Abstract
Laske is the most common Indian cut. Europeans regarded these irregular shaped diamonds as inferior to rose or brilliant cuts. Described as flat tablets cut from cleavage pieces, criticism intensified after the Koh-i-noor was exhibited in 1851. Laskes were set in diplomatic gifts and used to cover miniatures. Among importers in the seventeenth century there was no consensus. The Cholmleys, importing for a commercial market, found laskes more expensive than rough stones; they sought small rough stones with good colour and clear water. By contrast, the diamonds imported by Flemish and Portuguese merchants and stolen in 1631 contained a majority of laskes and many laskes were acquired for the French crown. From the end of the seventeenth century laskes were re-cut to satisfy European taste.
I would like to thank Michael Bycroft for many helpful bibliographic and other suggestions, Michael and Sven Dupré for their attentive editing and—for patiently responding to my questions—Amin Jaffer, Jack Ogden, Judy Rudoe, Susan Stronge, Tijl Vanneste, and Joanne Whalley.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
For the sake of conformity I have adopted the spelling ‘laske’. The Cholmley brothers (see below), sometimes omit the ‘e’. According to Webster, Gems: Their Sources, Descriptions and Identification, vol. 1, 15 the term “laxey” is also sometimes used, though I have not personally encountered it. Laskes are sometimes also referred to as “tables”, which is confusing as ‘table’ is also the term for a certain old cut. See John Cholmley to Nathanial Cholmley, 3 Jan 1677/1678, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 2/3. Letter not included in Rosalind Bowden’s transcripts of the Cholmley letters, “The Letter Books of John & Nathanial Cholmley, Diamond Merchants”, North Yorkshire County Record Office Review (2001): 6–58. I have drawn for this chapter both on Bowden’s transcripts and on the original manuscripts. Bowden is the author of a thesis on this material, but her interest is chiefly in the relationship of the Cholmley brothers to the East India Company rather than in diamonds as minerals. Rosalind Bowden, “The East India Company and John and Nathaniel Cholmley, Diamond Merchants 1664–1693 (Yorkshire Connections with Global Expansion)” (University of York Master’s thesis, 2001). Copy in North York’s CRO.
- 2.
Robert Webster, Gems: Their Sources, Descriptions and Identification, 2 vols (London: Butterworth, 1962), vol. 1, 15.
- 3.
Garland Cannon and Alan S. Kaye, The Persian Contributions to the English Language: An Historical Dictionary (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001), 105.
- 4.
See Mélanges Colbert, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. 281, ff. 12–15, which include many payments in 1666 to a “lapidaire” named Bazou as well as to the crown jeweller Jean Pitou for the (re)cutting of “grands diamants lasq.” In 1679 lasques are still being purchased but so are the now more fashionable roses, 194 of which were purchased in Amsterdam and Antwerp, Mélanges Colbert, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. 302, ff. 33 r and v. The crown jeweller is sometimes referred to in secondary sources as Pittan; I follow the usage in Germaine Bapst, Histoire des Joyaux de la Couronne de France (Paris: Hachette, 1889), 2 vols. According to Michael Bycroft (personal communication following a conversation with François Farges), Colbert followed Tavernier and Pitou in using the term. I have found no reference to laskes in the digital edition of Tavernier’s book (https://archive.org/details/texts?and[]=Tavernier%20Voyages), though he did use the term in an invoice (see next note).
- 5.
Invoice transcribed in Bapst, Joyaux de la Couronne, vol. 2, 403–5. Tavernier included several diagrammatic images of diamonds in his book, all of which may be viewed on the Royal Collection website https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/1141405/les-six-voyages-en-turquie-en-perse-et-aux-indes-seconde-partie-ou-il-est-parle or in the digital volume at Archive.org. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Les six voyages de J. B. Tavernier (Paris, 1676), vol. 2, part 2, images on pages 334–9.
- 6.
For an analysis of the Koh-i-noor, see Ian Balfour, Famous Diamonds 3rd edn. (London: Christie, Manson and Woods Ltd., 1997 [1987]); Marcia Pointon, Rocks, Ice and Dirty Stones: Diamond Histories (London: Reaktion Books 2017), ch. 2.
- 7.
The Saturday Magazine, vii, 1835, p. 21.
- 8.
The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1843, p. 246.
- 9.
Sourindro Mohun Tagore, MANI-MÃLÃ or A treatise on Gems (Calcutta: I.C. Bose 1879), 157.
- 10.
John Cholmley to Nathanial Cholmley, 13 March 1674, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 2/3, transcribed in Bowden, “Cholmley Letter Books”, 36.
