Translated by Bethszabee Garner

Jewels and the Insofu emerald

In 2022, Chopard caused a sensation at Place Vendôme. The jeweler displayed in its boutique a rough emeraldweighing 6,225 carats, or 1.22 kilograms, of extremely rare purity, one of the most impressive ever found to date. It was mined a few years earlier in Zambia in the Kagem open-pit mine.

Named Insofu, which means “elephant” in the local Bemba dialect in homage to its shape reminiscent of the pachyderm's tusks, this exception of nature was about to embark on a fabulous odyssey. Unlike a diamond, which can be scanned to accurately assess its potential beforehand, this colored stone must be opened by hand to reveal its riches and only reveals its purity and color through a cutting process that is as unpredictable as it is delicate. This is a long and highly complex undertaking, as emeralds are fragile beauties that require great expertise. A blow struck too close can cause irreparable fractures throughout the stone.

For this perilous and lengthy undertaking—between the initial cleaving, cutting into large pieces, sketching, and finalizing the shapes, it took more than two years to cut Insofu— Caroline Scheufele, co-president of Chopard and artistic director of jewelry, called on the most skilled Indian lapidaries and cutters in this category of stone to study in detail and cut this underground gem. These men, the only ones capable of cutting a specimen of this caliber, were invited to Chopard in Switzerland. This was an exceptional event, as these artisans with golden hands were working outside their country for the first time.

In the end, Insofu yielded nearly 850 carats of cut stones, the result of the unparalleled virtuosity and patience of the Indian artisans and Chopard's Swiss workshops. The very best, 225 carats, was selected by Caroline Scheufele to be set in two collections. The first chapter of the Insofu epic was written last year with a set of fine jewelry unveiled in Los Angeles on the eve of the Oscars and worn by Julia Roberts. Today, Chopard unveils the final chapter of this saga with fifteen new creations, the centerpiece of which is an elephant-shaped pendant.

This signature piece, which took 630 hours to craft, features several pear- and oval-cut emeralds, embellished with diamonds, particularly on the animal's tusks. Suspended from a long chain punctuated with emeralds and diamonds, this pendant is cleverly designed to be transformed into a brooch.

The Marie-Thérèse pink diamond

One stone is sure to arouse wonder and envy at an auction organized by Christie's in New York in June. It is a 10.38-carat Fancy Pink Purple diamond, kite-cut, shaped like a kite, which belonged to Princess Marie-Thérèse of France, the daughter of Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI. Nicknamed The Marie-Thérèse Pink Diamond, the gem, after being passed on to Marie Antoinette's only surviving child, was then given to Duchess Marie-Thérèse of Chambord before being mentioned in the will of Queen Marie-Thérèse of Bavaria, who described it as “Aunt Chambord's pink solitaire diamond.”

Presented in a velvet case containing a hat pin bearing the Austrian imperial mandate—probably dating from 1868—the diamond bears witness to its imperial heritage. The last time the jewel was auctioned in Geneva was in 1996.

Offered by a member of a European royal family, it had remained hidden from view until now. Today, it reappears for auction. The famous jeweler Joel Arthur Rosenthal (JAR) has bridged the gap between past and present by setting this legendary stone in a ring crowned with a fleur-de-lis. Combining rarity and prestige, the stone is estimated to be worth between $3 million and $5 million!

The Rockefeller Emerald

Nicknamed “The King of Diamonds” by the press, New York jeweler Harry Winston owned some of the world's most beautiful gemstones, including the Rockefeller Emerald, which he renamed the Rockefeller-Winston.

This uniquely green gem has all the attributes of a masterpiece of nature. Its intense color, exceptional purity, and lack of any retouching make this stone one of the most refined and rare Colombian emeralds in the world. Originally owned by the famous Rockefeller family, one of the most influential in US history, whose legacy in business, philanthropy, and the arts remains unmatched, this Colombian gem was purchased by Winston in 2017. Its history dates back to the 1930s when John D. Rockefeller acquired it from a private individual.

Set in the center of a brooch, probably by Van Cleef & Arpels, he gave it to his wife Abby. Upon her death, David (the youngest son) entrusted the emerald to Raymond Yard, the family's jeweler. In 1948, it reappeared in a platinum ring. This jewel, which reappeared at Christie's during an auction, immediately captivated Harry Winston.

In the hands of the jeweler's creative teams and artisan jewelers, the 18.04-carat emerald was set on a ring alongside 108 brilliant-cut and pear-cut diamonds totaling 10.70 carats, forming the petals of a flower.

The Romanov blue sapphire

Among the hundred or so pieces presented a few years ago by Cartier in its “Étourdissant” high jewelry collection, one fabulous bracelet captivates the eye. Named Romanov, it is adorned with a legendary 197.80-carat cushion-cut pink sapphire. Originally from Ceylon, this dazzling gem belonged to Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, who would become Empress of Russia.

This figure of the Romanovs married Emperor Alexander III. She was the mother of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. A lover of Cartier jewelry, she had a passion for sapphires. At a ball, she appeared with two enormous sapphires sewn onto the sides of her dress. About ten years after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the exile of the Romanovs, one of these gems found its way onto the workbench of Cartier's craftsmen. The second sapphire remains untraceable to this day.

In 1928, this blue stone was mounted in a necklace for a loyal customer of the house, Mrs. McCormick, better known by her stage name: Ganna Walska. This opera singer, who had a penchant for men and diamonds, had it remounted several times during her marriages to the billionaires of the time. Many decades later, the famous Russian sapphire reappeared in Cartier's inventory.

