Table Cuts

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

From the very beginning of the fifteenth century, diamond fashioning concentrated on Pyramidal Point Cuts, Table Cuts and French Cuts. Abundant faceting went out of favor and found a restricted market merely as a curiosity. Cutters therefore concentrated on designs with large dominating faces. Even dodecahedrons were thus transformed into Table and French Cuts, simply by removing a large section of the upper part of the crystal. So far no specimen of this type has been documented; only an unprofessional sketch of the Burgundian aigrette known as the ‘Feather’ is known. However, we find Round Table Cuts described in numerous inventories. At the time the term plat stood for an overall height far less than that of pointed cuts. En façon de mirouer, signifying ‘in the shape of a mirror’—in other words, a table facet—also appears frequently and is used for both square and rounded diamonds. During the fifteenth century a wide variety of descriptions was used. Judging by the fanciful entries in inventories and other documents, it is obvious that there was no fixed terminology. The word ‘table’ itself appears to have been used in France from about the year 1000, but only to refer to pieces of furniture. It was only in 1431 that the expression diamond en table was introduced.

The great surge of artistic creativity at the time of the Renaissance was influenced by old beliefs, by new philosophy and by rational scientific thinking. Rigid rules controlled creativity in architecture, painting , sculpture and literature, and were equally important in the fashioning of diamonds. In the illustration by Luigi Pulci, the geometrical figure in the right hand of the mathematician on the left contains perfect proportions and could easily be used as a model for the angles of inclinations between crown and pavilion facets in a Table Cut. The proportions here are exactly the same as those that have been propounded ever since the end of the sixteenth century. Similar c.45° angles can be seen in the geometrical figure in the hand of the mathematician on the right.

One of Mielich’s illustrations in color of the jewels belonging to Anna, Duchess of Bavaria, shows an enseigne of Hercules standing before Eurystheus; the line drawing shows more clearly than a photograph the different cuts used to make up the jewel. It is possible to distinguish two trihedral cuts and a selection of both regular and fancy Tables, all cleverly used to represent classical architecture. Note also the pitcher and lantern carried by Hercules.

Several portraits of James I show him wearing in his hat the ‘Feather’, one of the legendary English jewels. In the schedule (inventory) of the Royal Jewels drawn up in 1606, it was described as ‘one fayre jewell, like a feather of gould, contayning a fayre table-diamond in the middest and fyve-and-twentie diamondes of diverse forms made of sondrous other jewells.’ It is interesting to see how much the Table Cuts varied and how beautifully the gems of the verticals were graduated in size. Even if the stones were taken from old jewels of the Treasury, as the schedule suggests, many of them must have been refashioned in order to fit the design of the ‘Feather’.