The Hope Diamond is a 45.52-carat deep blue diamond, now held by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Its connection to Cartier came through Pierre Cartier, who acquired it in the early twentieth century, had it reset into a necklace, and sold it to the American collector Evalyn Walsh McLean on 28 January 1911 for $180,000.
The story around the sale has become part of the diamond's mythology. Pierre's approach (which reportedly included allowing McLean to borrow the piece for a weekend before she decided she could not part with it) reflects the sales methods he had developed for the American market. A Great Dane reportedly wore the necklace around its neck on at least one occasion. A lawsuit followed the sale. The moment when the stone was blessed in church was said to be marked by a dramatic flash of lightning.
The Hope Diamond has a long and contested history stretching back centuries, and the Cartier chapter is one episode in a much longer story. The piece's time in the family is explored in a blog post written after a visit to the Smithsonian to see it.
Sources
- Francesca Cartier Brickell, The Cartiers (Ballantine Books, 2019), ch. 3 ("Pierre, 1902–1919")
- Hans Nadelhoffer, Cartier: Jewelers Extraordinary (Thames and Hudson, 1984; revised 2007), p. 322.
- Wikipedia: The Hope Diamond
