On this day in 1911, Evalyn Walsh McLean, the heiress daughter of a penniless Tipperary migrant who struck it rich in America, became the owner of the 45-carat Hope Diamond – one of the most famous gemstones in the world.
According to the legend, a curse befell the large, blue diamond when it was plucked (possibly stolen) from India - a curse that foretold bad luck and death not only for the owner of the diamond but for all who touched it. Jean Baptiste Tavernier, French gentleman-explorer, first attained the diamond in the mid-17th century from the forehead of a statue of the Hindu goddess Sita in the city of Guntur, India.
Louis XIV of France purchased the diamond from Tavernier in 1668 in exchange for 147 kilos of gold and it became part of the French crown jewels. During the looting and rioting of the French Revolution, the stone disappeared. The diamond resurfaced some years later in the ownership of Henry Philip Hope, a gem collector in London and the man from whom the diamond takes its name.
By the early 1900s, the diamond was in the hands of French Jeweller, Pierre Cartier. In 1910 the Hope diamond was shown at Carter’s in Paris to Mrs Evalyn Walsh McLean, of Washington D.C.
Evalyn Walsh McLean was the daughter of Thomas Walsh who was born in Lisronagh around 1850. He emigrated to America at the age of 19 and quickly developed an interest in mineral prospecting. In 1896 he discovered the highly productive gold mine at Camp Bird, Colorado. The mine would go on to be one of Colorado’s richest and longest running mines.
Walsh sold the mine in 1902. Between the millions he made while owning the mine, and the estimated three to six million he received upon selling the mine, Walsh retired from mining life a very rich man. Walsh’s daughter Evalyn was a socialite and author, penning an autobiography entitled ‘Father Struck it Rich’. She married Edward McLean in 1908.
When Cartier showed the diamond to Walsh McLean in 1910, she did not like the setting. Cartier had the diamond reset and took it to the U.S. where he left it with Mrs McLean for a weekend. This strategy was successful. The sale was made on 28 January 1911 with the diamond mounted as a headpiece on a three-tiered circlet of large white diamonds. Sometime later it became the pendant on a diamond necklace. Mrs McLean’s flamboyant ownership of the stone lasted until her death in 1947.
Harry Winston Inc. of New York purchased Mrs. McLean's entire jewellery collection, including the Hope Diamond, from her estate in 1949. On November 10, 1958, the Hope Diamond was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and almost immediately the great blue stone became its premier attraction. It is valued at roughly $250 million.
Sources:
https://www.si.edu/spotlight/hope-diamond/history#:~:text=This%20diamond%2C%20which%20was%20most,diamonds%20and%20several%20smaller%20ones.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/property/homeandgardens/arid-20296865.html
https://www.capetowndiamondmuseum.org/blog/2019/09/5988/