- 11.
Bowden, “Cholmley Letter Books”, appendix. Given the context, it is surely the word “Lavrador”, “work” in Portuguese, that is the etymological root here. This suggestion was made to me by Dr. Jack Ogden, to whom I am grateful for an interesting conversation on laskes.
- 12.
Mélanges Colbert, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. 281, f. 13v. In Tavernier’s invoice for the diamonds he sold to the crown, the term is “laborades en l’Inde”, see Bapst, Joyaux de la Couronne, vol. 2, 404.
- 13.
Herbert Tillander, Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewellery 1381-1910 (London: Art Books International, 1995), 22.
- 14.
Jacques Savary de Brûlons and Philémon-Louis Savary, Dictionnaire universel de commerce, 3 vols. (Paris, 1726–32), vol. 1 (1726), col. 1684–90, p. 1685.
- 15.
Conrad Gessner, De Omni Rerum Fossilium Genere, Gemmis, Lapidibus, Metallis, et Hvivsmodi, Libri Aliquot, Pleriquenunc Primun Editi, Opera Conradi Gesneri (Tiguri: 1665 [1565]), 47.
- 16.
Erik Duverger, Antwerpse Kunstinventarissen (Brussels: Paleis der Academien, 1991), 106–7.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
This can be clearly seen in the many laskes set in a sword presented to Edward VII on his coronation in 1902 by the Maharajah of Jaipur, https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/11288/sword-and-scabbard.
- 20.
On Peiresc see Peter N. Miller, Peiresc’s Mediterranean World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).
- 21.
“Les Diamants qui se tirent des Juges, sont distingués en diverses sortes dont la premiere et la plus noble est appellée par les Portugais Diamante Punte naiffe … forme de la nature”. The term ‘naive’ is that used also by Savary de Brûlons, see note 16. It indicates something untouched, original, natural.
- 22.
“La seconde Diamant La Lasque, qui est plat sans etre travaillé a la mode de France [sic] car quand il est travaillé on l’appelle table, mais le mot de lasque est usé par les judicieux comme celuy de Naiffe”.
- 23.
Carpentras Bibliotheque Inguimbertine MS. 1821, ff. 133 r—134 v. Jean-Marie Lafont in “L’Inde et l’Extrême-Orient dans la correspondance de Fabri-de-Peiresc Mémoire pour les Indes 1630”, in Topoi 7, no. 2 (1997): 693–732, 715 refers to this passage and points out that Peiresc showed no interest in magical or symbolic significance of stones. Lafont does not, however, mention the concern shown by Peiresc in the precise nomenclature of different diamond cuts. Peter N. Miller, in The Sea: Thalassography and Historiography (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013), 267, elucidates the identity of Alvarez and his associates. I am grateful to Tijl Vanneste for drawing my attention to this.
- 24.
John Cholmley to Nathanial Cholmley, 3 January 1678, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 2/3, transcribed in Bowden, “Cholmley Letter Books”, 43.
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
Tijl Vanneste, “The Eurasian Diamond Trade in the Eighteenth Century: A Balanced Model of Complementary Markets”, in Goods from the East, 1600–1800 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 146–7.
- 27.
“taillé à facettes à la mode des deux côtes, forme de coeur court à huit pans, d’eau tres vive et nette …”.
- 28.
Bapst, Joyaux de la Couronne, vol. 2, 374–5. Further list on 380 includes no. 3 diamond in form of an almond cut “à la mode”.
- 29.
There is continuing debate about the origins of the rose cut diamond. François Farges claims that the earliest reference to this cut occurs in 1667 when the French royal jeweller, Pitou, uses it, see François Farges, “Les grands diamants de la Couronne de François Ier à Louis XVI”, Versalia: Revue de la Société des Amis de Versailles vol. 16 (2014): 55–79, on 77, n. 162.
- 30.
See Herbert Tillander, “Further Aspects of the History of Rose-Cut Diamonds”, Journal of Gemmology 26, no. 4 (1998): 219–21, on 220; Annelies de Bie, “The Paradox of the Antwerp Rose: Symbol of Decline or Token of Craftsmanship?”, in Innovation and Creativity in Late Medieval and Early Modern European Cities, ed. Karel Davids and Bert de Munck (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), 269–93, on 280.
- 31.
Illustrated London News 31 May 1851, p. 491.
- 32.
For details, see Balfour, Famous Diamonds, 170.
- 33.
John Cholmley to Nathanial Cholmley, December 1664, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 2/3, transcribed in Bowden, “Cholmley Letter Books”, 18.
