Khojah Johannes Rafael

Khojah Johannes Rafael was a prominent 18th century jewel merchant of Surat who had purchased the famous Indian diamond weighing 190 carats and sold it later to Russian Prince Orloff in 1775. Orloff presented the gem to Empress Catherine II who had it set in the Imperial Russian scepter.

According to one of the accounts of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, the Persian traveller, who met Khojah Rafael at Livorno, describes him as the one “who had seen a great deal of the world, and understood a number of languages. He had left Persia when a young man and had gone by sea to Surat”.

Khojah Rafael had purchased the huge Indian diamond from a sea captain in Surat. He was on his way from England to Russia when Rafael met count Grigorievich Orloff in Amsterdam. Orloff bought the big egg-shaped gem for a vast sum of money and presented it to Empress Catherine, in an attempt to regain his place as her favorite official. Orloff was out of favour because of his poor handling of the Ottoaman-Russian crisis. He offered Catherine the Great the Orloff diamond on St Catherine’s Day in 1776.

Empress Catherine accepted the huge diamond and had it set in the Imperial Scepter, designed by Triotnoki, immediately beneath the golden eagle. The Empress gave Orloff a marble palace at St Ptersburg, but she never rewarded him with his former position as her favorite. In 1777, count Orloff married his cousin, but following her death in Lausanne in 1872, he became mentally deranged and returned to Russia and died the following year.

Nowadays, the Orloff diamond is one of the most important items in one of the greatest collections of gems and jewelry at the treasures of the Diamond Fund at Gokran in Russia.