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Curses · Cursed objects

The Hope Diamond

When
1911 date from records made at the time
Where
National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian), Washington, D.C., United States
Verdict
Legend

A blue diamond that passed through the hands of Louis XIV, bankers and millionaires is said to be cursed. The curse story, however, was mostly a sales pitch.

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38.89°, -77.03° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

The deep blue stone was brought from India to Europe by the French merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who sold it to Louis XIV in 1668. Recut as the “French Blue,” it adorned the jewels of kings until it was stolen in 1792, during the Revolution. It resurfaced, cut differently, in the 19th-century collection of the London banking family Hope. In the early 20th century the press began linking the diamond to a list of misfortunes suffered by its supposed owners, from the guillotined Marie Antoinette to murdered lovers and ruined tycoons. In 1911 Pierre Cartier sold it to the Washington heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean – reportedly telling her about the curse as he did so. Her family's fate seemed to confirm it: her son was killed by a car as a child, her husband ended his days in a psychiatric hospital, her daughter died young, and the family lost its fortune and The Washington Post. In 1958 jeweller Harry Winston sent the diamond to the Smithsonian by ordinary registered mail.

Witnesses

The stone's successive owners, including Evalyn Walsh McLean, who described it in her memoirs as her lucky charm; curse stories were spread by American and British newspapers from the first decade of the 20th century.

Explanations and hypotheses

Historians and Smithsonian curators stress that most of the curse's “victims” are invented or never owned the diamond – Marie Antoinette, for instance, probably never wore it. The legend was fuelled by dealers, because mystery raised the stone's price, and the McLeans themselves may have used it for publicity. Harry Winston did not believe in the curse and lived to an old age. The diamond's eerie aura is helped by an unusual property: after exposure to ultraviolet light it glows red for a while.

Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.

Sources

  1. Smithsonian Institution – The Hope Diamond
  2. Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Secret History Of The Hope Diamond: How Pierre Cartier Sold A Cursed Jewel (Forbes, 2019)

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