marquise

The marquise cut — a pointed oval, also called the navette (little ship) — is named after the Marquise de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV of France. According to jewelry legend, the king commissioned a diamond cut to match the shape of her mouth, sometime around 1745. The story is probably apocryphal, but it has been repeated by jewelers for nearly three centuries and shows no sign of dying.

The word marquise itself comes from the Old French marchis (ruler of a border territory, a march), from the Frankish *marka (border). A marquis was a march lord; a marquise was his wife. The feminine form became the name of both a noblewoman and a shape. In French, marquise also names a type of canopy over a doorway — an awning shaped like the pointed oval. The same word names a rank, a gemstone cut, and an architectural element.

The marquise cut maximizes the visual size of a diamond for its carat weight. The elongated shape covers more finger area than a round brilliant of the same weight. This optical trick — looking bigger than it is — was appreciated by jewelers working with expensive stones. The marquise makes a small diamond seem larger. Economy disguised as style.

The cut fell out of fashion in the late twentieth century as round brilliants and princess cuts dominated, but it has returned periodically. Mid-century engagement rings from the 1960s and 1970s frequently used marquise diamonds. The shape is polarizing — some find it elegant, others find it dated. The mistress's lips, real or imagined, still divide opinion.