Hortensia
A lovely and unique 21.32-carat peach-colored stone that was named after w Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland (1783-1837), who was daughter of Empress Josephine, wife of Louis Bonaparte and mother of Napoleon III. The stone was cut around 1678.
The catalog of the Apollo Gallery, Louvre Museum, Paris, states that the stone was purchased by Louis XIV and that later, after the robbery of the Royal Treasury in 1792, it was retrieved from it's hiding place under a roof in Les Halles district of Paris. It is now on exhibition in the Louvre. The Regent Diamond was also rediscovered in an attic in Paris, most likely the same attic, along with the Hortensia.
