The Full, Or High, Table Cut

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

The Full, or High, Table Cut was the predecessor of two modern cuts, the Emerald Cut and the Square Cut. It was square or rectangular in shape and not, as a rule, stepped. The crown was high with a relatively small table facet, and the pavilion deep with a culet of just the right size to act as a reflector. In keeping with the quandrangular outline, the Full Cut had four main facets above and four main facets below the girdle. There were sometimes additional facets, but these were insignificant. The cut of a diamond was of little importance until, in the sixteenth century, intrinsic beauty gradually replaced actual weight and apparent size. Once beauty became a factor in balancing the merits of one diamond against another, it became obvious that universal standards of some sort were needed.

Juan de Arphe y Villafane, a Spaniard of German descent (his grandfather came from the town of Harff in the Rhineland), was the first to produce written rules for the proportioning of Table Cuts in 1572, but he must have either been misinformed or had some reason for describing the proportions of a spread type with very poor light effects. Perhaps he was stressing the price factor and found proportions that could be applied to comparatively inexpensive rough. The light effects could then be improved by foiling, an art which both Cellini and de Boot declared, quite rightly, to be the cure for all unsatisfactory proportions. By the sixteenth century this art had already been perfected, but it dates back to the first century.

Anselme de Boot followed de Arphe, laying down the first rules for the proportions of a perfect Full Table Cut. De Boot, who called himself Boethius, was a native of Antwerp who became physician to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. His De Gemmis et Lapidibus was first published in Latin in 1608, reprinted in 1636, and in 1647 appeared in a French translation with notes and comments by Adrianus Tollius. The French edition was renamed Le Parfaict Joaillier, ou L’Histoire des Pierreries. It included a chapter by Theophrastus and a short treatise by A de Laet entitled De Gemmis.

C W King, writing in 1865, described de Boot’s work as ‘a treatise on mineralogy still retaining practical value.’ King confirmed that the old proportions for the Table Cut were still valid, at least for Brilliants, in the second half of the nineteenth century. These proportions were modified only in the early part of this century, when the circular saw revolutionized the early stages of fashioning.

The London merchant Lewes Roberts, whose Map of Commerce was first published in 1638 with a revised edition in 1678, was a contemporary of de Boot. Robets’ rules for the ‘full ground’ Table Cut indicate proportions basically the same as those propounded by de Boot. Roberts clearly lays down a table size of 50 percent and a culet size of one third of the table. The second paragraph contains what is probably the earliest comparison of Full Table Cuts and ‘overspread’ diamonds. His words ‘as you can easily perceive by the reflection of the Collet’ indicate 45° angles of inclination for his ‘full ground’ cut. In place of ‘full ground’, other authors use such terms as ‘high’, ‘a plein fond’, and ‘Dickstein’.

The next person of importance to consider this question was the London jeweler David Jeffries. His book A Treatise on Diamonds and Pearls was first published in 1750, reprinted the following year and again in 1871, and translated into French and German. The invariables laid down for a Table Cut with perfect symmetry were the angles of 45° and the proportions of 1:2 for crown height and pavilion depth measured from the center of the imaginary girdle plane. No absolute rules could be laid down for the thickness of the girdle. It had to be just thick enough to resist chipping in normal handling, but an unnecessary thick girdle would have an adverse effect on light effects. The task of the cutter was, and still is, to balance beauty with size and weight.

The finest and most highly valued diamonds fashioned during the period when the Table Cut was at its height were fashioned with proportions practically identical to Jeffries’ rule. He worked out proportions for a Standard Cut for all pavilion-based diamonds with a view to displaying the maximum luster and brilliance. This had already been done with outstanding success in the case of the Table Cut, and even more successfully with the Brilliant.

For years I have advocated this 45° cut, and I still believe that if a cut of this type is found in an old diamond it should never be altered. Certainly diamond cutters of the first half of the eighteenth century found that 45° cut had superior light effects, and that Table Cuts were best set à jour and only poorly proportioned gems had to be set in foiled box settings.

In neither case will the poorly developed tip of a crystal affect the ultimate size of the fashioned gem. Cutters will almost always be able to find a direction which circumvents the lack of symmetry in the crystal.