Saxon Diamonds

A large collection of diamonds started by Augustus the Strong of Saxony (1670-1733) at the end of the 17th century and added to by his successors.

It included the Dresden Diamonds and many others, said to weigh in 1938 a total of more than 7,000 old carats and to include many heavier than 10 carats. They were kept among the Crown Jewels of Saxony in the Green Vault, Dresden.

Dresden Diamonds

Six Indian diamonds that are so called because they were kept in the famous Green Vault (Grunes Gewolbe) at Dresden.

They are:
– the Dresden White, square-cut and weighing 49.71 carats, bought by Augustus the Strong of Saxony (1670-1733);

– the Dresden Green Vault, almond-shaped, weighing 41 carats, the largest known apple-green diamond, sometimes said to have been bought by Augustus the Strong in 1743, but as he had died in 1733, the purchase must have been made by his son and successor, Frederick Augustus II, who had it set in a shoulder knot – a shoulder ornament worn by a woman and made in various styles, sometimes as a jewelled bow-knot or as a bow-knot from which was suspended a jewelled ornament.;

– the four Dresden Yellows, weighing 38.00, 29.25, 23.10 and 13.48 carats. All were confiscated by the Russians after World War II but in 1958 were returned to Dresden.

English Dresden Diamond

A diamond found in 1857 in the Bagagem Mine in Brazil, weighing rough 119.50 old carats and cut into a pearshaped brilliant weighing 76.50 old carats. It is so pure that the Koh-I-Noor diamond appears slightly yellowish beside it.

It was named after E.H. Dresden, a London merchant who bought it in Rio de Janeiro and had it cut by Coster of Amsterdam. In 1864 it was sold to an English merchant in Bombay, whose estate sold it to Mulhar Rao, Gaekwar of Baroda; it was acquired after 1934 by Cursetjee Fardoonji of Bombay.