The 76-carat Archduke Joseph diamond, described as internally flawless, comes from India's famous Golconda mines.
Archduke Ferdinand, the guy who was shot and ended up being World War I.
An avid mineral collector, Archduke Stephan had the Royal printers produce labels for his acquisitions.
Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, precipitating World War I and leading to the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
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In 1637, Emperor Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, archduke of Austria and king of Bohemia and Hungary, died.
Founded in 1580 by the Austrian Archduke Charles, it lies on a plateau of porous rock just above Trieste.
But when you put them in context of everything going on around it, then it can be the Archduke Ferdinand moment.
In 1541, Suleiman I of Turkey captured Buda and annexed Hungary after his dispute with Archduke Ferdinand over claims to the kingdom.
Three months later, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, and interest in buying art collapsed with the first shots of World War I.
Paris sent in fresh reinforcements, later squashing the Mexicans, and in two years installed an Austrian archduke, Maximilian Hapsburg, as puppet Emperor of Mexico.
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During the 19th century, it belonged to Archduke Stephan Franz Victor of the House of Hapsburg-Lothringen, Palatine of Hungary, who also had an impressive handlebar mustache.
The conservatives helped to bring over from Europe the Archduke Maximilian to be emperor of Mexico a disaster that lasted three years and ended in Maximilian's execution.
It was named after Archduke Joseph August of Austria, a prince of the Hungarian line of the Habsburgs, who reportedly deposited it in a bank vault in 1933.
Christie's specialist, Jean Marc Lunel, said the Archduke Joseph is prized because it boasts the highest quality of shape, colour and clarity that can be found in a diamond.
Among them: the 42-carat Emperor Maximilian, named for the Austrian archduke who, legend has it, was wearing the diamond around his neck in a pouch when he faced a Mexican firing squad in 1867.
Although it is not known exactly when the diamond entered the House of Habsburg, it has been officially recorded as the property of the Archduke Joseph August of Austria, Palatine of Hungary (1872-1962), and was subsequently named after him.
FORBES: 76-Carat Archduke Joseph Diamond Expected to Fetch $15 Million
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