On the occasion of the Paris Haute Couture Week Chopard revealed an exclusive selection of rare and precious exceptional coloured diamonds.
Diamonds, rubies, sapphires and exceptional Paraiba tourmalines create this colourful and luminous array of gems which will soon become the Maison’s high jewellery creations.
Presenting its stunning and precious stones at Paris Haute Couture Week has been a tradition of Chopard’s for many years. The Maison’s Co-President and Artistic Director Caroline Scheufele spends the year travelling the world in search for the most coveted gemstones.
This year’s presentation begun with a pair of vivid yellow Ceylon sapphires (Sri Lanka is known as the “Gem Island”): both are finely oval-cut and weigh 151.19 and 127.70 carats respectively. In addition to this impressive size, they combine excellent clarity, perfectly matched colour as well as the well-balanced structure characteristic of the most precious Ceylon sapphires. Luminous as solar stars, they are destined to adorn a ring with a daring design and a matching cuff bracelet.
Another 26.70-carat sapphire featuring the most prized Royal Blue colour completes the corundum family. Also mined from the generous soils of Sri Lanka, it features a transparent blue hue that catches the light through an octagonal shape with a sought-after symmetry that reinforces the intensity and brilliance of coloured stones.
Next, a vivid red ruby is distinguished by its remarkable 10.06-carat weight and fine purity. Its strong red saturation, size and characteristics make it one of the finest-quality East African specimens. Like the sapphires, its colour is natural and has not been subjected to any heat treatment.
Two sets of coloured diamonds are intended for a dainty pair of earrings with a sleek contemporary design and a ‘You and Me’ ring, on which three pink and three green diamonds will star in an elegant play on their pear-shaped design. These rare coloured diamonds owe their hues to the presence of chemical elements or inclusions that modify their absorption of light. That is why, above and beyond the natural beauty of these exceptional gems, the finesse of their cut plays an important role in revealing the brilliance of their colour. While coloured diamonds – such as the famous ‘Dresden Green’ – were long regarded as the prerogative for monarchs who had them set on royal regalia, coloured diamonds have for several years been enjoying renewed interest among discerning collectors. Green diamonds are still among the rarest, while pink diamonds have seen their value rise due to their eminently feminine shade, as well as because of the recent exhaustion of the Argyle mine in Australia, which for several decades extracted the bulk of pink diamonds in world trade.
The three green diamonds acquired by Caroline Scheufele from mines in Brazil, as well as the three pink specimens from South Africa, are distinguished by their excellent combination of size (the largest in the lot weighed 4.63 carats) and few impurities.
Finally, the crystal-clear purity of blue tourmaline is highlighted by Chopard through a batch of three stones. The first two examples featuring a remarkable weight of over seven carats, combined with a matching blue colour and very fine purity, form the ideal tandem for a pair of earrings. Their proportions and the finesse of their subtly oval cut create vivid blue hues due to multiple internal reflections.
Due to the presence of copper in its soils, the northern Mozambique region where these stones were unearthed has recently produced some of the finest tourmalines in colours ranging from blue to greenish blue, very similar in many respects to the famous ‘Paraiba’ tourmalines mined in Brazil during the 1980s and later in Nigeria. Assembling such a range of Mozambican tourmalines of this colour, size and quality can be considered an exceptional opportunity. A third almost 16-carat stone will be the highlight of a ring matching the earrings and forming a spellbinding set.
“Because of my family’s history as jewellery specialists across several generations, my life has been marked by encounters with the rarest gems. Impressive in size and captivating in colour, this yellow diamond immediately caught my attention and our Maison is proud to present it today.” Said Caroline Scheufele.
