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Hortensia Diamond
The Hortensia
King Louis XIV was responsible for toting up of this pale orangey-pink diamond to the Crown Jewels of France. Nevertheless, the Hortensia was not one of the diamonds which the King had procured from Jean Baptiste Tavernier, for the reason that the biggest stone of this meticulous color which he brought back from India weighed only 14 7/8 carats. The Hortensia was the principal diamond in the 3rd of the 19 florets of buttonholes scheduled in the account of the Crown Jewels of France, completed in 1691.
The diamond, which weighs 20 carats (20.53 metric carats) is pale orangey-pink, to a positive extent flat and rectangular in shape and is cut on five sides. In the 1791 stock of the Crown Jewels it was appreciated at no more than 48,000 livres on account of a fracture extending from the edge of the strap to near the culet. It takes its given name from Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland, unquestionably because she wore it. Hortense was the descendant of the Empress Josephine, the step-daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte and the nurse of Napoleon III.
The Hortensia was in the midst of the jewels stolen from the Garde Meuble in September of 1792. One year afterward it was recovered from the upper floor of an aged house in the Halles district of Paris. The Regent Diamond was along with it, as were a number of additional jewels. As he was about to be executed, a man named Depeyron disclosed that he had concealed it in a bag That contains gold and other diamonds, together with the fore mentioned Regent, in the Halles district.
During the 1st Empire the Hortensia was mounted on the binding of Napoleon's epaulette braid. later it was set in the center of the headband of the great diamond coated comb made by the Court Jeweler, Bapst, for the Empress Eugenie in 1856. In the meantime, in 1830, the diamond was shelled again, on this instance from the Ministry of the Marine, but it was rapidly recovered.
When the French Crown Jewels were auctioned in 1887, the Hortensia was one of the substances expelled, together with the Regent, because of their historic and creative concentration. The Sancy Diamond wouldn't fasten together a little less than a century in the Louvre. "You could express it as peach-colored, but unquestionably on the pink side of peach. It has superior transparency but there's relatively a large scratch/fracture on the pavilion."
