Despite all this attention, though, it seems that the inch-wide, 45.52-carat diamond still conceals secrets waiting to be uncovered. One of these secrets was recently discovered by François Farges, a professor of mineralogy at the National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, and Jeffrey Post, the Smithsonian museum's curator of minerals. Using computer modeling, a recently-rediscovered 17th century lead replica and scientific analysis, they've determined that back when the Hope was known as the "French Blue" and part of the personal collection of King Louis XIV of France, during the late 17th century, it was likely placed on a gold background and specially cut to produce an effect reminiscent of a sun at its center. And the history of the diamond is a complex one: It was bought somewhere in India in a rougher, less finely-cut shape by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a French merchant, and brought to France in 1668. When they compared these measurements to those of the Hope, "it fit into the French Blue perfectly—you could see exactly how the French Blue was cut to form the Hope," says Post. Scholars even question how Tavernier came upon the gem, as a second diamond never turned up, and no one else ever found the statue in question. During the French Revolution, it was stolen along with the rest of the Crown Jewels, and although most of the other gems were recovered by French officials, the famous French Blue disappeared. The slightly smaller Hope Diamond—which we now know was cut from the French Blue—was first documented as being in London in 1812, and became well known when it showed up in the collection catalogue of banker Henry Philip Hope in 1839. The jeweler Henry Winston bought the diamond from McLean's estate and avoided its curse, eventually selling it to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in 1958. It has generated so much research, interest and curiosity, and it's focused people on a history that might otherwise go untold," Post says.
– It's legendary, supposedly cursed, admired daily by thousands, and the star of a video game—and yet we don't know all there is to know about the Hope Diamond, or so a recent discovery indicates. The 45.52-carat diamond has given up one of its secrets to French mineral scientist François Farges and Jeffrey Post, the Smithsonian's curator of minerals. Their detective work involved computer modeling and a 17th-century lead replica that Farges found in 2009 among the National d'Histoire Naturelle's collection, and led them to an intriguing conclusion: When King Louis XIV possessed the diamond, it was mounted on a gold background and cut in a way that could cause a sun to appear at the blue stone's center—all too appropriate for the Sun King, whose colors were blue and gold, reports Smithsonian Magazine. Louis XIV bought the originally 112 3/16-carat, crudely cut diamond in 1668 from a French merchant who obtained the jewel somewhere in India. Five years later it was recut to its 67 1/8-carat size, according to the Smithsonian Encyclopedia, at which time it became known as the French Blue. In the years between its theft (in 1792, during the French Revolution) and reappearance (in 1812, in Britain), it was again cut to its current size, obliterating those former dimensions—until Farges uncovered the replica, which would have been used by jewelers in need of a stand-in for the actual diamond while creating settings. But the replica made clear that the French Blue was cut in an unusual way, eschewing the sharp angles that maximize the reflection of light. In exploring the reasoning behind the cut, Farges and Post arrived at their conclusion. Interestingly, it was only with the discovery of the replica that it was conclusively proven that the French Blue and the Hope Diamond were the same stone. (Click for another fascinating story about diamonds.)