The Art of de GRISOGONO

I think every hardcore diamond-lover follows the news about exceptional stones and there are news to follow recently… On the occasion of the upcoming 25^th anniversary of the House, Fawaz Gruosi shared his firm vision to expand the de GRISOGONO collection with the finest and most exclusive diamonds.

UPDATE – ‘The Art of de GRISOGONO, Creation 1’ at the Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale in Geneva, achieved a hammer price of CHF 33,500,000 / US$ 33,701,000 (14 November, 2017).

In 2015 de GRISOGONO cut a dash by purchasing the marketing rights of “The Constellation”, the 813-carats rough diamond discovered in the Karowe mine in Botswana by Lucara Diamond.

The company also purchased the marketing rights of “4 de Fevereiro”, the 27^th biggest rough white diamond ever discovered, and the largest ever found in Angola. It weighs 404.20 carats and is characterised by an exceptional quality and clarity. The jewellery house revealed it to an audience of celebrities and VIPs at the Hotel du Cap-EdenRoc in Cannes last year.

This October at the auction preview week in London I saw the spectacular stone and necklace at Christie’s King Street office, so let me introduce you briefly to “The Art of de GRISOGONO”.

The Art of de GRISOGONO

Christie’s auction house and de GRISOGONO launched a very special collaboration, called “The Art of de GRISOGONO”. The partnership is about to offer one-of-a-kind jewels, like the “Creation I” Necklace. The piece was unveiled in Hong Kong and is now travelling on a world tour: London (4^th-7^th October), Dubai (17^th-19^th October), New York (4^th-5^th November) and Geneva (9^th-14^th November).

The centerstone

The above mentioned 404.20 carat rough diamond required an extremely detailed process to bring the best out of the stone: it took 11 months to analyse, map, cleave, laser cut and polish the final 163.41-carat emerald-cut diamond (it was analysed in Antwerp and cut in New York). Although machining and automatisms are everywhere, this is still a process, which requires outstanding human know-how and experience. Experts utilized special scanning equipment to analyse the stone. The almost rectangular shape of the stone inclined the cutters to choose an emerald cut. On the 29th June 2016, using the traditional time-worn tools of the diamond cutter, the first cleave was made by hand.

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) graded the polished diamond as a D-Colour (the best colour on the diamond colour scale) and Flawless (clarity – it means when the stone is examined under 10x magnification by an expert gemmologist, it shows no visible inclusions). To date, it seems that it is the largest D Flawless emerald-cut diamond that the Institute has ever seen.

 

The “Creation I” High Jewellery necklace

After many design plans the final choice was an asymmetric necklace with the 163.41-carat diamond as the centrepiece, trailing on the left side 18 emerald-cut diamonds and to the right two rows of pear-shaped emeralds. As Mr Fawaz Gruosi explains: “I chose emeralds because I love the green colour and mixing it with other stones. The green gives great contrast and enhances both colours. And, being Italian, I am superstitious. Green means good luck – you will see a lot of it in my collections.”

Working with such an exceptional stone demands the best artisans – the “Creation I” was realised by a team of 14 craftsmen and their know-how, patience and constant quest for perfection.

de GRISOGONO launched a very interesting documentary about the source, the analysation, the cutting of the diamond and its route to the high jewellery piece, please see it below. The auction will take place at 7pm GMT on Tuesday, 14^th November 2017 at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues, Geneva, Switzerland.

 

 

Photo credits: de GRISOGONO, Loupiosity.com.
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