- 34.
Hazel Forsyth in The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels (Museum of London, 2013) identifies the contents of a mid-seventeenth century jeweller’s shop; in addition to the jewellery are many unset stones, but they are all cut and/or polished. None is described as a laske. In 1785, in court proceedings with respect to a theft of rough diamonds brought to London from India, a jeweller when asked whether he frequently bought diamond in the rough replied “Not very often”: www.oldbailey.org, accessed 29 June 2017. The term laske (or its variant spellings) does not show up in a keyword search on this site.
- 35.
Mélanges Colbert, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. 302, f. 330 v—331 r.
- 36.
See, for example, my discussion of Sir John Delaval’s dealing with London jewellers in the second half of the eighteenth century, in Pointon, Rocks, Ice and Dirty Stones, 146–9.
- 37.
Transcribed in J. Denucé, “Exportation d’Oeuvres d’Art au 17e siècle à Anvers: La Firme Forchoudt”, in Sources pour l’histoire de l’art Flamand, vol. 1 (Antwerp: Editions De Sikkel 1931), 206–7. Denucé was primarily interested in paintings and seldom lists precious stones. This is an exception.
- 38.
A number of lists survive, though her “diamond book” does not, Althorp papers, British Library Add MS. 75402, ff. 4a and 4b. For transcription and discussion, see Marcia Pointon, “Material Manoeuvres: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and the Power of Artefacts”, Art History 32, no. 3 (June 2009): 485–515, on 495–6.
- 39.
John Cholmley to Nathanial Cholmley, 18 November 1668, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 3/1. Letter not included in the Bowden transcripts.
- 40.
See John Cholmley to Nathanial Cholmley, 3 December 1669 and to agent Dacres 3 October 1670, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 2/3. Letters not included in Bowden transcripts.
- 41.
See John Cholmley to Nathanial Cholmley, December 1670, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 2/3. Letter not included in Bowden transcripts.
- 42.
“A Description of the Diamond-Mines, as It was Presented by the Right Honourable, the Earl Marshal of England, to the R. Society”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1677–1678, 12 (pub. 1 Jan 1677): 907–16, on 912. Downloaded from http://royalsocietypublishing.org/ on 15 May 2017.
- 43.
“lascs & cut stone are generally dearer in India than rough”, John Cholmley to Sir William Langhorne, 3 January 1676/1677, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 2/3. Letter not included in Bowden transcripts.
- 44.
John Cholmley to Nathanial Cholmley, 3 January 1677/1678, MS. North Yorkshire County Record Office ZCG V 2/3. Letter not included in Bowden transcripts.
- 45.
See, for example, Herbert Tillander, Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewellery, glossary.
- 46.
The portrait diamond in The Al Thani Collection was exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Susan Stronge, ed., Bejewelled: Treasures from the Al Thani Collection (London, 2015), cat. no. 10.
- 47.
Now known only from an old photograph. For a discussion of this piece, see Marcia Pointon, Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 181.
- 48.
Queen Charlotte’s jewel collection dates from her marriage to George III in 1761; Christie’s Tuesday 18 May 1819, lots 3 and 20.
- 49.
The miniature portraits are in the Kremlin Diamond fund; one is reproduced in Pointon Rocks, Ice and Dirty Stones, ill. 97.
- 50.
For the interesting history of this gift, see https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/11288/sword-and-scabbard. Many examples of Indian artefacts sumptuously ornamented with laskes are illustrated in Amin Jaffer ed. Beyond Extravagance: A Royal Collection of Gems and Jewels (The Al Thani Collection) (New York: Assouline, 2013).
- 51.
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Les Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Ecuyer Baron d’Aubonne en Turquie, en Perse et aux Indes (Paris: Gervais Clouzier: 1676), vol. 1, 484.
- 52.
The passage recounts how the king’s envoy asks Tavernier to send back to Europe to have pierced some diamonds in jewellery he is offering to sell. Tavernier proposes that two “Diamantaires Hollandais” who are in Ispahan be summoned to see whether they are sufficiently skilled for the challenging task. The irritated envoy retorts: “Crois-tu que nous n’ayons pas en ce pays des personnes aussi capable qu’au tien.” [Do you think we don’t have in this country people as capable as in yours].
- 53.
Tavernier, Voyages, vol. 1, 481. These do not appear to have been the same persons as the two diamantaires.
- 54.
Ibid., vol. 2, 300.
- 55.
Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française (Paris: Hachette, 1932).
- 56.
