(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Two diamonds from Mazarin’s collection, numbers 17 and 18, are of similar shape and faceting, but differ radically from ordinary Sancy Cuts in being flatbacks. If the two halves were rejoined on their flat sides, they would form a single Sancy Cut diamond. The original crystal, which must have been either a macle or a dodecahedroid stone, was probably cleaved into two halves before being given the same faceting as the Grand Sancy. A close inspection of the gems in their settings revealed that not only were the two stones identical in outline, but also in their slightly brownish tint. There is no question of their not being originally the same stone.
In the 1691 inventory the two diamonds were described as being ‘faceted and heart-shaped’, but in 1791, following contemporary nomenclature, they were called ‘Rose Cuts’, and were said to weigh 21 3/19 ct. At one time they were dress buttons, first for Louis XIV and then for Louis XV. Louis XVIII had them set in a broadsword, later worn by Bapst in 1885 for the Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon I, and are in the Galerie d’Apollon, Musée du Louvre. Between the twin Mazarins, Bapst place two very old lozenge-shaped diamonds, and below them an equally old pentagonal one. All three are trihedrally faceted. The large drop in the center, which is almost a Sancy Cut, could, in fact, be Tavernier’s number 10, very slightly symmetrized. It is larger than the stone depicted in Tavernier’s book but is very similarly fashioned. Under this is an unusual long hexagon with very narrow facets. I believe this to be the cut called, in old French inventories, Tombstone (en façon de tombeau).
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