Regent (diamond)
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The Diamond Regent , 140.5 carats (28.1 g) comes from Golkonda , India and was acquired in 1717 by Philippe II. De Bourbon, duc d'Orléans from the then famous traveler and gem dealer Jean-Baptiste Tavernier . In its day it was one of the largest diamonds in the world.
The stone had already been found in 1702 and belonged to the governor of Madras, Thomas Pitt the Elder. Ä., Reached. Pitt sent him to England, where he paid 140.50 ct. large diamond was cut. In 1717 the diamond was sold to Philippe II, Duke of Orleans - regent of France. Since then the diamond has been known as the "regent". He was elected to the crown of Louis XV. used, which he wore to his coronation in February 1723. In later outfits, the stone was worn by Queen Maria Leszczyńska in her hair and by Marie Antoinette on a black velvet hat. When the treasury was looted during the revolutionary turmoil of 1792, the stone initially disappeared, but was seized the following year and used several times by the Directoire as financial security for military supplies. In the years 1797–1798 the "Regent" was pledged to the Berlin entrepreneur Sigmund Otto Joseph von Treskow , and from 1798–1801 to the banker Ignace-Joseph Vanlerberghe in Amsterdam. Napoleon redeemed the stone in 1801 and had it mounted in his parade sword, which he carried on his coronation in 1804. When the emperor went into exile in Elba in 1814, Marie Louise of Austria , his second wife, brought the diamond to Vienna. Her father, Emperor Franz II , took him back to France, where he again became part of the French crown jewels. In 1825 Charles X carried the regent to his coronation. He stayed in the crown until the time of Napoleon III. and was later set in a Greek diadem designed for the Empress Eugénie de Montijo . When the Germans invaded Paris in 1940, the regent was taken to Chambord Castle , where he was hidden behind a stone tablet. After the war it found its way back to Paris , since then it has been exhibited in the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre .
The regent was also the namesake of the grape variety of the same name .
See also
literature
- Maurice Payard: Les Tribulations du diamant dit "le Régent": Le vol des joyaux de la couronne. Le tribunal du 17 août , Paris 1938.