When consideration is given to the shape of the Idol’s Eye – something between an Old Mine cut and a triangular brilliant – it is not difficult to envisage its setting elsewhere as an eye. Indeed the stone compares favorably with others deemed to have been set in this manner which suggests that certain idols found in sacred buildings in the East have had very oddly shaped eye-like orifices. The Idol’s Eye weighs 70.21 carat and is clearly a Golconda diamond, possessing a slight bluish tinge so characteristic of many diamonds from that source.

After the end of World War II the Idol’s Eye re-emerged when it was acquired by a Dutch dealer, from whom Harry Winston bought it in 1946. In the following year Mr. Winston sold the stone to Mrs. May Bonfils Stanton, daughter of Frederick G. Bonfils, the publisher and co-founder of the Denver Post. If many of the earlier characters associated with the diamond’s history have proved to be fictitious, Mrs. Stanton goes some way to make up for them.

Once a great beauty, she became a legendary figure in American life. From her early childhood she displayed an interest in jewels and began to assemble a famous collection. In addition to the Idol’s Eye it was to include the Liberator Diamond and a diamond necklace studded with twelve emeralds weighing 107 carats, once owned by the Maharaja of Indore. She lived in beautiful isolation in a palatial mansion copied from the Petit Trianon in Versailles, and was said to have worn the Idol’s Eye at her solitary breakfast every morning. The gem was set as the pendant to a diamond necklace containing 41 round brilliants totalling about 22.50 carat, plus another 45 baguettes weighing about 12 carat. Mrs. Stanton was also a supporter of numerous philanthropic causes in her native state of Colorado. After her death, in her eighties, in March of 1962, her jewels were auctioned in November by Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc. of New York; in accordance with the directions contained in her will the proceeds were distributed among various charities.

The Chicago jeweler Harry Levinson bought the Idol’s Eye for $375,000, for his wife, Marilyn. In 1967 he loaned it to De Beers for an exhibition at the Diamond Pavilion in Johannesburg.

Six years later in 1973, Mr. Levinson put the diamond up for sale in New York but subsequently withdrew it when the bidding failed to reach his $1,100,000 reserve.

In 1979 Laurence Graff of London purchased the Idol’s Eye. Harry Levinson loaned the diamond, before it was sold to Laurence Graff, for display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, at a 1982 reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of Harry Winston Inc. In the following January, Mr. Graff sold the Idol’s eye, together with the Emperor Maximilian and a 70.54 carat Fancy Yellow diamond named the Sultan Abdul Hamid II and thought to have once been part of that ruler’s jewelry collection. The sale of these three diamonds to the same buyer is considered to have been one of the highest priced transactions ever known.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Famous Diamonds