Briolettes

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

The Crown Jewels of Iran in the Bank Markazy of Iran are exceptionally rich in Briolettes. The pièce de résistance is an exquisite platinum-and-diamond necklace made for Her Imperial Majesty in 1938. Most of the diamonds are modern but the nine large Briolettes suspended from it are old. They have an estimated total weight of 200 ct (10 – 45 ct each). ‘The platinum work and the baguette diamonds are modern, but the briolette diamonds...showed wear. After we closely examined the necklace we realized that the briolettes were quite old and that they had probably acquired the wear-marks by being transported in camel bags with inadequate packing.’

Lawrence S Krashes gives us new, more detailed information about an exceptional diamond in his book on Harry Winston. He discloses that the stone was fashioned in France, from South African rough, in 1908-9, and he provides a number of further details, though unfortunately not the dimensions. The fashioning apparently follows the traditional lines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the gem is so vast (90.35 ct) that the number of facets runs into hundreds.

It is well known that most of the eighteen diamonds in the collection bequeathed to the French Crown by Cardinal Mazarin were Table Cuts, subsequently recut into Brilliants. But in addition to the Great Sancy and the two flat-bottomed Sancy cuts, two other stones listed in the Crown inventory of 1691 were cut as Briolettes. Numbers 5 and 6 are described as being faceted both sides, of almond shape and pierced downwards through the point so that they could serve as ear pendants, evidence that in the seventeenth century diamonds were drilled if the cutters intended them to be used as hanging gems. These two diamonds were actually set in a pair of earrings of a very ornamental type known as girandoles. They each take an eyewire pin of 2-3 mm in length.

It seems certain that in 1722 Mazarin numbers 5 and 6 were set into Louis XV’s crown, which contained in all eight large diamonds similar to the Sancy, each weighing between 16 and 22 ct. If one compares the outlines and faceting of these two Mazarin diamonds as portrayed by Cletscher in his album with the replicas now in the crown of Louis XV, one finds so close a similarity that one is forced to believe that these were originally the same stones, given that his reproduction was made from memory. It is almost certain that the smaller of these two Mazarin diamonds, number 6, was sold in 1796, while Number 5 survived both the robbery of 1792 and the sale and was finally sold by auction to Tiffany’s in 1887, when most of the French Crown Jewels were disposed of.