Sapphire and Diamond Earrings, Cartier

Unique Elements
These exquisite sapphire and diamond flower earrings show the skill of the Cartier artisans, with diamond ‘baskets’ holding the deep blue sapphire blooms. They will make you feel like royalty.

Sapphire Blue sapphire is a variety of corundum, a mineral species that also includes ruby. Sapphires can be blue, violet, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, multicolored as well as color change, most often going from blue to purple, as well as gray, black, or brown. Blue sapphire can have both green and violet undertones, as well as the more desirable pure blue. Trace elements of iron or titanium cause sapphire’s blue color, with iron resulting in an inky, darker tone than the often vivid blue resulting from titanium. When jewelers refer to sapphire without specifying color, this refers to blue sapphire. Sapphire is the September birthstone and the stone of the 5th and 45th wedding anniversaries.

Cabochon A cabochon is a gem which has been shaped and polished but not faceted, typically with a domed top and flat bottom. Cabochons are often cut for opaque stones, for softer translucent gems as well as to highlight phenomenon such as asterism “star” and chatoyancy “cat’s eye”, as these would not show in faceted stones. The 'sugarloaf' cabochon cut features a 4-sided pyramid shape.

Old European Cut The Old European Cut, the precursor to the round brilliant, is an 1890-1930 hand cut round with good symmetry and an open culet, meaning a flat facet at the bottom of the diamond instead of the sharp point of a modern round brilliant cut.

Single Cut Single cut diamonds, also called melee, are round brilliant cuts that feature fewer than the standard number of facets, typically 16-18 facets instead of the standard 57 to 58. Diamonds of smaller sizes can be cut as single cuts because having fewer facets doesn’t noticeably affect the diamond’s appearance.

Cartier “The jeweller of kings and the king of jewelers," Cartier was founded in 1847 in Paris by Louis-François Cartier , and remained a family business until 1964. Cartier has produced jewelry for royal families worldwide, as well as clients including Princess Grace, Elizabeth Taylor, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Jean Cocteau.