Graff presents a 168-carat yellow diamond necklace, accompanied by high jewellery pieces featuring the finest and rarest yellow diamonds.
Laurence Graff has been enchanted by yellow diamonds since Graff’s founding years, beginning with The Star of Bombay in 1974, and leading to an impressive roster of famous yellow jewels. Graff continues to honour and revere these natural phenomenon, making the Graff name synonymous with the world’s best yellow diamonds.
Yellow diamonds conjure the sun’s rays; pure joy emanates from their bright depths. Graff has become renowned for yellow diamonds since its foundation in 1960, with a legacy of cutting and polishing many of the world’s most fabulous yellow jewels.
Coloured diamonds are enormously rare, and Graff endeavours to discover the rarest of all – those displaying remarkably vibrant, Fancy Vivid hues. Graff’s full spectrum of yellow diamonds, from delicate, pale shades to the boldest and brightest stones, are often set with pure white diamonds to optimise their vivacious personalities.
Expert Cutting & Polishing
Cutting and polishing diamonds in-house allows Graff to harness the inner potential of every jewel, perfectly crafting each yellow diamond in order to optimise its depth of colour and blazing scintillation.
Yellow diamonds reflect all yellow light because of the nitrogen they contain, and Graff’s master craftsmen ensure that each cut enhances this radiance. Each yellow diamond is always cradled within a yellow gold setting to complement its rich honeyed hues.
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One of the first to shine a light on yellow diamonds, Laurence Graff has a close affinity with these rare golden stones. It all began when, in the 1970s, a diamond cutter showed him a 37 carat yellow diamond. Mesmerised by how the radiant cut amplified its colour, he immediately acquired it, sparking a life-long love of yellow diamonds. Today, discerning connoisseurs know that if they are looking for an exquisite yellow diamond, they will find it in Graff’s peerless collection.
Sumptuous Shades
Beyond the vibrant Fancy Vivid there is a growing interest in the more unusual hues. From Brownish Yellow to Deep orange Yellow and Fancy Deep Yellow, these arresting diamonds are captivatingly unique.
A skill that only experts with at least 10 years’ experience can attempt, Graff’s master cutters polish a yellow diamond to keep the colour within the stone, which is the opposite of a colourless diamond. For each colour grade there are many subtleties of shade and intensity, and it is the responsibility of the master cutter to find the most beautiful cut for each stone.
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The Perfect Composition
With a superlative selection of yellow diamonds to work with in terms of colour, quality, cut and quantity, a yellow diamond jewel is often inspired by the stones themselves. Graff’s designers spend many hours in their light-filled atelier studying each diamond before envisaging a new yellow diamond creation.
Yellow diamonds are especially beautiful when set into pieces featuring white diamonds, as they serve to intensify their colour, while playing with the angles and height of each yellow diamonds maximises the harmony and beauty of each jewel.
Exceptional yellow diamonds also look magnificent set into a ring, with each setting crafted to accentuate the uniquely radiant colour of the centre stone. “A ring is the purest and most simple way to present a stone,” explains Anne-Eva Geffroy, Design Director at Graff. “On your hand you share your stone through your gestures, and with each movement you see the beauty of a yellow diamond from all sides.”
A History of Graff’s Exceptional Yellow Diamonds
The Windsor Yellows in 1987, a world renowned pair of fancy yellow pear shape diamonds originally owned by The Duchess of Windsor, were acquired by Laurence Graff at auction. The diamonds, weighing 51.01 carats and 40.22 carats, were reset as earrings and later sold.
The Golden Star in 2003, a rough diamond of 204.03 carats was found in the famous Finsch Mine in South Africa. After six months of careful work by Graff’s master cutters the final polished diamond was unveiled; a fancy vivid yellow cushion cut diamond weighing an impressive 101.28 carats.
The Sarah was discovered in 2000 in South Africa and weighed 218 carats in the rough. It took sixteen weeks to cut the rough into two cushion cut diamonds and on the 12th December 2000 the Sarah and Little Sarah were granted their coveted certificate and unveiled to the world as natural Fancy Vivid polished diamonds weighing 132.43 carats and 20.62 carats.
The Delaire Sunrise, unearthed in an alluvial mine in South Africa, displayed a very rare natural shape for such a large rough diamond, a perfect octahedral. Never before had Laurence Graff seen a rough diamond that displayed such beauty and quality. The diamond took almost twelve months to cut, transforming it into the largest Fancy Vivid square emerald cut diamond in the world.
On completion in 2010, Laurence Graff named the 118.08 carat Fancy Vivid Yellow diamond the Delaire Sunrise after the Delaire Graff Estate in Stellenbosch, in celebration of his love for Africa.
When Graff discovered an opaque 299 carat rough from the Letšeng Mine in Lesotho several years later, the potential to craft a diamond that could join its hall of noble, historic and world-famous stones was a thrilling prospect. Graff’s artisan cutters and polishers struck a fine balance between articulating the facets to encourage light to ignite the fire within, whilst not losing any of its rich colour. In 2015, their instinctive passion resulted in The Golden Empress, a 132.55 carat Fancy Intense cushion cut diamond.
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The Peace diamond, a magnificent 709 carat rough diamond (below), was acquired by Graff in 2017. The stone is the 2nd largest rough diamond ever discovered in Sierra Leone, and the principal polished diamond is yet to be unveiled by Graff, but it is anticipated to exceed 100 carats. Exquisite satellite stones have already been revealed, displaying enchanting yellow hues.
