The Idol’s Eye Diamond

The Idol’s Eye diamond, from which our shop takes its name, epitomizes the brutalization of the utterly individual early Mughal Cut diamonds—found in the mines of Golconda—as they were recut during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to emphasize light performance over character. As recounted by Herbert Tillander, the Idol’s Eye diamond in its original form must have been a thick macle, triangular whole crystal or a large triangular cleavage. He surmises that it must have resembled the Mughal cut Nassak Diamond as illustrated by Mawe in 1823.