The jeweler then created a cuff bracelet to house this stone with its incredible destiny, which he imagined to be interchangeable. Thus, an engraved rock crystal topped with two triangle-cut diamonds can also adorn this bracelet in place of the spectacular sapphire.

The white diamond from the Lucara mine in Botswana

At Messika, diamonds of unreal whiteness are a family affair. When Valérie was a little girl, her father André, a renowned diamond dealer and absolute star in this discreet world where he is considered a virtuoso trader, would bring diamonds home. He would let her play with them and wear them on her skin.

Valérie Messika has retained this passion for the stone since she was a child. For twenty years, she has been designing collections of jewelry and fine jewelry made entirely of diamonds, demystifying this gem, making it sexier, more affordable, more rock ‘n’ roll, lighter, and inviting women to wear it every day. In 2020, just before the first lockdown, Valérie's younger brother Ilan acquired a 110-carat rough diamond discovered in the renowned Lucara mine in Botswana, displaying perfect characteristics as it is classified as D colorless and internally flawless.

The young thirty-something, who specializes in buying rough diamonds, extracted fifteen gems, which were cut by five experts. When Valérie saw the finished stones, she decided to buy the entire lot to incorporate them into a single piece of fine jewelry. "It was a bold move, as she explains, because it is rare for companies to buy an entire family. I wanted to challenge myself by using all fifteen diamonds in the same set. Not all the stones were the same size; some were very original with rather surprising, more fanciful shapes. But sometimes the most beautiful creations arise from the unexpected."

The designer thus imagined the Akh-Ba-Ka necklace, inspired by the aesthetics of ancient Egypt and dominated by a central 33-carat cushion-cut diamond. This family of stones, in its entirety, illuminates the unique piece, which alone features 2,550 diamonds, totaling 71.49 carats. As if the impressive carat weight of the star diamond were not enough, the jewelry house demonstrated its technical expertise by making this piece transformable into a brooch and a ring.

The Lesotho Legend diamond

The story of Van Cleef & Arpels' “Legend of Diamonds, 25 Mystery Set Jewels” high jewelry collection began in 2018 when the jeweler encountered an exceptional 910-carat rough diamond. Mined in Letseng, Lesotho, its weight makes it the most beautiful stone ever extracted from this source, known for producing diamonds of legendary purity and color.

It is the fifth largest rough diamond ever mined in terms of size and quality. It combines a perfect D color, beautiful crystallization, and an extremely sought-after Type 2A chemical composition. Van Cleef & Arpels acquired this rough diamond from diamond dealer Jean-Jacques Taché. It took four years to analyze, map, cleave, and then cut this stone, which will go down in the annals of the gemstone industry, with the help of Diamcad, a leading cutter in Antwerp, and under the watchful eye of production director Eli Huygelberghs. Without too much loss of material, a family of 67 diamonds totaling 441.75 carats was extracted, including oval, pear, emerald, Asscher, and cushion cuts. These shapes are considered more elegant by the house when selecting large stones for its exceptional jewelry.

This series of exceptional diamonds now illuminates unique pieces showcasing the Serti Mystérieux (Invisible Setting), the house's signature technique, one of the most difficult to execute in the Place Vendôme workshops, and is brought together in a collection that also features rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, requiring 30,000 hours of work.

The Golconda blue diamond

Estimated at between $35 and $50 million, the largest vivid blue diamond ever to be put on the market was to be the star of an auction organized by Christie's last May. But in a dramatic turn of events, it was withdrawn from the list because one of the members of the family that owned it decided to keep it.

With its 23.24 carats, Fancy Vivid Blue quality and bluish reflections evoking the azure sky and crystalline purity of a mountain lake, the Golconda Blue is truly mesmerizing. It comes from the now-closed Golconda mines in India, where the world's most beautiful diamonds were extracted because they have a special feature: they sparkle more intensely than others.

In 1923, jeweler Joseph Chaumet awaited his illustrious visitor, the Maharaja of Indore. The prince was the kind of customer jewelers dream of. Ten years earlier, at the age of 23, he had acquired two very rare pear-shaped white diamonds. The stones were almost identical, weighing 46.70 and 46.95 carats. At his request, they were set in a double pendant on a simple line of diamonds.

That day, the Maharaja chose a diamond bracelet, even though most of the stones set in the jewel came from his treasure. The most remarkable is a beautiful blue pear-shaped diamond. In 1926, he was forced to abdicate. His son Yeshwant, who succeeded him at the age of 18, had very European tastes. Portraits by Boutet de Monvel attest to his elegance, that of his wife, Maharani Sanyogita, and their fabulous jewelry. From the beginning of his reign, the new Maharaja had his family's jewels remounted by French jewelers.

In 1931, Mauboussin designed one of the most extraordinary necklaces of all time for him: the pear-shaped diamonds, acquired by his father in 1913, were suspended on either side of a central pendant composed of an enormous emerald, itself topped by the Golconda Blue. Most of the stones that belonged to the prince left for the United States after 1946. The Indore pear-shaped diamonds and the blue diamond were displayed by Harry Winston in a traveling exhibition, “The Court of Jewels.” They quickly found buyers. The New York jeweler bought the gems a second time in the 1970s.

He sold the Indore pear-shaped diamonds to a Franco-Lebanese businessman, while the Golconda Blue, originally sold to the Maharaja of Baroda, disappeared into a private collection before reappearing today at Christie's, mounted on a ring designed by Joel Arthur Rosenthal, better known as JAR, one of the most famous and exclusive contemporary jewelers.

An article written by Fabrice Léonard, featured in issue 12 of OniriQ magazine.