Maison Caldère — La Première, a 5.02 carat round brilliant diamond, D colour, flawless
Maison Caldère · Place Vendôme · Paris
Three billion yearsto catch the light.
La Première: a round brilliant of 5.02 carats, D colour, flawless. It began as carbon a hundred miles beneath the earth, before there were animals to see it.
I · Origin
Born a hundredmiles down.
At twelve hundred degrees and fifty thousand atmospheres, carbon locks into its hardest form. Then a volcano no one witnessed carried the crystal to the surface in a few hours, inside a pipe of kimberlite.
- Age
- 3.1 bn years
- Depth
- 160 km
- Pressure
- 50 kbar
II · The rough
We studied itfor a year.
The rough weighed 11.40 carats: an octahedron with a frosted skin. Mapped to two microns, its every inclusion charted, it was planned forty times before one cut was chosen.
- Rough
- 11.40 ct
- Polished
- 5.02 ct
- Plans
- 40
III · The cut
Fifty-seven waysto return the light.
Light enters the table, strikes the pavilion beyond its critical angle and cannot escape until it has crossed the stone twice. Then it leaves through the crown, split into colour. That is fire.
- Facets
- 57
- Crown
- 34.5°
- Pavilion
- 40.75°
IV · The setting
Six clawsof platinum.
Forged by hand in our atelier on the third floor, the claws are filed to six tenths of a millimetre so they hold the stone without hiding it. Forty-eight pavé diamonds are set one by one under the microscope.
- Metal
- Pt 950
- Pavé
- 48 stones
- Hours
- 160
VI · La Rivière
Forty-one stones,one line of light.
Graduated from a third of a carat at the clasp to two carats at the heart, each stone was chosen to match its neighbours in colour and fire. The search took four years.
- Stones
- 41
- Total
- 28.6 ct
- Colour
- D–E
V · The report
Measured,and signed.
Every Caldère stone over one carat is graded in our own laboratory and again independently. This is La Première's.
- Shape
- Round brilliant
- Measurements
- 11.06 – 11.11 × 6.82 mm
- Carat weight
- 5.02 ct
- Colour
- D
- Clarity
- Flawless
- Cut
- Excellent
- Polish
- Excellent
- Symmetry
- Excellent
- Fluorescence
- None
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L–Z
- FL
- IF
- VVS
- VS
- SI
- I
- Excellent
- Very good
- Good
- Fair
By appointment · 21 Place Vendôme
See itin the light.
Diamonds are seen best by daylight, near a window, in the hand. Our salons receive by appointment, one guest at a time.