Hope Diamond - The Blue Stone with a Royal Past
Photo: RandomPerson238, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
A stop on Washington DC National Mall Walking Tour, a free self-guided tour.
The Hope Diamond sits in its own glass case in the Harry Winston Gallery, part of the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals on the second floor.
Its story starts in India. The French gem trader Jean-Baptiste Tavernier bought a large blue stone there in the 1660s and sold it to Louis XIV, whose jewelers cut it into the French Blue. It was stolen in 1792 during the French Revolution and turned up in London decades later, recut. It took its name from the Hope banking family. Its best-known owner was Washington socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean; after her death the jeweler Harry Winston bought it, and in 1958 he gave it to the Smithsonian.
The diamond is set in a pendant ringed by 16 white diamonds. Under ultraviolet light it glows red-orange for a while after the light is switched off, a rare effect.
The rest of the gem hall is worth a lap. Then head back out to the stop.
More on Wikipedia: Hope Diamond · Jean-Baptiste Tavernier · Evalyn Walsh McLean
Stops on this tour
- Washington Monument
- National Museum of African American History and Cu
- National Museum of American History
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- National Gallery of Art
- United States Capitol
- United States Botanic Garden
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Air and Space Museum
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- The Smithsonian Institution Building - The Castle
- Freer Gallery of Art
- Jefferson Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Korean War Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- White House Ellipse
- White House
- Lafayette Square