The Sancy Cut

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

The name Sancy Cut has so far only occasionally been given to diamonds that are halfway between Brilliants and Briolettes. They are pear-shaped gems with both the front and the back convex. A girdle divides the two halves, each of which has a small table. The gems must have been fasioned from macles, dodecahedroid crystals, or elongated, domed irregulars, all of which could have been fashioned into Sancy shapes without too much loss of weight.

There are, however, only two actual Sancys, once owned by the Seigneur de Sancy, but the name also applies to several pendeloques which were once in the crown of Louis XV; four stones in the Iranian Imperial sword and two in the Jiqa plum among the Iranian Crown Jewels, and Mazarin numbers 17 and 18 (two flatbacks which were clearly originally one stone). In the French Crown inventory of 1791 fifteen Sancys are mentioned, weighing between 1 and 3¾ ct. These are only a few of the best-known examples.

According to Jacques Babinet of the Institut de France, ‘all the diamonds which pretend to this name.......are cut in the form of a flattened pear, almost round, a shape called the ‘Pendeloque’, having facets above and below, with a small flat surface on the top.....This kind of cutting, which I venture to call the Sancy, merits as much attention as those known by the name of the rose or the brilliant.’

In the seventeenth century the standard description for the Sancy Cut was ‘taillé à facettes des deux côtés, en forme d’amande’. The French Crown inventory of 1691 gives the following descriptions:

C.I. : fort épais, taillé à facettes des deux côtés de forme pendeloque 53¾ (Le Grand Sancy)

59: à facettes, double, long, pointu, carré

1: un grand diamant en pendeloque, taillé à grande facettes des deux côtés. 15¼ ct

8: en pendeloque, taillé à grande facettes des deux côtés 14½ ct

Though some of the diamonds listed may have been girdled pendeloques, I believe that many of them were, in fact, Sancy Cuts.

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, Sancy Cuts have frequently been called Double Roses. This term evidently originated from French inventories of the previous century, when the cut was described as ‘un diamant brilliant formé en poire, taillé en rose des deux côtés, percé d’un bout’. Once Rose Cuts were established, the words taillé en rose were added, and the earlier term ‘almond-shaped’ was replaced by ‘pear-shaped’. According to Morel (1988), the fleur-de-lis on top of Louis XV’s crown (1722) was composed of four Double Roses each formed by two circular Rose Cut diamonds glued base to base.

Of specific interest is the fact that Sancy Cuts disclose a circlet of facets quite similar to the crown facets of a Brilliant, both of the standard type and the Split and Step Cut. With a large table facet replacing the apex they would have been as good as any Fancy Brilliant.