Full Table Cuts With Blunt, Missing Or Broken Corners

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

Blunt and missing corners usually resulted from the cutter’s efforts to achieve maximum show, and were accepted even though they reduced the value of the gems. Only very rarely was a corner broken through careless handling. French inventories include the following terms: ayant tous ses coings; escorné ďun coing; escorné de deux petits coings; escorné de trois coings; escorné des quatre coings.

There is a mid-sixteenth-century cross (in the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim) in enamelled gold set with a number of second-rate Table diamonds, with irregular outlines and haphazard faceting. This indicates that they originated in the early fifteenth century, if not in the fourteenth, and were handed down. Similar diamonds can be seen in a number of seventeenth-century jewels; they were not fit for recutting and eventually (since they were cheap) they found applications in later jewelry of lesser value.

When Francis I established the French Crown Jewels in 1530 he chose as one of the eight pieces for the Treasury a large Table Cut diamond valued at 25000 écus. No weight was recorded but according to Sancy’s price list and estimations it must have weighed 25-26 ct. Later the king bought another, much larger, Full Table Cut diamond which was only added to the Treasury in 1559, by Francis II. This second Grande Table was listed as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman carréè, without any estimated value. A year later it was listed in the inventory as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman à pleine fons un peu longuet que achepta le roy François 1er et lui cousta 65000 écuś. Again using Sancy’s calculations, it can be estimated that this second Grande Table weighed a little over 40 ct and measured more than 20mm in width: it is said to have been one of the largest and most beautiful diamonds in Europe. In 1570 the Crown inventory described te stone as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman á plein fons un peu longuette escornèe de deux coings’, still worth 65000 écus. Catherine de’ Medici tried to pawn it in 1568 but it was refused at her valuation of 75000 écus. It was successfully pawned in 1583 to a Florentine banker called Rucellai, who eventually disposed of it; no trace of it has ever been discovered. It is possible that these two Grandes Tables, refashioned into Brilliants, are still somewhere in existence.

Full Table Cuts With Blunt, Missing Or Broken Corners (continued)