Like the famous Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, the Taylor-Burton Diamond was another of Richard Burton’s extravagant gifts to wife Elizabeth Taylor during their public and tumultuous marriages. It’s also the final famous diamond in our series.

Photo by Gianni Bozzacchi. Reprinted by permission.

The couple’s emotionally-charged private life often drew more attention than their movie roles, and their luxurious tastes, Taylor’s love for diamonds especially, were legendary.

The 69.42-carat diamond is a D-color, flawless, pear-shape with 58 facets and was graded by GIA. Following its discovery in South Africa in 1966, it was cut by Harry Winston and eventually sold to Cartier for $1.05 million in 1969. Burton purchased the diamond the very next day for an estimated $1.1 million (the exact amount has never been disclosed), Crowds lined the streets for the chance to catch a glimpse of the famous diamond before Burton picked up the gift for Taylor.

The expensive gift was just one of many exchanged between Taylor and Burton during their first marriage. Taylor originally wore the diamond in a ring, but eventually had it redesigned by Cartier into a necklace. During her ownership of the famous gem from 1969 to 1978, Elizabeth Taylor wore the beautiful necklace to the 1970 Academy Awards. She later sold the necklace and donated part of the proceeds to help fund a hospital in Botswana.

Main image courtesy of Mouawad.

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Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The two gems were loved by Queen Mary, wife of King George V, In 1911, she had Cullinan III, a pear-shape drop of 94.40 carats, and Cullinan IV, a cushion-shape stone of 63.60 carats, mounted temporarily in a lattice-work setting and placed into her new crown made by Garrard for the coronation.

The following year, the Delhi Durbar Tiara was adapted to hold both stones. Cullinan III and IV were occasionally used as a pendant to the Coronation Necklace in place of the Lahore Diamond.

However, the stones were most often worn hooked together as a pendant brooch, which is why the brooch is typically referred to as “Granny’s Chips.” She wore the brooch to important family events, including her children’s weddings, the 1937 coronation of her son George VI, and her grandaughter Princess Elizabeth’s

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Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution.

What is documented is the 1928 sale of the diamond. It is believed the diamond was found in South Africa in 1910 or 1912. One of America’s oldest and finest jewelers, Black, Starr & Frost fashioned it into a platinum choker studded with diamonds and sold it to actress and performer Peggy Hopkins Joyce. In 1951, Harry Winston acquired the diamond from Joyce and it traveled the country as part of Winston’s “Court of Jewels” exhibition, before landing at the Smithsonian as the largest faceted diamond in the National Gem Collection.

Some diamonds emit visible light – termed fluorescence – when exposed to invisible ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Blue is the most common fluorescent color and the Portuguese is a classic example of a blue fluorescent diamond referred to as an “overblue”. These diamonds of extremely strong fluorescence may exhibit a noticeable oily or hazy appearance when excited by any of a number of light sources, including daylight. This characteristic, combined with a VS1 clarity and unusual octagonal step cut, makes the Portuguese one of the world’s most famous gems.

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The 245.35-carat Jubilee Diamond, discovered in the Jagersfontein Mine in 1895, is part of the Mouawad diamond collection.

The 650.80-carat rough stone was discovered at the Jagersfontein Mine in South Africa in 1895 and was originally called the Reitz Diamond, after Francis William Reitz, who was president of the Orange Free State where the diamond was uncovered. The diamond was cut and polished to its current size in 1896. Due to the stones size and purity, the diamond was originally planned to be presented to Queen Victoria, however that did not happen. It was, nevertheless, renamed in 1897 to honor the 60th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Victoria.

The famous diamond changed hands in 1900, when Indian businessman Sir Dorabji Jamshedji Tata purchased the cushion-shaped diamond. The diamond was sold a few years after Dorabji’s death in 1932, and the proceeds, along with his entire fortune, funded the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust dedicated to advancing learning and research, relief work and other charitable purposes.

Learn about the The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, Cullinan II, Koh-i-noor and The Orlov, all part of our famous diamonds series.

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The Napoleon Diamond Necklace, in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is set with 260 carats of old-mine cut diamonds. – Chip Clark, Courtesy Smithsonian Institution

As with many famous diamonds in this series, this necklace has an illustrious past. After changing hands multiple times within the family, then-owner Archduchess Maria Theresa sent the necklace to the Unites States in 1929 to be sold for an asking price of $450,000. Her agents for the transaction, which included her financially-ruined grand-nephew, sold the necklace for $60,000, sending $7,270 to Maria Theresa and keeping the rest for “expenses related to the sale.” The courts eventually returned the necklace to Maria Theresa, her grand-nephew went to jail, and the co-conspirators disappeared, their true identities never uncovered.

The Habsburg family did eventually sell the necklace in 1948 to a private individual. Through various transactions it found its way to New York jeweler Harry Winston who sold it to Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post, who donated the necklace to the Smithsonian Institution in 1962. It can now be viewed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

The necklace contains 234 colorless to near-coloress diamonds, the largest stone weighing approximately 10.40 carats. The diamonds have never been graded; however, infrared spectroscopy revealed that the majority of the significant diamonds are of the highest quality, demonstrating that the standards used 200 years ago to select the finest diamonds are similar to those still used today.

