Oct 12th, 2012
Regent
The Regent Diamond is a diamond which is on display in the Louvre. Another epic movie awaits!
In 1698, a slave found the 410 carat uncut diamond in a Golkonda mine, more specifically Paritala-Kollur Mine in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India and concealed it inside a large wound in his leg.
An English sea captain stole the diamond from the slave after killing him and sold it to an Indian merchant. Governor Thomas Pitt acquired it from a merchant in Madras in 1701. Because of Pitt’s ownership it is sometimes known as the Pitt Diamond.
The diamond was used as security on several occasions by the Directoire and later the Consulat, before being permanently redeemed by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801.
Napoleon used it to embellish his sword, designed by the goldsmiths Odiot, Boutet and Marie-Etienne Nitot.
In 1812, it appeared on the Emperor’s two-edged sword, the work of Nitot. Napoleon’s second wife, Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, carried the Régent back to Austria upon his death. Later her father returned it to the French Crown Jewels. The diamond was mounted successively on the crowns of Louis XVIII, Charles X and Napoleon III.
Today, mounted in a Greek diadem designed for Empress Eugenie, it remains in the French Royal Treasury at the Louvre.
It has been on display there since 1887.
Sources:
Wikipedia
Famous Diamonds
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