The BLUE HOPE 45.52 carats
More notorious than any other diamond. The Hope was once owned by Louis XIV and was officially designated the ‘blue diamond of the crown.’ Stolen during the French Revolution, it turned up in London in 1830 and was bought by Henry Philip Hope after whom it is currently named. At that time it acquired its gruesome reputation for bad luck: all the Hope family died in poverty. A similar misfortune befell a later owner, Edward McLean. You can see the Blue Hope today at the Smithsonian in Washington. . 

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