Diamond hat garniture, featuring the Dresden Green Diamond

Augustus III's passion for diamonds went much further than his father Augustus the Strong. With the Dresden Green Diamond, he managed to bring the most precious of all diamonds in the Green Vault to his possession. The sea-green, very pure diamond weighs 160 grains or 41 ct and came to the Treasury in 1742 as part of a brilliant cut diamond garniture. August III bought this diamond from the Armenian merchant Delles or Telles at the Leipzig Fair. No one knows how the only large, green diamond ever found made its way from the Golconda area in India to London, where it was supposedly cut, and then to Dresden, nor is its true purchase price known. It was likely 400.000 thaler. The diamond owes its unique coloration to the fact that it was exposed to natural radioactivity below surface of the earth. It is thus a true wonder of nature.