The Regent Diamond
Cut in London by the jeweller Harris for Thomas Pitt (Cutter active early 18th century) · Found 1698; cut 1704–1706
Not currently on display. The Louvre collections database currently records the Regent as 'non exposé' (not on display), and press reporting on the July 2026 reopening of the Galerie d'Apollon states that the surviving Crown Jewels were removed from the gallery after the October 2025 theft and await a new secure room. Room number therefore left blank rather than asserted. Image licence not confirmed.
Found in the Golconda mines of India around 1698 and weighing 426 carats in the rough, the stone was bought by Thomas Pitt, governor of Madras and grandfather of one British prime minister. Legend says the slave who found it hid it in a wound in his leg. Two years of cutting in London between 1704 and 1706 reduced it to 140.64 carats and produced what contemporaries considered the most perfect large diamond in Europe, colourless, flawless and cut to throw light back with unusual evenness.
Philippe d'Orléans, Regent of France, bought it for the Crown on 6 June 1717 at the height of John Law's financial system, which is how the stone got its name. Louis XV wore it in his coronation crown in 1722 and later on a hat clasp; Louis XVI used it again in 1775; Marie-Antoinette wore it as a hair ornament. Stolen during the revolutionary plunder of the Garde-Meuble in September 1792, it was recovered a year later, pawned to finance the republic's wars, and redeemed by Bonaparte, who had it set in the pommel of his consular sword. Empress Eugénie later wore it in a Greek diadem.
The diamond passed to the Louvre in 1887, when the Third Republic sold most of the Crown Jewels but kept a handful of historic pieces. It was displayed for generations in the Galerie d'Apollon. Following the armed theft of 19 October 2025, in which eight other pieces were taken, the surviving jewels including the Regent and the Sancy were withdrawn from the gallery pending a new, more secure display. Check before you queue.
Did You Know? Napoleon had the Regent mounted in the hilt of his sword, so the stone that crowned two Bourbon kings went on to sit in a consul's fist.
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