The Hope Diamond, the World’s Most Famous Cursed Gem

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The Hope Diamond emits a red phosphorescence after being bombarded with ultraviolet light. Photo by John Nels Hatleberg.

Legend has it that the Hope Diamond, often touted as the world's most famous cursed gem, was originally stolen from an idol in India and subsequently passed through the hands of various owners. Many who possessed the diamond seemed to face misfortune and tragedy, leading people to believe in the curse that surrounds this exceptional blue gem.

 The Hope Diamond’s strange story began in 1653 when French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier visited India’s Golconda Sultanate. There he purchased a crudely cut, triangular, flat, blue diamond of extraordinary size—115 carats. After returning to Europe in 1668, Tavernier sold the diamond to King Louis XIV of France, who ordered the stone recut. Tavernier wrote extensively about the gem before his death in Moscow the following year—when he was reportedly dismembered by a pack of wild dogs.

The “French Blue” and the Guillotine

The 1691 French crown jewel inventory describes the recut stone as “a very big, violet (the period term for “blue”) diamond, thick, cut with facets on both sides and in the shape of a heart with eight main faces.” It weighed 67.1 carats and was valued at the equivalent of $4 million in 2023 dollars. Formally known as the Blue Diamond of the Crown of France and popularly as the “French Blue,” this smaller recut stone, with its enhanced symmetry and additional pavilion facets, was substantially more brilliant than the original Tavernier Diamond. The French Blue was likely the first large diamond to be cut in a modern brilliant style.

Louis XIV had the blue diamond, along with a 117-carat red spinel and 195 smaller diamonds, set in an elaborate pendant that symbolized the Order of the Golden Fleece, a Catholic order of chivalry. Despite this prestigious setting, the idea that the French Blue was cursed gained credibility with the misfortunes of Louis XIV. Five of his legitimate children died in infancy. And the king himself died in agony of gangrene in 1715.

A Convoluted Trail

During the French Revolution, the blue diamond, now widely believed to be cursed, was stolen from a royal warehouse and never seen again, at least not as the French Blue. The history of the stone then became uncertain. In 1812, just as the statute of limitations regarding the theft took effect, a 45-carat blue diamond appeared in the hands of London diamond merchant Daniel Eliason. Amid widespread accusations that this diamond was actually a cut-down version of the stolen French Blue, Eliason committed suicide.

In 1820, Britain’s King George IV acquired the diamond. Following his death in 1830, his bankrupt estate sold the stone to pay off debts. Attention then shifted to London banking heir Henry Philip Hope, who some suspected had secretly bought the diamond from French thieves in the early 1800s. Hope publicly listed the stone in his 1839 gem catalog—only to die just months later.

The Hope Diamond

The blue diamond remained with the Hope family for the next 57 years, the last owner being the American actress, playwright, and concert-hall singer May Yohé (a.k.a. Lady Francis Hope), whose writings and stage productions often called attention to the stone’s purported curse. The diamond was sold in 1896 to settle Yohé’s pressing debts. Many believed that the celebrated singer herself fell victim to the stone’s evil power – after enduring two disastrous marriages, she died in poverty in 1938.

The blue diamond, now known as the “Hope Diamond,” next passed through the hands of several gem merchants and jewelers, and two Ottoman sultans. The stone was then acquired by the prestigious Paris jewelry firm Cartier and director Pierre Cartier, a renowned wheeler-dealer in the gem world, who immediately began seeking a buyer and a quick profit.

In this formal portrait, Marie Antoinette, shortly before her execution by guillotine, is shown wearing the French Blue in a brooch mount. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The curse didn't stop with French royalty but continued with other prominent owners throughout history.

Socialite and mining heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean used to boast that things that were bad luck for other people were good luck for her. Perhaps that’s why she wasn’t afraid to purchase the supposedly cursed Hope Diamond, once owned by King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (pre-guillotine).

 

Evalyn Walsh McLean, one of the more flamboyant owners of the Hope Diamond, appears in this formal photograph; she endured a series of family tragedies. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

But maybe she should have been nervous. Tragedy soon befell Walsh McLean, one of the Hope’s last private owners before it was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958: Her 9-year-old son was struck and killed by a swerving automobile; her daughter died from an overdose of sleeping pills; and her husband, an alcoholic and heir to The Washington Post, tried to divorce her after his series of affairs and was eventually committed to an insane asylum with a declaration of insanity. The curse seemed to follow her until her death. Walsh McLean’s ghost can reportedly still be seen descending her mansion’s palatial stairway, now the Indonesian Embassy.

 The rumors of the Hope Diamond’s curse were captured in a 1908 Washington Post article titled “Remarkable Jewel of VooDoo: Hope Diamond has brought trouble to all who have owned it.” But as Gabriela Farfan, the curator of gems and minerals in the Museum of Natural History, explains, this is a common marketing tool in the gem industry. “Some of those owners were desperate to sell and likely decided that even bad publicity is good publicity,” she said. Thankfully, Farfan also said the museum has faced no ill fortune on account of the priceless stone. 

The 45.52 carat, deep-blue Hope Diamond is shown here inside its surrounding pendant of 16 pear- and cushion-cut white diamonds. Photo by Chip Clark.