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A mysterious mine somewhere in India once produced the world’s most magnificent diamonds — the stones Napoleon, English monarchs, and Mughal emperors fought to own. Now they’re causing a new uproar — and setting record prices.
For his first day at Harry Winston, in January 2010, Frédéric de Narp, the company’s contagiously enthusiastic president and CEO, had one request: He wanted to hold the Hope diamond. The 110-carat blue stone, first sold to Louis XIV in 1668, was stolen from the French court jewels during the looting of the Treasury, in 1792.
In 1812 it mysteriously reappeared, in the hands of a London diamond merchant, and in 1946, Winston himself acquired it as part of the jewelry collection of Evalyn Walsh McLean, wife of the owner of the Washington Post. (The couple had bought it in 1911 for a reported $300,000.) Winston donated it to the Smithsonian Institution.
About 5 million people a year now visit the Hope diamond, but the Smithsonian hesitated. “No one had ever asked to do this before,” the charismatic Frenchman says, “but I insisted. For me, holding the Hope was key.” And so, on Monday, January 4, before the opening of the museum, his wish was granted, and de Narp was escorted into the Smithsonian safe where the diamond is stored. (“It is in a separate space, away from the museum’s Harry Winston Gallery,” he says.
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