Dresden Green Diamond
The Dresden Green Diamond , also the Green Dresden , is at 41 carats (8.2 g) the largest cut, naturally green diamond . It is pendulum-shaped, faceted and cut . Its bright apple-green color is due to the fact that the diamond was exposed to natural radioactivity in the deposit.
It is named after Dresden , the former electoral and royal residence and today's capital of the Free State of Saxony , and was founded by the Saxon Elector and Polish King August III. Bought. It was one of the treasures of the former treasury of the Wettin princes and is now part of the inventory of the Green Vault in Dresden, the most extensive baroque treasury and art chamber in Europe.
The Dresden Green Diamond can be viewed in the New Green Vault in the Dresden Residenzschloss .
history
Its origin is believed to be in India , according to other sources also in Brazil . Historically, it can be traced back to London in 1722, where it was cut from a 119.5 carat (23.9 g) rough diamond. In 1741 or 1742, Elector and King August III bought. the diamonds at the Easter fair in Leipzig. The stone was bought at a high price from the Dutch diamond dealer Delles. The purchase price is said to have been 400,000 thalers , but this is not documented.
Court goldsmith Johann Friedrich Dinglinger, son of the famous Johann Melchior Dinglinger , worked the stone into an Order of the Golden Fleece . Court jeweler Franz Michael Diespach made on the instructions of Friedrich August III. in the year 1768 two pieces of jewelry from the order. One of them was a hat brim with the green diamond, two large diamonds of 6.3 and 19.3 carats as well as 411 medium-sized and small diamonds, which were grouped into a 14.1 cm high clasp . This hat ornament became part of the Saxon crown jewels.
The longest period of his absence from Dresden was from 1945 to 1958, when he was brought to the Soviet Union as spoils of war after the Second World War .
See also
Web links
- Online version of the Gems & Gemology Journal article on the investigation of the Dresden Green Diamond (PDF; 2.4 MB) pp. 248–266
- Entry on Hutagraffe with the Dresden Green Diamond in the online catalog of the Dresden State Art Collections
- High-resolution image of the Hutagraffe in Google Arts & Culture
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Erica and Harold van Pelt: Precious stones. Symbols of beauty and power. Verlag Hans Schöner, Königsbach-Stein, Luzern 1999, pp. 49, 199.
- ↑ a b c Dirk Syndram (ed.), Ulli Arnold, Jutta Kappel: The Green Vault in Dresden. Guide to its history and collections. 2nd ed., Koehler & Amelang, Munich, Berlin 1997, p. 282.
- ^ Edwin W. Streeter: Dresden Green Diamond, in "The Great Diamonds of the World" . George Bell & Sons, 1898 (Retrieved October 30, 2011).