Tavernier Blue

Subsequently, most scholars and historians believed that it was re-cut and, after a disappearance and reemergence into the public forum, was renamed the Hope Diamond.

[1][2] In December 2007, the French mineralogy professor François Farges [fr] found in the reserves of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle the lead model of the Tavernier Blue.

[3] The diamond was certainly Indian in origin and likely sourced by Tavernier in 1666[4] at the Kollur mine of the Qutb Shahi dynasty's Golconda kingdom in today's Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh.

[7][6] Another large blue diamond believed[citation needed] to have been taken from the Tavernier was originally set in a ring for Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Russian Emperor Paul I.

[citation needed] Recent American studies showing that the Hope was ‘undoubtedly’ cut from the Crown Blue Diamond[8] are therefore subject to Brisson's intrinsic errors.

Kurin in 2006 points out that these inaccuracies suggest that a reliable model of the Crown Blue Diamond needs to be known in order to definitively settle this question.

The back of the lead shows a corolla of 7 petals characteristic of the ‘Paris rose’ cut of Tavernier's blue diamond.

[11] François Farges then carried out historical research on this lead: he found in the mineralogical collections the original label of the lead, which had been donated around 1850 by the Parisian jeweller Charles Achard, who provided vital information on this mould: it stated that ‘Mr Hoppe [sic] of London ’[12] had indeed owned the blue diamond in London.

Detailed view of the recreated great Golden Fleece of king Louis XV of France. Below the 107 carats (21.4 g) spinel Côte de Bretagne hangs the French Blue diamond and the fleece itself, set with hundreds of yellow diamond replicas.
Tavernier's original sketch
The cubic zirconia replica of the Tavernier Blue diamond created by Scott Sucher
The lead model found at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle by Farges in Paris at the end of 2007 (approx. 31 × 26 mm).