Internationally
renowned master diamond cutter Gabi Tolkowsky has been presented with
the Knighthood Chevalier de L'Ordre Du Roi Leopold II at a ceremony
in Antwerp, Belgium.The order recognizes Tolkowsky's contribution both to the diamond trade and his honorable and respectful lifestyle. In the diamond field, Tolkowsky's has the honor of having cut two of the ten diamonds considered to be truly impressive throughout history.
Tolkowsky was specially selected by De Beers itself to cut The Centenary Diamond, a 273.85 carat stone (see our story on Famous Jewelry Heists) and "The Golden Jubillee" a 545.65 carat fancy yellow-brown diamond (pictured this page) and the largest polished diamond in the world today.
Tolkowsky
has continually developed new ideas; new cuts and new designs for
diamonds and his lifelong commitment to the success of the diamond
trade in general made him a worthy recipient of the knighthood. He
has received worldwide acclaim for his innovative creation of a
spectacular line of polished diamonds known as "The Flower Cuts"
which solved the problems with difficult shapes and less popular
colors of diamonds.Gabi, as he is called, is a "Legend" who has a very different outlook on diamonds. He claims that diamonds, a creation of Mother Nature aren't consistently the same. The change from stone to stone forces the cutter to fashion the stone making varying decisions about the angles and percentages, formerly thought of to be uniform.
Gabi has captured new beauty by adding facets to many traditional diamond shapes. Adding an average of 40-50 additional facets in a different fashion a new age evolution of the old traditional standard shapes. His round shape has 105 facets as compared to the traditional 58 facets. He's also modified all of the traditional shapes as well such as the emerald, heart, marquise, pear, oval and princess.
"Diamonds are joyful, jewelry is joyful, it is loving. I cannot think about anything sad when I look at diamonds. This is a joyful announcement for a joyful trade," enthuses Tolkowsky.