ORLOV DIAMOND

rose-cut gem from India, one of the Romanov crown jewels; it is shaped like half an egg, with facets covering its domed surface, and the underside is nearly flat. It weighs nearly 200 carats. According to legend, it was once used as the eye of an idol in a Brahman temple in Mysore and was stolen by a French deserter, who escaped with it to Madras. Others contend that the authenticated history of the Orlov extends to the middle of the 18th century, when the stone (believed to be the long-missing Great Mogul diamond; q.v.) belonged to Nader Shah, king of Persia. After his assassination it was stolen and sold to an Armenian millionaire named Shaffrass. In either case, it was purchased in 1774 by Count Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov, who in an unsuccessful attempt to regain favour gave it to Empress Catherine II the Great. Catherine had it mounted in the Romanov imperial sceptre, and it is now part of Russia's Diamond Fund (which contains the tsarist regalia) in Moscow.