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There is very little known about the origin of the famous gem, other than it may have originated in India before arriving at its current resting place–the Imperial Scepter, part of the crown jewels of Russia.

According to one legend recounted by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, the diamond was taken from the temple of Srirangam in Mysore. Some stories say that it had been stolen from the temple by a deserter of the French army in the 1700s. Others contend that it belonged to Nader Shah, king of Persia, and was stolen following his assassination in 1747.

The Orlov was said to have been pried from the eye of an idol in India in the 1700s by a deserter from the French army. – M. Nachinkin, courtesy RIA Novosti

Its documented history begins in 1774 when it was purchased by Count Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov as a gift for his lover, Empress Catherine II, otherwise known as Catherine the Great. While the gift was unsuccessful in maintaining Catherine’s affection for him, his name will forever be associated with one of the greatest diamonds in the world.

Because the diamond is mounted, it has not been accurately weighed. It is thought to be approximately 190 carats, and is now the centerpiece of the Imperial Scepter. As part of Russia’s Diamond Fund (which contains the tsarist regalia) in Moscow, it is one of the few crown jewels of Russia not sold off to support the country’s struggling economy post-1929.
Learn about the The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, Cullinan II, and Koh-i-noor, all part of our famous diamonds series.

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A spoil of war for centuries, the gem is in the crown of the Queen Mother as part of the British imperial regalia. – STR/AFP/Getty Images

It is thought that the Koh-i-noor belonged to the first Mogul ruler of India, Babur, and described as worth “half the daily expense of the whole world” in the early 16th century. The stone is said to have obtained its name in 1739 in the aftermath of the Battle of Karnal, located north of Delhi. Having just defeated the Mogul ruler of India, Nader Shah took possession of the stone through an exchange of turbans, and exclaimed: “Koh-i-Noor,” which means “mountain of light,” when he first saw it. Through a number of conquests and misadventures, the diamond continued to change hands until it came into the ownership of Queen Victoria following the English annexation of the Punjab Province in 1849.

When the Koh-i-noor arrived in England in 1850, it was reported to have weighed 186.10 carats, poorly cut with an oval table and four unequal facets, and set in an armlet. In 1852, largely on the suggestion of Prince Albert, it was recut for Queen Victoria, which resulted in a loss of weight in the stone of almost 43%. It now weighs 105.60 carats, a modified oval brilliant cut, and is set in the Maltese Cross, a platinum crown designed for Queen Elizabeth II for her 1937 coronation.

Just one of the many legends surrounding this gem is that the Koh-i-noor can only be worn by a queen or queen consort because it will bring bad luck to any man who wears it.

Learn about the The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, Cullinan II and The Orlov, all part of our famous diamonds series.

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This famous diamond is also known as the “Second Star of Africa” because it is the second largest cut stone originating from the great Cullinan diamond found in South Africa, the largest diamond ever discovered at 3,025 carats. The Cullinan, named after Thomas Cullinan, the Chairman of the Premier Diamond Mining Company, was presented to the King Edward VII of England as a birthday gift on November 9, 1907, from the nation of South Africa.

The Culllinan II, a 317.4-carat rectangular cushion cut, is set into the Imperial State Crown. – Courtesy Time & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images

The British royalty had the Cullinan Diamond cut into 9 large diamonds and 96 small brilliants, including the Cullinan I (also called the Great Star of Africa which is in the Sovereign’s Sceptre), and the Cullinan II, set in the front of the band of the Imperial State Crown. Did you know that both the Cullinan I and II can be taken out of their existing settings, and mounted together as a brooch? We’ll discuss the Cullinan III and IV in a later installment of our Famous Diamonds series.

At the end of the coronation ceremony, the king or queen exchanges the Imperial State Crown for St. Edward’s Crown. The Imperial State Crown is also used on formal occasions, such as the annual State Opening of Parliament. This crown was made for the coronation of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II’s father, in 1937, by Garrard & Company. It is closely based on a crown designed for Queen Victoria in 1838 by the crown jewelers of the time, Rundell, Bridge & Rundell.

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The Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, c.1968 © Christie’s Images/ Bridgeman Art Library

This cut cornered rectangular step cut may also be referred to as an Asscher cut. The famous gem, which GIA graded as D-color, VS1 clarity (potentially internally flawless), was a surprise gift from Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor in 1968, and instantly became the most iconic piece of jewelry in her diamond collection.

The diamond is set in a platinum ring, flanked by two tapered baguette-cut diamonds, which she wore nearly every day. As one of the most anticipated pieces of the 2011 Christie’s auction of Elizabeth Taylor’s jewelry, the diamond sold for an astonishing $8.8 million – far exceeding the $2.5-$3.5 million estimate.

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