(2) Pitt or Regent
Fig. 63.—Pitt or Regent (top view).
Fig. 64.—Pitt or Regent (side view).
This splendid stone was discovered in 1701 at the famous diamond mines at Partial, on the Kistna, about 150 miles (240 km.) from Golconda, and weighed as much as 410 carats in the rough. By devious ways it came into the hands of Jamchund, a Parsee merchant, from whom it was purchased by William Pitt, governor of Fort St. George, Madras, for £20,400. On his return to England Pitt had it cut into a perfect brilliant (Fig. 63), weighing 163⅞ carats, the operation occupying the space of two years and costing £5000; more than £7000 is said to have been realized from the sale of the fragments left over. Pitt had an uneasy time and lived in constant dread of theft of the stone until, in 1717, after lengthy negotiations, he parted with it to the Duc d’Orléans, Regent of France, for the immense sum of three and three-quarter million francs, about £135,000. With the remainder of the French regalia it was stolen from the Garde-meuble on August 17, 1792, in the early days of the French Revolution, but was eventually restored by the thieves, doubtless because of the impossibility of disposing of such a stone, at least intact, and it is now exhibited in the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre at Paris. It measures about 30 millimetres in length, 25 in width, and 19 in depth, and is valued at £480,000.