Chronicling the History of Diamonds in one Impressive Collection

From the beginning, Zucker was focused on a collection he calls a Musee Imaginaire, and he set out to make it a reality with his first purchases.  He has been buying, amassing and exhibiting his collections since the 1970s. The current exhibition and sale is the culmination of everything he has learned, and gathered throughout his life as a dedicated collector.

He set out to create a collection that would demonstrate and document the changes in diamonds from their discovery in India.  Although diamonds from the “Valley of Gems,” a vast region stretching across India, were written about for nearly two millennia, the real story of their role as the first source of gem diamonds began about 600 years ago. The diamonds from this region are generally referred to as Golconda and are considered to be exceptionally pure, with a luminous transparency often referred to as soft and limpid.

The history of diamond cutting is captured in the rings Zucker collected beginning with the octahedral shape. The octahedral is not actually a diamond cut; it is nature’s gift to the history of the precious stone: the form some diamonds take when they are formed deep in the earth. The perfectly formed octahedral diamond set into Sultan Muhammad of Ghor’s diamond ring dates from the 13th century. Although the ring was made in Afghanistan or Pakistan, the diamond is undoubtedly of Golconda origin.  

While these early diamonds don’t exhibit the flash of light or brilliance of contemporary diamonds, they offer the essential quality of a diamond and captivate us with their incredible hardness, the quality that allows them to survive through the centuries.

The first significant effort to change the appearance of the diamond through cutting is seen in the Spitzer Renaissance Point Cut diamond, set in a ring in Italy in the 16th century. The pointcut diamond essentially maintains the octahedral shape but the planes are worked sufficiently to create the distinctive points. The use of diamond dust, assiduously abraded against the diamond with oil, smooths out surface imperfections.

The Guilhou Renaissance Table Cut Diamond, dating also from the16th century, exemplifies the next step in diamond polishing. This cut further modifies the octahedron by removing the top of the pyramid, creating a large flat facet at the top of the stone, hence the name, ‘table.’ By allowing more light to be reflected and refracted, there is a notable increase in brilliance.

The next step in cutting, the rose cut, is exemplified by the Dutch Rose Jewel, perhaps from the Netherlands, dating to the early 18th century. Facets are arranged on the top portion of the diamond to emulate the petals of a flower. This jewel offers eight large rose-cut diamonds, each with slight body color, perhaps the earliest example of the use of colored diamonds. Rose cut diamonds vary as to the number of facets but this style of cutting is a clear predecessor to the brilliant cut diamond.

The most modern cut in the Zucker collection, the brilliant cut diamond, is featured in the St. Alban’s Bodkin. This 17th century piece, originally a hairpin, presages the modern brilliant cut, designed by Marcel Tolkowsky in 1919 although it retains the soft look of old-cut diamonds.

Zucker’s collection captures a moment in time, and rescues diamonds that might have been re-cut in an effort to make them more brilliant.  His dedicated effort to find, and purchase, the finest examples of antique diamonds in period settings, has led to this unique collection. Zucker hopes the collection will be purchased as a unit, by a buyer who will exhibit it in the future. For now, he has satisfied his desire to create a collection that captures the history of the diamond and he is now dedicated to sharing it with a public that appreciates his interest in antiquity.