The 137.27-carat Florentine Diamond, thought to have been lost for more than a century, is in a Canadian vault, according to The New York Times.(1).png)
The yellow diamond went missing shortly after the end of World War I in 1918, having been in the Austrian royal Hapsburg family’s collection, the report said.
Sensing threats from Bolsheviks and anarchists, Charles I, the emperor of Austria-Hungary and a member of the Hapsburg dynasty, safeguarded the family jewels by having them sent to Switzerland.
Soon after Charles and his family also left Austria for Switzerland, the stone was thought to have disappeared. It had not been seen since 1919, the newspaper noted.
In fact, the heirloom has been in a bank vault in Canada since the family fled there during World War II, the report said, citing three Hapsburg relatives who invited the newspaper to inspect the family collection last month.
The diamond is “citron yellow,” originated in India, and is also known as the Tuscany Diamond, according to the Dictionary of Gems and Gemology by Mohsen Manutchehr-Danai.
The Hapsburg family had kept the stone’s whereabouts a secret out of respect for Charles’s wife, the Empress Zita, the report quoted one of the relatives as saying. Zita had told only her sons Robert and Rodolphe about the diamond’s location and requested that the true story remain undisclosed for 100 years after Charles’s death in 1922.
Now the family wants to display the famed diamond and other jewels in Canada to thank the country for taking in Zita and her children, the report said.
However, the diamond’s ownership is in question: Andreas Babler, Austria’s vice chancellor and minister of culture, has announced an “immediate review” to determine whether the stone belongs to the Austrian government.
The family has no plans to sell the diamond and declined to speculate on its value, The New York Times added.
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Main image: A photo of the Florentine Diamond, taken between 1870 and 1900. (Wikimedia Commons)
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