Coloured diamonds are extremely rare, with just one in every 10,000 stones being of this kind. There is talk today of blue diamonds, and these diamonds are very rare, only one in 100 jewellers ever having seen such a stone. Blue diamonds occur in a number of hues, from a light blue through a greyish shade to a deep blue, and the chief site of their extraction is the diamond mine in Cullinan in South Africa. Having its origins in precisely this mine is the famous blue diamond named the Heart of Eternity, a heart-shaped stone with a weight of 27.64 carat, or 5.528 g.

The Heart of Eternity simply radiates celestial beauty, yet the most famous blue diamond remains the Hope Diamond, named for the Hope family. It weights 45.52 carat, which equates to 9.10 g, and is currently to be found at the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. The stone owes its colour to the presence in its composition of small quantities of boron, while for its popularity it is indebted to the dark legends which circulate round it. According to the tales, the Hope Diamond is damned and all who touch it suffer misfortune. Contemporary scientists do not believe in these legends, stating that their purpose was to turn the attention of the public and at the same time raise the price of the stone.

The Hope Diamond has a long and complicated history. The latest scientific research has established that it is part of the famous diamond Bleu de France, stolen in 1792, the history of which is so remarkable that it undoubtedly deserves a separate story. Let's return though to the Hope Diamond, and recall only the most interesting facts of its adventures in the past hundred years. A century ago, in 1910, the diamond was bought by the French jeweller Pierre Cartier, who created for it a new setting, placing the stone in a necklace, where the Hope Diamond sparkled in a frame of 16 white diamonds. This fairy-tale necklace, having passed through the hands of successive owners, became in 1949 the property of the American jeweller Harry Winston, who then became famous for the fact that in 1958 he presented both necklace and diamond to the Smithsonian Institute. Winston did not believe in any of the legends linked with the stone and sent it to Washington by standard post.

Now the Hope Diamond, a wonder of nature, and undoubtedly also a peak of the jeweller's art, may be seen by all visiting the Museum of Natural History.