Andhra Mine To Louvre: Bloody History Of $60 Million Diamond Spared In Heist

Thieves entered Paris' Louvre earlier this week and left within minutes with priceless Napoleonic jewels, leaving behind a $60 million diamond that is the largest of its kind in Europe and was found in India hundreds of years ago.

About The Regent Diamond

The cushion cut diamond is barely tinted blue-green in colour and weighs 140.6 carats. In comparison, the famed Koh-i-noor diamond weighs 105.6 carats.

The Regent diamond was part of the French royal collection before it was awarded to the Louvre in 1887.

The India Connection

The stone was discovered in 1698 in the mines of Golconda and had weighed 426 carats then.

The man who found the diamond made an incision in his leg to smuggle out the diamond, according to a legend. A report in Marie Claire states that the man asked for help from a sea captain to escape the country in exchange for half the profits but was killed instead.

The diamond was noticed by then Madras Governor Thomas Pitt, cut in England between 1704 and 1706 and acquired at the request of France's Regent Philippe d'Orleans in 1717. At the time, the Regent diamond became the most beautiful diamond known in the West and continues to be considered among the best in terms of quality and cut. By 1719, it had already tripled its purchase value.

Several secondary stones were sold to Peter the Great, the Tsar of Russia at the time.

On Several Crowns

The Regent diamond served as a piece of jewellery for all crowned heads. Louis XV wore it at a reception in 1721 and then temporarily on the crown of his coronation in 1722. From 1725, he began to wear the diamond on his hat, a habit he kept till 1774, when his reign came to an end.

The diamond then found its place on the crown of Louis XVI in 1775, which was then later moved to his hat.

Stolen in 1792 and found in 1793 hidden in a frame, it was pledged several times by the Directory and then the Consulate before being definitively recovered by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801. It adorned the First Consul's sword before becoming one of the ornaments of Emperor Napoleon I's sword in 1812.

As regimes changed, the Regent diamond was seen on the crowns of Louis XVIII, Charles X and Napoleon III and later on the Greek diadem of Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III.

A Curse?

Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said it was a mystery why the Regent diamond was not one of the nine pieces that the thieves had stolen from the Galerie d'Apollon.

Several theories have emerged on why it was not stolen, one of them being that it might be cursed. The man who smuggled it out of the Golconda mine was killed, and some of the French royals and emperors who possessed the diamond also met with ill fates.

King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed during the French Revolution, while Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled from France to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.

Another Golconda Diamond At Louvre

In the heist, the thieves also left behind the 21.32-carat pink Hortensia diamond. Purchased by Louis XIV, the diamond was also stolen during the French Revolution in 1792. After it was recovered, Napoleon I wore it, and it then moved to the possession of Dutch queen Hortense de Beauharnais. It was stolen again in 1830 before it resurfaced and was kept at Galerie D'Apollon.

Other Valuables At Louvre

The Louvre holds some of the world's most coveted art works and collections, including Leonardo's Mona Lisa; the armless serenity of the Venus de Milo; the Winged Victory of Samothrace, wind-lashed on the Daru staircase; the Code of Hammurabi's carved laws; Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People; and Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa.