Heating the stone may sometimes improve its colour but care must be taken to keep the temperature below 600 Celsius because at this critical temperature the green colour is liable to turn to a light yellow or brown. It is clear to see why a natural green untreated diamond would be very valuable indeed. Imagine if that green diamond was pear cut and weighed 41 carats, you would then be talking about a famous fancy diamond -- The Dresden Green .
The Dresden Green derives its name from the capital of Saxony where it has been on display for more than two hundred years. The diamond was believed to have originated in the diamond mines in the district of Golconda in India. Marcus Moses an important diamond merchant of the time brought the large green diamond to London in 1726. Before the sale to the first owner, almost five years later it is believed that the Dresden Green was cut and polished in London.
In the spring of 1741 the diamond was sold to Frederick Augustus II King of Poland at the Great Annual Easter Fair at Leipzig by a Jewish merchant named Dallas for the sum of 30,000 .
The jeweller for the royal court named Dinglinger was commissioned the next year to fashion a badge of the Golden Fleece to hold the Dresden Green . Just four years after that the Golden Fleece was broken up by Genoan master goldsmith Pallard so he could create another still using the Dresden Green of course.
In 1753 the British Museum in London received a model of the Dresden Green diamond that was probably made when the stone was cut. The museum still has that model today. It is made of glass.
After the defeat of Saxony in 1768 in the Seven Years War, Pallard's fleece was dismantled by a jeweller named Diessbach from Prague. The section holding the Dresden Green was kept intact and made part of the hat ornament where it currently resides.
The diamond was allowed to be photographed and examined in great detail with an optical goniometer by Professor Roesch and Dr. Krumbhaar of Germany in 1925. During World War II the Dresden Green along with the rest of the collection of the Green Vaults was moved to safety out of Dresden. The Green Vaults had been erected on the direction of Augustus the Strong the original owner to house the collection. At the close of the Second World War, a Russian organization called the Soviet Trophies Commission took the contents of the Green Vaults to Moscow. They were returned to the city of Dresden in 1958 from the K nigstein Vaults.
A major exhibition in 1959 at the Albertinum in Dresden publicly displayed the Dresden Green for the first time since 1942. The Dresden Green and its hat ornament are now on display in the Green Vaults. It was here in 1988 that the first gemmological examination was conducted by two senior members of the Gemological Institute of America. The Dresden Green diamond was proved to be not only of extraordinary quality but also a rare type IIa, one of the purest forms of diamond. It is a large pendeloque shape of stone. The diamond is exceptionally transparent despite its considerable thickness. The clarity grade determined by G.I.A. was VS1. Because the famous green diamond can not be removed from the bezel-prong mounting without risk of damage to the historic metal work, it was with difficulty that a weight of 41 metric carats was arrived at.
Areas that were visible on the girdle ranged from extremely thin to very thin and were slightly wavy. It was remarkable actually that the symmetry was in fact good and its polish very good for a diamond cut prior to 1741. After the examination in 1988 it was determined possible to recut the Dresden Green diamond to improve its clarity perhaps even to flawless without a significant weight loss. However, while this would never be done to such a historic diamond it is a measure of the superior quality of this stone.
Diamonds
with green skins or scattered green patches (radiation stains) are common. Faceted
diamonds with a natural green body colour like the Dresden are extremely rare.
The Dresden diamond is the most famous fancy green diamond.
BRYSON BURKE
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