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Adamas, Diamond

Adamas, Diamond Page of 453 Adamas, Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
       
     
 
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ADAMAS.
 
 

 
 
describes in his catalogue of the Hope Collection two engraved Diamonds, one a large Table with the bust of the Emperor Leopold I., well executed, and the intaglio highly polished within; the other the head of a philosopher, but a very inferior production to the first mentioned. On account of Herz's profes­sion (of a Diamond-merchant) his opinion may be considered decisive in a question of this nature. A competent j'udge has besides assured me that the Mayer Collection also possesses a head of Leopold on a true Diamond, a large Table, probably the iden­tical stone seen by Easpe in 1772 in the hands of M. Israel of Cassel.5 In Her Majesty's collection of Camei and engraved gems is preserved the signet of Charles II. when Prince of Wales, the ostrich plumes between C. P. well engraved upon a large yellow Diamond, a Table formed as a six-sided shield.
The Romans in their estimation of this gem were guided by the Indians, who have ever given it the first rank amongst jewels; the Persians, however, in the 13th century, placed it fifth, after the Pearl, Ruby, Emerald, and Chrysolite. Cellini ranks it in his Table of Values after the Ruby and the Emerald, and only at the eighth of the price of the former. Garcias ab Horto writes in 1565, "The Diamond is considered the king of gems, on account of the hardness of its substance; for if we look to value and beauty, the Emerald holds the first place, and the Ruby (if clear) the next." The art of Diamond-cutting seems even at that early period to have been established in India, for Garcias remarks that the Indians set a high value upon the Diamonds of the " Old Rock,"' especially those perfectly finished by the hand of Nature, called by them " Naifes; " for, say they, " as much as a virgin is to be preferred to a woman already de­flowered, so much is a Diamond perfected by Nature superior to one polished by human art. But the Portuguese hold the con­trary opinion, and set a far higher value upon the artificially cut gems." Again, the antiquity of the Indian method of Diamond-facetting may be inferred from the fact that when Tavernier visited the Eaolconda mine (1665) he found a multitude of
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
       
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