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Page 3 |
Crystals and Cabs |
Volume 3 Issue 4 |
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| Jubilee -con't. from pg. 1 |
| then President of the Orange
Free State in which Jagersfontein is situated. In 1896 the group sent
the diamond to Amsterdam where it was polished by M. B. Barends, under
the supervision of Messrs Metz. First, a piece weighing 40 carats or so
was cleaved. This yielded a fine, clean pear shape of 13.34 carats which
was bought by Dom Carlos I of Portugal as a present for his wife. The present whereabouts of this gem is unknown. The remaining large piece was then polished into the Jubilee. During the cutting process, it became obvious that an extremely high quality diamond was going to be produced, so it was planned to be a present to Queen Victoria. In the end this did not happen and the diamond remained with its owners. The following year marked the Diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria so the gem was renamed the Jubilee to commemorate the occasion. In 1900 the group displayed the Jubilee at the Paris Exhibition where it was one of the centers of attraction. It was then valued at 7,000,000 francs. Sometime afterwards, Sir Dorabji Jamshedji Tata bought the diamond. He was the Indian industrialist and philanthropist who laid the foundation of his country's iron and steel industry; these and the cotton mills founded by his father really gave India a boost toward economic development. Sir Dorabji Jamsetji Tata died in 1932. Three years later his heirs sent the Jubilee for sale at Cartier's, who in December of that year mounted it in a display of historic diamonds. In 1937 Cartier sold the Jubilee to M. Paul-Louis Weiller, the Paris industrialist and patron of the arts. The diamond's former setting was changed into a baguette diamond brooch, suggestive of either a six-pointed star or a stylized turtle. M. Weiller was always happy to lend the Jubilee to exhibitions which included one staged at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington in 1960 and another held in Geneva in December of the same year. In 1966 the Jubilee returned to South Africa where it was featured in the De Beers Diamond Pavilion in Johannesburg. Robert Mouawad has since bought the Jubilee, which is now the largest item in his great collection, probably the greatest collection of privately-owned diamonds in the world. Mouawad once said, "If we refer to the human contribution brought to a diamond, my favorite would be the Jubilee for its outstanding cut for the period." The Jubilee's facets are so exact that it can be balanced on it's cutlet point, which is less than 2mm across. Credits for this article go to: http://www.diamond-invest.com/famous.html Next month’s diamond: The Regent
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Mineral Clubs - Meeting Dates Saco Valley Gem and Mineral Club : 3rd Thursday of each month at the Albany, NH Town Hall – 7:00 PMKeene: 1st Saturday of each month at Keene State College, Bldg. 18, Keene, NH – 7:00 PM Nashua: Last Wednesday of each month at the Nashua public Library, Court St., Nashua, NH in the downstairs Theater Room – 7:00 PM North Shore (MA): 3rd Friday of each month, St. Paul Episcopal Church, Washington St., Peabody, MA – 7:30 PM Boston Mineral Club: 1st Tuesday of each month, Harvard University Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA – 7:30 PM Southeastern NH Mineral Club: 2nd Wednesday of each month, St John’s Methodist Church, 28 Cataract Ave., Dover, NH – 7:00 PM |