Regent Diamond
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Regent Diamond
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| Weight | 140.64 carats (28.128 g) |
|---|---|
| Colour | White with pale blue |
| Cut | Cushion |
| Country of origin |
 India
|
| Mine of origin | Kollur Mine, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh |
| Discovered | 1698 |
| Cut by | Harris, 1704–1706 |
| Original owner | Kollur Mine |
| Owner | France (on display at the Louvre) |
| Estimated value | ~£48,000,000 |
The Regent Diamond is a 141 carats (28.2 g) diamond owned by the French state and on display in the Louvre, worth as of 2015[update] £48,000,000.
According to one rumour, in 1698, a slave found the 410 carats (82 g; 2.6 ozt) uncut diamond in the Kollur Mine (in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, India) and hid it inside a large wound in his leg. An English sea captain stole the diamond from the slave, killed him and sold it to an Indian merchant.
In a letter to his London agent dated 6 November 1701, Thomas Pitt, the Governor of Fort St. George, writes:
"... This accompanyes the modell of a Stone I have lately seene; itt weighs Mang. 303 and carrtts 426. It is of an excellent christaline water without any fowles, only att one end in the flat part there is one or two little flaws which will come out in cutting, they lying on the surface of the Stone, the price they ask for it is prodigious being two hundred thousand pag. tho I believe less than one (hundred thousand) would buy it"
Pitt claimed he acquired the diamond from the eminent Indian diamond merchant Jamchund for 48,000 pagodas in the same year, so it is sometimes also known as the Pitt Diamond. He dispatched the stone to London hidden in the heel of his son Robert's shoe aboard the East Indiaman Loyal Cooke, which left Madras on 9 October 1702. It was later cut in London by the diamond cutter Harris, between 1704 and 1706. The cutting took two years and cost about £5,000
Rumours circulated that Pitt had fraudulently acquired the diamond, leading satirist Alexander Pope to pen the following lines in his Moral Essays
"Asleep and naked as an INDIAN lay
An honest factor stole a gem away;
He pledged it to the Knight, the Knight had wit,
Pitt bought the diamond for £20,400 (equivalent to £2,986,000 in 2015), and had it cut into a 141 carats (28.2 g) cushion brilliant.
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Wikipedia