Description
A cushion-cut Ceylon sapphire of 10.35 carats hangs from a fine gold chain, unheated, with a single brilliant-cut diamond set above it at the bail. There is nothing else. No halo, no shoulders, no second colour — the design consists of holding the stone and getting out of its way.
That restraint is the correct answer to a stone like this one. Heat is applied to the overwhelming majority of sapphires on the market, to deepen colour and clear inclusions; a stone that arrived at this blue without it belongs to a small and diminishing group. Sri Lanka has produced sapphires for two thousand years and is the source most associated with the lighter, more luminous end of the blue range — colour that comes from within the stone rather than sitting on its surface.
The cut is a cushion in mixed style: brilliant faceting above, step faceting below. On a stone whose interest is colour rather than fire, that combination is deliberate. The brilliant crown returns enough light to keep the surface alive, while the step-cut pavilion holds the blue in broad unbroken fields rather than shattering it into small flashes.
The chain is a jaseron link in 18K white gold, 42 centimetres, and the pendant drops two centimetres below it. The whole necklace weighs 5.89 grams — the stone is most of it. C. Dunaigre Consulting examined the sapphire in Switzerland and reported it as natural corundum from Sri Lanka with no indications of heating, report CDC 2502110, dated 17 February 2025.
