Crown of the Andes

The Crown of the Immacculate Conception, known as the Crown of the Andes — known in Spanish as La Corona de los Andes and as La Corona de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Popayán — is a votive crown originally made for a larger than life-size statue of the Virgin in the cathedral of Popayán, Colombia. The diadem was made around 1660, and the arches were added around 1770. The crown purportedly includes emeralds taken from the captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa (1497–1533). In 1936, the crown was sold by its owners to an American businessman and it has remained in the United States ever since. As of December 2015, the crown belongs to the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

The crown is 34.3 centimetres (13.5 in) high with a body diameter of 33.7 centimetres (13.3 in), and weighs 2.18 kilograms (4.8 lb). It is made from 18–22 carat gold, repoussé and chased. There are 450 emeralds on it: the largest, known as the "Atahualpa Emerald", is a rectangular stone measuring 15.8 millimetres (0.62 in) by 16.15 millimetres (0.636 in).

Various tales circulate about the construction and origin of the Crown of the Andes. According to the conventional version it was made in the 1590s in thanksgiving for the city of Popayán being spared an outbreak of smallpox then devastating the region. It includes emeralds purportedly taken from the captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa. However, Christopher Hartop — a jewellery expert who examined the crown during a proposed sale at the auctioneer Christie's in New York in 1995 — suggested then it was a composite piece. He dated the little cross at the top to the 16th century, with the bottom half being completed in the 17th century and the intersecting arches dating to the 18th century.

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