“et ne s’amusent point à luy donner de forme de peur de luy ôter de son poids.” Tavernier, Voyages, vol. 2, 294.
- 57.
Stad Archief Antwerp MS. IB 2549.
- 58.
In the descriptive inventory of the French crown jewels 10 September 1691, reproduced in Bapst, Joyaux de la couronne, vol. 2, 374–402, a number of diamonds have ‘glaces’.
- 59.
- 60.
The Valguarnera case is discussed by Jane Costello, “The Twelve Pictures ‘Ordered by Velasquez’ and the Trial of Valguarnera”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13, nos. 3–4 (1950): 237–84. I draw on Costello’s transcriptions but, as her concern was with paintings rather than diamonds, I have also had recourse to the original manuscripts in the Archivio di Stato, Rome, Tribunale Criminale del Governatore, Processo 1620–1631, 265 Bis.
- 61.
As used by Juan de Arfe y Villafañe in his table of gems, Quiltador, de la Plata, Oro, y piedras, conforme a las leyes reales, y para declaracion de ellas (Madrid: Guillermo Droy, 1598 [1572]), 117–8.
- 62.
Archivio di Stato, Tribunale Criminale del Governatore, Processo 1620–1631, 265 Bis (hereafter Proceedings), f. iii 4 r.
- 63.
“fra di esse una pietra con un diamante di gran valore che tutti essi valevano piu di venti milla ducati … una pietra grande puntaquadrata … che erano molti anni che non era uscito dall’India un altro simile …”, Proceedings f. i2i3 v.
- 64.
Proceedings f. i2i2 r.
- 65.
No place appears to exist with this name.
- 66.
Roland Baetens lists Balthasar de Groot, Hendrik and Jacomo de Groot and Caesar Volpi as established in 1619 and merging into the firm of Jacomo, Balthasar and Ferdinand de Groot and Jan Fourment, Jeronimo and Nicolaas Volpi by 1632. Later, the firm became the well-known one of Van Colen and De Groot, Roland Baetens, “Een Antwerps Handelhuis uit de XVIIe Eeuw de firma Van Colen”, in Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, vol 2 (1960), 198–214. They are described as “Antwerp’s wealthiest traders” in Iris Kockelbergh, Eddy Vleeschdrager and Jan Walgrave, The Brilliant Story of Antwerp Diamonds, trans. Gilberte Lenaerts (Antwerp: MIM 1992), 112. The most authoritative recent account is Bert Timmermans, Patronen van patronage in het zeventiende-eeuwse Antwerpen (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008).
- 67.
Named as Louis de Freytas (sic), Pinto, Stad Archief Antwerp, MS. 7#6238.
- 68.
The names of the key players in the affair and their origins are given in the formal accusation, Proceedings ff. ii97 r—ii98 r. More detail is given in the deposition to the court in Madrid that is translated into Italian, ff. i2i2 r—i230 v, which includes the testimonies of the muleteers. See Costello, “Trial of Valguarnera”, appendix 274–279 for the testimonies of artists at Valguarnera’s trial.
- 69.
See Timmermans, Patronen van patronage, 42.
- 70.
Stad Archief Antwerp, MS. IB 166.
- 71.
This event and the subsequent proceedings to retrieve the stolen gems are described in fascinating detail in Hazel Forsyth, Cheapside Hoard, 97–143.
- 72.
Several copies of this publication are in the Stad Archief Antwerp GA4477 no. 36.
- 73.
J. Denucé, “Exportation d’Oeuvres d’Art”, 19.
- 74.
Proceedings ii 60 v.
- 75.
Karin Hofmeester, “Shifting Trajectories of Diamond Processing from India to Europe and Back, from the Fifteenth century to the Twentieth”, Journal of Global History 8, no.1 (2013): 25–49; Tijl Vanneste, Global Trade and Commercial Networks: Eighteenth-century Diamond Networks (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2011); Gedalia Yogev, Diamonds and Coral: Anglo-Dutch Jews and Eighteenth-century Trade (New York: Holmes and Meier, Inc.), 1978.
Bibliography
Baetens, Roland. “Een Antwerps Handelhuis uit de XVIIe Eeuw de firma Van Colen.” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 2 (1960): 198–214.
Balfour, Ian. Famous Diamonds, 3rd ed. London: Christie, Manson and Woods, 1997.
Bapst, Germain. Histoire des Joyaux de la Couronne de France. Paris: Hachette, 1889.
de Bie, Annelies. “The Paradox of the Antwerp Rose: Symbol of Decline or Token of Craftsmanship?” In Innovation and Creativity in Late Medieval and Early Modern European Cities, edited by Karel Davids and Bert de Munck, 269–93. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014.
