selling his properties in Paris, Jean-Baptiste escaped to Switzerland and entered Russia where he fell seriously ill and died.
A Stint with Royalty – The Kings of France
When Louis XIV bought the Tavernier Blue Diamond he kept it locked away for the first five years. Eventually he had his court jeweler re-cut the stone, adjusting its size to only 68 carats (roughly the size of a pigeon’s egg), and set it into a hatpin. At this point, the stone was given the name “French Blue”. When the king’s great-grandson, Louis XV, came into power, he had the gem reset in a piece called “The Medal of The Order of the Golden Fleece”, which was passed down to his own grandson, Louis XVI, and his wife Marie Antoinette, the empress of Austria. It was this Louis that would suffer the wrath of the diamond’s curse.
Replica of The “Order of the Golden Fleece”
Off With Their Heads!
Louis XVI, just 35 when the French Revolution started, would be the last king of France. If the curse of the diamond spared his grandfather and his great,great-grandfather, it held nothing back on him.
Within 3 years, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were imprisoned and the Royal Storehouse was raided. All of the crown jewels, including the “French Blue”, were stolen. Only months later, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were both beheaded by guillotine in a public forum.
Though many of the royal pieces were recovered, the infamous blue diamond all but vanished from record and would remain hidden for 20 years.
A New Hope
It was 1812 in London, England when a shockingly large blue diamond was acquired by Thomas Hope, a wealthy banker. The diamond had been re-cut in order to disguise its true identity. Now at 45.54 carats, the gem would be infamously named and remembered as the Hope Diamond. The gem stayed within the Hope family until 1894, when Lord Francis Hope met and married American concert hall singer May Yohé.
Now that the Hope Diamond was being worn with increased frequency, the curse seemingly started to gain momentum. Only two years after their marriage, Lord Francis was in financial ruin. He was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1902 and sold the diamond to a New York dealer named Simon Frankel. As for his wife, May, she ran off with another man. She continued to have relationship issues throughout her life and eventually died penniless.
A Game of Hot Potato
Simon Frankel held the Hope diamond in his possession for a very short time. The great depression of 1907 threw Frankel’s business into ruin. He sold the gem to a man named Jacques Colet. From this point forward, the gem changed owners like a game of “Hot Potato”.
Colet ended up selling the Hope Diamond to Prince Ivan Kanitovski. Some time later, Colet went mad and committed suicide. Unfortunately, the exact details on what happened in this part of the diamond’s history are lost.
Prince Ivan would soon become another “notch on the belt” of the cursed blue stone. While it was in his possession, Russian revolutionaries killed him. The Hope diamond later found its way into the hands of the wealthy Turkish Sultan of Ottoman.
The Sultan would have slightly better luck than the stone’s previous owner. Maybe it is because he appointed someone else (a man named Hehver Agha) as guardian of the stone. The diamond’s curse showed no mercy for the poor attendant. The guardian met his misfortune at the hands of a Turkish mob who hung him by the neck.
In 1909, only 1 year after the acquisition of the Hope diamond, the Sultan was forced to include it in an auction of all of his assets in order to settle his massive debt. From here, the gem would visit Paris once more and would be sold and re-sold over the course of the year until it came into the possession of another infamous jeweler and salesman, Pierre Cartier.
Clever Cartier
Cartier returned to the U.S. and attempted to sell the diamond to Evalyn Walsh McLean (an American socialite) and her husband. By this time, the Hope Diamond’s reputation for bringing pain and misfortune to its owners preceded itself. Mrs. Walsh McLean wisely refused the offer to purchase, but Cartier would not be turned away so easily. He had the diamond reset into a more modern configuration and presented it once more to the wealthy aristocrat. His ploy worked and Mr. And Mrs. McLean became the next owners (and victims) of the brilliant blue gem.
Mrs. McLean wore the diamond quite often. She would even misplace it at parties and have her guests search her home for it, turning the “search for Hope” into a game. As could be expected, the couple’s life became harder after the acquisition. They divorced in 1932. Mr. McLean became mentally ill and died at the age of 51. Mrs. McLean died of pneumonia at the age of 60, leaving the diamond to her grandchildren in her will.
A Safe Space
Wanting nothing to do with the diamond, Mrs McLean’s grandchildren sold the stone (and other jewelry) to Harry Winston in 1949. Harry took the Hope and other brilliant gems on tour throughout the Americas for the better part of a decade without incident. At the end of his tour in 1958, he donated the Hope to the Smithsonian, where the diamond presently sits on a rotating pedestal. It is encased in a cylinder made of 3-inch (76 mm) thick bulletproof glass and commands its own display room. To this day, the Hope diamond is the most popular jewel on display.
Reflection
Do you believe the Hope Diamond is cursed? Can inanimate objects absorb good or bad energy? Can that energy be passed on to others? Have you ever owned a piece of jewelry or other object that gave you “the creeps”? Share your story by leaving a reply at the bottom of this page.
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References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Tavernier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Diamond https://www.worthy.com/famous-diamonds/the-hope-diamondhttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/
Jacqueline loved this article and the history lesson.
I’m so glad you liked it, Shelly. I really enjoyed researching this one. 🙂