The Canary yellow diamond that went to breakfast with Tiffany

If you have ever watched the Audrey Hepburn film ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ or have seen any of the promotional posters you will have seen one of the most beautiful canary yellow diamonds, there has ever been.

How the diamond was discovered and cut

The Tiffany Yellow Diamond is thought be one of the largest of its colour to ever have been found. It was found in the Kimberley mine in South Africa in 1878 and weighed around 287 carats. It was cut into square cushion style shape of 129 carats and had 82 facets. Once it was discovered it didn’t take long before it was purchased by the renowned New York jeweller Charles Tiffany and has been in their possession ever since. It was his gemologist that cut the diamond down to its 129-carat size, but he took a painstaking year to study the diamond before he made any cuts into it. The man charged with this task was George Kunz and he was only 23 years old. He took the diamond to Paris where he set about cutting into the 82 facets to create the diamond that we see today.

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The two women who have worn it

The diamond has spent most of its life above the soil being admired behind protective casing and has only ever been worn by two, very lucky, women. The first was Mrs Sheldon Whitehouse who wore the diamond at a Tiffany Ball in Rhode Island in 1957 and the second was the beautiful actress Audrey Hepburn for the promotional photographs for the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Repeated attempts to sell the diamond

The diamond has been on display in Tiffany and Co’s flagship store in New York for well over 70 years. In 1995 it was mounted onto its current placement of “bird on a rock”. The diamond has been put up for sale three times, but the purchases have always fallen through. The first was in 1951 when it was priced for sale at $500,000, then in 1972 the diamond was out up for sale for an impressive $5 million and the last sale attempt in 1983 saw the diamond valuable at a massive $12 million.

Summary

This article tells the story of the Tiffany Yellow Diamond, found in South Africa’s Kimberley mine in 1878 and cut into a 129-carat cushion shape for jeweller Charles Tiffany. It notes the diamond has been worn publicly by only two women, Mrs Sheldon Whitehouse in 1957 and actress Audrey Hepburn, and that three attempts to sell it have all fallen through.

Questions this article raises

• Why has the Tiffany Yellow Diamond only been worn twice in public?
• What has stopped previous sales of the diamond going through?
• How does the diamond’s current setting compare with its original cut?