Bowden, Rosalind. “The Letter Books of John & Nathanial Cholmley, Diamond Merchants.” North Yorkshire County Record Office Review 67 (2001a): 6–58.
———. “The East India Company and John and Nathaniel Cholmley, Diamond Merchants 1664–1693 (Yorkshire Connections with Global Expansion).” University of York Master’s thesis, 2001b.
Cannon, Garland Hampton, and Alan S. Kaye. The Persian Contributions to the English Language: An Historical Dictionary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001.
Costello, Jane. “The Twelve Pictures ‘Ordered by Velasquez’ and the Trial of Valguarnera.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13, no. 3/4 (1950): 237–84.
Farges, François. “Les grands diamants de la Couronne de François Ier à Louis XVI.” Versalia: Revue de la Société des Amis de Versailles 16 (2014): 55–79.
Forsyth, Hazel. The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels. London: Museum of London, 2013.
Gessner, Conrad. De Omni Rerum Fossilium Genere, Gemmis, Lapidibus, Metallis, et Hvivsmodi, Libri Aliquot, Pleriquenunc Primun Editi, Opera Conradi Gesneri. Tiguri, 1665 [1565].
Hofmeester, Karin. “Shifting Trajectories of Diamond Processing from India to Europe and Back, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth.” Journal of Global History 8, no. 1 (2013): 25–49.
Jaffer, Amin, ed. Beyond Extravagance: A Royal Collection of Gems and Jewels (The Al Thani Collection). New York: Assouline, 2013.
Kockelbergh, Iris, Eddy Vleeschdrager, and Jan Walgrave. The Brilliant Story of Antwerp Diamonds. Translated by Gilberte Lenaerts. Antwerp: MIM, 1992.
Lafont, Jean-Marie. “L’Inde et l’Extrême-Orient dans la correspondance de Fabri-de-Peiresc. Mémoire pour les Indes 1630.” Topoi 7, no. 2 (1997), 693–732.
Marshal, Earl. “A Description of the Diamond-Mines, as It Was Presented by the Right Honourable, the Earl Marshal of England, to the R. Society.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1677–1678 12 (pub. 1 Jan 1677): 907–16.
Miller, Peter N. Peiresc’s Mediterranean World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
Nicols, Thomas. Gemmarius Fidelius or the Faithful Lapidary, Experimentally Describing the Richest Treasures of Nature in an Historical Narration of the Several Natures, Vertues and Qualities of Pretious Stones. London: Henry Marsh, 1659 [1652].
Pointon, Marcia. Rocks, Ice and Dirty Stones: Diamond Histories. London: Reaktion Books, 2017.
Savary de Brûlons, Jacques, and Philémon-Louis Savary. Dictionnaire universel de commerce, 3 vols. Paris: La veuve Estienne, 1726–1732.
Tagore, Sourindro Mohun. MANI-MÃLÃ or A treatise on Gems. Calcutta: I.C. Bose, 1879.
Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste. Les Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Ecuyer Baron d’Aubonne en Turquie, en Perse et aux Indes. Paris: Gervais Clouzier, 1676.
Tillander, Herbert. Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewellery 1381–1910. London: Art Books International, 1995.
———. “Further Aspects of the History of Rose-Cut Diamonds.” Journal of Gemmology 26, no. 4 (1998): 219–21.
Timmermans, Bert. Patronen van patronage in het zeventiende-eeuwse Antwerpen. Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008.
Vanneste, Tijl. Global Trade and Commercial Networks: Eighteenth-Century Diamond Networks. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2011.
———. “The Eurasian Diamond Trade in the Eighteenth Century: A Balanced Model of Complementary Markets.” In Goods from the East, 1600–1800, edited by Maxine Berg, 139–53. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Villafañe, Juan de Arfe y. Quiltado, de la Plata, Oro, y piedras, conforme a las leyes reales, y para declaracion de ellas. Madrid: Guillermo Droy, 1598 [1572].
Webster, Robert. Gems: Their Sources, Descriptions and Identification. London: Butterworth, 1962.
Yogev, Gedalia. Diamonds and Coral: Anglo-Dutch Jews and Eighteenth-Century Trade. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1978.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pointon, M. (2019). Good and Bad Diamonds in Seventeenth-Century Europe. In: Bycroft, M., Dupré, S. (eds) Gems in the Early Modern World. Europe's Asian Centuries. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96379-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96379-2_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-96378-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-96379-2
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)