Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem by Richard Kurin

By Danielle Max

There are lots of stories about curses. From an urban legend perspective, they make for intriguing and sometimes spooky tales. From the standpoint of folklore, they can be used as a warning, an allegory or as a metaphor.

Search deep enough and you’ll find curses associated with every aspect of human life – from history to sports. It is said (falsely) that everyone who was  present  at  the  opening  of the tomb of the Egyptian ruler Tutankhamen was  affected  by the  “Curse of  the Pharaohs” and died a horrible and painful death. The “Curse of the Billy Goat” is used to explain the failures of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, who have not won a World Series championship since 1908 or a National League pennant since 1945. The Kennedy family is believed to have a curse upon it, which is actually somewhat believable given their unfortunate run of bad luck. Even musicians are not immune from the curse mythology. Woe betide a singer who reaches the age of 27 for they might not get any older. Robert Johnson, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain all died at that tender age. Coincidence or curse?

Not wanting to be left out, the diamond world has its own potent curse – the one affecting the beautiful but supposedly deadly Hope diamond. Like something out of an adventure movie, the curse is said to have been cast when the 45 carat blue was stolen from a Hindu god in the 17th century. Ever since that inauspicious event, the stone is believed to have brought tragedy and misfortune to its unlucky owners, who include Louise XVI and Marie Antoinette down to the American socialite Evalyn Walsh McLean.

After wreaking a supposed trail of destruction, the stone finally came to lie in the hands of legendary jeweler Harry Winston. When Winston donated the Hope diamond to the Smithsonian in 1958, many Americans worried that the terrible curse would befall the nation. Today, the diamond rests quietly in the National Museum of Natural History (specimen 217868) and receives close to six million visitors each year, its powers seemingly disabled. The question is if the curse of the Hope diamond is a real phenomenon or if it is little more than a series of tales and intrigues that have taken on a life of their own.

The result is a well researched book that covers more than just the history of a single diamond. Although it traces the stone back in time to its supposed formation, Dr Kurin takes in subjects as diverse as 16th century Indian business practices, the geology of diamonds and British royalty, as well as major events including the French Revolution and Napoleon’s campaigns.

Instead of a dread curse cast centuries ago, Kurin reveals how its origins actually developed in the early 20th century media and how the canny French jeweler Pierre Cartier managed to manipulate the rich heiress Evalyn McLean into purchasing the diamond in 1911. It turns out that Cartier’s tale of a fantastical curse originated in a Victorian detective story of a fictional cursed diamond. The curse mythology gained strength when a series of misfortunes blighted the wealthy McLean.

However, even as Kurin dispels the myth of the Hope diamond curse, he ends the book with a list of the major items in the “Hope diamond treasure hunt” that still remain to be solved and that would help to give a fuller understanding of this extraordinary gem. He says, “As useful or intriguing as the curse legend might be, it has crowded out other aspects of the Hope diamond’s history. Rather than just imagining vengeful Hindu deities, that history is one of a long-term mutual engagement of Indian and European ways of thinking about diamonds, gemstones, nature and divinity…The history of the Hope diamond over the past centuries provides a rich social commentary on the culture of the times. Taking on one role or another – treasure, trophy, heirloom, or even specimen number 217868 – it becomes a powerful sign of the times, a means to engage the true forces of history well beyond the legend of the curse.”

First published in 2006, the book has recently been released in paperback and is well worth a read. It will appeal to history and diamond buffs alike. The real curse is not that inflicted by the stone itself but that a single diamond could cause so much pain, suffering and intrigue in the quest to posses it. As Kurin writes, “The curse of the Hope diamond as a story or interpretation of events captures a sense of an era, a moral conundrum about values, and a way of symbolizing encounters between East and West, and between the rich and the poor.”