Today, Wednesday November 13th, the Pink Star diamond is set to be *sold at Sotheby’s in Geneva. The oval‐cut, 5.6 carat jewel was mined be De Beers in Africa in 1999. It is is said to be internally flawless and is expected to fetch a price in excess of £37,000,000 - which, if that value is achieved, will make it the most expensive stone ever to be offered at auction.
Even so, the excitement about this stone is nothing compared to the frenzy that once surrounded the Koh‐i‐noor (which means the Mountain of Light in Urdu) when that diamond was brought from India and shown to the public in London at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Said then to be quite priceless and the largest diamond in the world, the political worth of the ancient stone had been proved in various Asian wars, and again when offered as ransom as part of the official peace treaty that concluded the Second Anglo Sikh war - when the boy maharajah Duleep Singh was deposed from his Punjabi throne, in what is now known as Pakistan.
The Koh-i-noor diamond exhibited in a golden cage at the Great Exhibition, 1851
The diamond is surrounded by myth. One story says that only a Queen may hold it, with any man who does so cursed; his lineage fading from the light. And perhaps the previous owner had indeed been blighted by such a curse.
The Winterhalter portrait of Duleep Singh
As a teenager, when the exiled Duleep was brought to live in England, he soon became very popular and was quite the gentleman aristocrat. Queen Victoria doted on the prince who she often called her 'beautiful boy', and so as to preserve that beauty she arranged to have his portrait made by the German artist, Winterhalter. It was while Duleep was posing in the White Room at Buckingham Palace that the Queen came into the room one day and told him to hold out his hands – into which she then placed the diamond that had been the sovereign symbol of his lost Punjabi kingdom.
No doubt she was only testing the young Maharajah’s loyalty. He had the good sense to return the stone and hand it back into her palms. But Duleep’s line did then go on to bear all signs of being cursed. He married and had several children, but no grandchildren were ever born. And then, when in his middle years, when Duleep became disaffected and often asked for the diamond's return, it could have been that he believed in the well-known prophecy that if the stone was returned to its homeland all foreign invaders would be cast out.
But Victoria's advisors would never consent to giving the diamond to Duleep. They would not relinquish any part of their Indian territories. They knew what the diamond symbolised and, dreading another Mutiny, Duleep was followed by British spies and eventually exposed as a traitor for consorting with various dissidents; mainly those Russians and Irish men with whom he had been making plans to march an army on the Punjab by route of Russia and Afghanistan. In response Duleep was exiled from England as well as India. He was forced to live out the rest of his life on the European continent, where he died at the age of 55 in a Parisian hotel.
Ironically (even though her own husband had reduced the diamond to almost half its size by having its facets remodelled into the European style) Victoria may well have received the stone’s blessing – while wearing the stone in the clasp of a brooch, or later when it was set in a crown - with it being said that any Queen who owned the stone would rule the world.
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She did become an Empress, ruling over the British Empire. And today, despite ongoing requests for the Koh-i-noor to be returned to the state of Pakistan, the diamond remains a spoil of war, locked up in the Tower of London.
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The true story of Duleep Singh, and the incident with the Koh-i-noor that took place in the White Room at Buckingham palace, is one of the factual elements woven into the fictional threads of the novel, The Goddess and The Thief - written by Essie Fox and published by Orion Books.
*The Pink Star diamond sold for $83 million.
She did become an Empress, ruling over the British Empire. And today, despite ongoing requests for the Koh-i-noor to be returned to the state of Pakistan, the diamond remains a spoil of war, locked up in the Tower of London.
The true story of Duleep Singh, and the incident with the Koh-i-noor that took place in the White Room at Buckingham palace, is one of the factual elements woven into the fictional threads of the novel, The Goddess and The Thief - written by Essie Fox and published by Orion Books.
*The Pink Star diamond sold for $83 million.