Early Parisian Cut Brilliants

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

Bernard Morel suggests that French master cutters of the mid-seventeenth century invented certain types of fancy cut Brilliants. I have examined several unusual diamonds fashioned in Paris, such as the French Blue, the de Guise and the Hortensia, with both symmetry and faceting deviating from the standard Baroque forms, but I have found no details which had not been applied to diamonds before, except possibly for the Sancy Cuts, which may have been a French innovation. The Grand Sancy may have been the first of its kind and was, according to Cletscher, fashioned in Paris. The Sancy Cut appears further to have been a kind of Pre-Brilliant. If we knew that the Wittelsbach was also fashioned in Paris, I might be tempted to agree with Morel. But was apparently cut in Lisbon, or possibly Venice, so one cannot say with certainity that all Brilliants of this type originated from Paris.

The Paris cutters were above all specialists at refashioning Louis XIV’s primitively cut Indian diamonds, the gems delivered to him by Tavernier, Bazu and other travelers to thte Far East. They also modernized numerous obsolete cuts. Obviously, many of these had to be fashioned according the shapes they had been given rather than those which the natural rough favored. And each gem presented a different problem, demanding a solution particular to itself. One of the greatest problems was how to refashion a shallow pavilion with a very large culet. This they overcame by applying almost horizontal culet facets, which presumably explains why so many of the refashioned French gems were Stellar Cut. This technique was not new either; it was illustrated on seventeenth-century Table Cuts, for example, in a drawing by Cletscher.

The reason for the existence of both sixfold and sevenfold symmetry and for the numerous fancy outlines also lies in the original gems. When they were refashioning old Table Cuts, cutters naturally got rid of broken or missing corners and disturbing flaws. Their main task was to transform, with a minimum of waste, old cuts into gems with maximum light effects, with no necessity to adhere to a ‘standard design’. In most cases a close examination reveals the original cut of the stone, but nevertheless the results of recutting are, for the most part, extremely beautiful and the craftsmanship masterly. According to a law drawn up in 1584, French cutters were not allowed to install more than two grinding mills; in 1625 they were given permission to have three. Clearly, there was no organised importing of rough on a large scale, but there was great competition among the small establishments, which resulting in work of a very high standard.

The description of the Peach Blossom diamond (Fleur de Pêcher) in the 1691 French Crown inventory is interesting: ‘Un autre crochet de chapeau d’un seul diamant, brilliant, plus étroit d’un bout que de l’autre, de belle eau, pezant 25ks, estimé quarante-trois mille huict cent soixante-six livres, cy 43.866 liv.’ It tells us first of all that no term had yet been introduced for modified Brilliant Cuts—the outline of the diamond is described simply as being narrower at one end. And the accuracy of the estimate indicates the price Louis XIV must have paid for it, probably in about 1678 to Alvarez. In 1791, exactly a hundred years later, the same stone was described as: ‘un grand diamant fort étendu, forme en poire, tirant sur la fleur-de-pêcher, pesant vingt-quatre karats, treize seize et un trente-deuxieme, estimé deux cents mille liveres, ci 24 k. 13/16 1/32 (i.e. 24 27/32 old French carats).'

The name given to the gem was taken from its color, a pale pink, the color of peach blossom. When it was finally disposed of by the French government at the great sale of 1887 and acquired by Tiffany, it was mistakenly described as one of the Mazarins (‘Un brilliant rosé, formé poiré). The Peach Blossom is, in fact, a Baroque Brilliant, and is not so much pear-shaped as trapezoid with rounded corners. Its faceting is of the standard eightfold type, and it shows pronounced spread compared with what Jeffries considered a correctly proportioned diamond. The spreading may have been deliberate, to enhance the color effect, and it is interesting to compare its proportions with those of the Dresden Green and other colored diamonds.