From Rough to Polished: The Marquise Cut

“So he commissioned a jeweller to create a diamond that resembles the shape of the most perfect lips that he had ever seen….”

Portrait of Madame de Pompadour and Marquise Cut Diamond

In the world of jewellery, round brilliant cut is the most popular amongst the standard gemstone shapes; any faceted gemstone other than round is often referred to as ‘fancy cut’. In today’s “From Rough to Polished” series, let’s have a look at a special type of fancy cuts — one that’s been granted a noble title: the Marquise cut.

History of the Marquise Cut

A marquise cut is an elliptical gemstone with pointed ends, bearing similarity with the shape of an almond. With a name that suggests aristocratic pedigree, it’s no surprise that the marquise cut was first born to royalty.

Legend has it that it all began at a masquerade at the Palace of Versailles where King Louis XV of France encountered Jeanne Antoinette Poisson. Drawn towards her beauty, the sovereign fell in love with her and she — as the chief mistress — received a place in the court as the Marquise de Pompadour (otherwise known as Madame de Pompadour).

What King Louis XV loved the most about the Marquise was her lips. So he commissioned a jeweller to create a diamond that resembles the shape of the most perfect lips that he had ever seen. This later became known as the marquise cut and was, in essence, a French kiss!

Madame de Pompadour, Francois Boucher, 1759
The Wallace Collection, London, England

While the whereabouts of the world’s very first marquise cut remains a mystery, its shape and cut was perfected by gemcutters over time. Due to its resemblance to the hull of a racing yacht — a popular hobby of early 20th century Edwardians — the cut is sometimes referred to as a ‘navette’ (“little ships” in Old French).

Some brides may also appreciate the fact that a marquise cut will make their fingers look more elongated and slender. While most popular in 1970s, this cut has made a huge comeback since 2018. For those fascinated by its design and tale of romance, the marquise cut is for you!

Faceting a Marquise Cut

As usual, the writer started out with the marquise cut following the faceting diagram. While the faceting process was not very different compared to other fancy cuts I’ve done in the past, what may be slightly challenging to cutting a marquise — I find — is to find the perfect contour.

Visual balance is crucial when it comes to the marquise’s silhouette, as one wouldn’t want the stone to look out of symmetry. What’s more, one should be careful not to make the stone appear too long or too short — a constant comparison between the stone in progress and the ideal image presented in the faceting diagram was required to achieve the most desirable outcome. However, symmetry alone is not enough when evaluating a marquise cut.

Shape Variations of Marquise Diamond
Courtesy of Gemological Institute of America (GIA)

In an article “ How to Choose a Marquise Diamond” by Gemological Institute of America (GIA), the visual appeal of a marquise is discussed when it comes to evaluating the cut. It is common practice for jewellery professionals to consider a diamond’s appearance in relation to other diamonds of the same shape and cutting style. As GIA has pointed out, the most common problems that limit a marquise-cut diamond’s appeal includes flat wings, bulged wings, uneven wings, and undefined end points.

Based on this list of criteria, I’m confident to say that my very first marquise has an appealing outline with aptly defined end points. An ideal marquise cut usually has a length that’s twice of its width or, in other words, a length-to-width ratio of 2:1. To some, my marquise may look slightly chubbier than this golden ratio. Nonetheless, it is still close to what the trade and consumers would prefer in general, and it was a sound decision made to ensure maximum weight retention.

Towards the end, I was actually struck by the overall thickness of my marquise cut, which appeared a lot thinner than I had originally expected. However, the nature of a marquise cut design allows it to have a larger face-up than a round diamond of the same weight. On top of its eye-catching silhouette, a modern marquise cut also seems to handle light almost as perfectly as a round brilliant cut diamond.

Marquise Cut with a Romantic Flair

In celebration of the romantic tale that gave birth to this noble cut, I decided to try my hands on a gemstone material that I’ve never worked with before: pink sapphire. As most of my avid readers and jewellery enthusiasts would’ve known, sapphire is one of the big three’s of precious coloured gemstones (the other two being ruby and emerald).

Sapphires and rubies are the gem varieties of a type of mineral known as ‘corundum’. Besides sapphires (blue corundum) and rubies (red corundum), this mineral also comes in a myriad of colours, including pink, orange, yellow, green, purple and violet, and is often referred to as fancy sapphires.

The Corundum Family
Courtesy of Gemological Institute of America (GIA)

As a gem variety of corundum, pink sapphire has a hardness of 9 on the Mohs scale (mineral hardness scale). In addition, the orientation of its inner crystalline structure also makes the polishing process ever more challenging. The unique characteristic of this mineral type was heartfelt when I came to realise that some of the facets — depending on their orientations — took a lot more time to polish than the rest.

What’s more, its resistance to scratches and abrasions also implies that more pressure needs to be applied to the stone when polishing, a move that would heat up the stone in the blink of an eye. At the beginning, the writer didn’t pay enough attention to the increased temperature of the stone being polished, which led the heat to transmit to the dop wax that fix the gemstone in place. As a result, the position of the gemstone altered, unexpectedly prolonging the polishing process because I had to figure out the new position of the remaining facets through endless trials and errors.

Process of faceting the crown of pink marquise

Despite these difficulties, this writer was able to overcome the challenge and ended up with a beautiful marquise cut. Voila, here’s a toast to the historic French kiss!