The Mughal emperors and the Indian princes had a passion for diamonds and gemstones, which they collected and wore in great profusion on state occasions. Beginning in the 1600s, European monarchs in the West similarly acquired large diamonds to reflect their prestige and power. While the Indians polished the existing facets of the diamonds to preserve precious weight, in the mid-1600s the Europeans innovated the brilliant cut, which employed more scientific principles to maximize the refraction of light and create symmetry and “fire.”
French monarch Louis XIV amassed the largest treasury of diamonds in Europe, all of which were sourced from India. In 1668 the king bought more than one thousand diamonds from the gemstone merchant, traveler, and writer Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–1689), who published accounts of his voyages to India in 1676. This purchase included the enormous French Blue diamond, then weighing 115.28 metric carats, and which was recut in 1678 to produce a symmetrical triangular stone. The king wore it prominently as a cravat pin. Stolen during the French Revolution, the stone was again recut in London and reemerged as what we know today as the Hope diamond.