Chopard: Exceptional Stones

Chopard: Exceptional Stones

True to its Artistic Director’s passion for precious stones, Chopard is revealing new treasures on the occasion of the Paris Haute Couture Week. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires and exceptional Paraiba tourmalines compose this colourful and luminous array of gems that the artisans of the Maison will soon highlight to perfection through a range of mesmerisingly beautiful Haute Joaillerie creations.

For several years now, Chopard has been devoting its traditional Parisian Haute Couture Week event to presenting the most stunning precious stones. Since her childhood, the Maison’s Co-President and Artistic Director Caroline Scheufele has cultivated a genuine passion for exceptional gems. Endowed with a natural instinct and a keen eye, she travels the world in search of the most coveted specimens to nurture her boundless creativity. In 2017, Chopard had the honour of presenting the Garden of Kalahari, a collection created around a rare 342-carat rough diamond that gave rise to a set of 23 gems of which five were over 20-carat D-Flawless grade diamonds. Another extremely pure rough stone – the 6,225-carat Chopard Insofu Emerald – is currently in the expert hands of the in-house artisans being prepared to sparkle within a collection in the making. New gems are now being unveiled, heralding the splendour of jewellery creations such as only Caroline Scheufele can dream up.

Chopard: Exceptional Stones

Sapphires with a sunny glow
The presentation begins 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. 

Natural colours
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.

This no less precious 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 above-mentioned sapphires, its colour is natural and has not been subjected to any heat treatment.

Chopard: Exceptional Stones

The sense of wonderment continues with two sets of coloured diamonds: 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. Far less common than white diamonds, 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.

Date 07-03-2023