


Many others followed, including the 726.60-carat Vargas from Brazil which, in 1938, he tracked down across multiple continents after he read a brief newspaper notice about its discovery.

The first of the celebrated diamonds to be purchased by Winston was the 726-carat uncut Jonker, acquired in 1935. in 1932, where he influenced 20th-century-jewelry trends by always elevating the stones rather than adding the lavish decorations that had pervaded jewelry in the 19th century. His early success involved turning that eye to estate sale collections that he transformed by freeing gemstones from dated ornamentation, giving them new cuts and modern settings. Winston’s father had immigrated to New York from Ukraine and ran a small jewelry shop where a young Harry learned about precious stones, enough, the story goes, to identify a real emerald in a heap of pawnshop jewelry at the age of 12. Today, Winston is regarded as the “King of Diamonds” and the “Jeweler to the Stars” as one of the first to recognize the branding power of lending glitzy earrings, necklaces and other fine jewelry for red-carpet events. Among the famed gemstones that Harry Winston (1896–1978) encountered over the course of his career was the Hope diamond, which he donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958.
