George Frederick Kunz, a distinguished American gemologist, told of finding two detailed sketches of the Hope Diamond made by a Soho lapidary in 1812.
As he explained in an article in The Saturday Evening Post,[1] Kunz discovered the sketches in an old book by Pouget[2] that he found one day while browsing in Quartich's bookshop in London.
It was commonly known as the French Blue and had been set into Louis XV's jeweled insignia for the Order of the Golden Fleece.
Francillon's drawing is dated two days after the statute of limitations for recovering French stolen property in the Napoleonic Code had expired.
"[4][5] The Francillon Memorandum remains in the Pouget book today, in the George Frederick Kunz Collection[6] of the United States Geological Survey Library in Reston, Virginia.
of Norfolk Street Strand a gentleman much esteemed for his amiable manners and conduct throughout life, and possessed of a superb cabinet of foreign insects the assiduous labour and cost of many years.