The Tiffany Diamond: 128 Carats of Canary Yellow

Most famous diamonds are colorless and ancient. The Tiffany Diamond is neither: it is a blazing canary yellow, it has an exact birthdate in the 1870s, and it has only ever been worn by a handful of women. For nearly a century and a half it has been the signature jewel of one of the world’s most famous jewelers — a stone designed not to be sold, but to be seen.

From a Kimberley mine to Fifth Avenue

The diamond was unearthed around 1877 in the Kimberley mines of South Africa as a huge rough stone of roughly 287 carats. Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Co., bought it — and earned himself the nickname "the King of Diamonds." It would become the most important stone his house ever owned.

Cut for fire, not size

Tiffany’s renowned gemologist, George Frederic Kunz, made a bold decision. Rather than cut the diamond for maximum weight, he cut it for maximum brilliance — giving it 82 facets instead of the standard 58. The extra facets scatter light so the stone seems to glow from within. The finished diamond weighs 128.54 carats, a deliberate sacrifice of size in pursuit of beauty.

Kunz treated the diamond like a scientific instrument for light. The "wasted" carats bought a fire that an ordinary cut could never produce.

Worn by only a few

Because Tiffany & Co. keeps the diamond as a treasure rather than merchandise, almost no one has ever worn it. The short list is part of its legend:

• Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, at a Tiffany Ball in 1957 — the first woman to wear it.
• Audrey Hepburn, in 1961 publicity images for Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
• Lady Gaga, at the 2019 Academy Awards.
• Beyoncé, in a 2021 Tiffany campaign.

What makes a yellow diamond special

The Tiffany’s warm color comes from traces of nitrogen in its crystal structure, which absorb blue light and leave a rich yellow. Strongly saturated "fancy vivid" yellows are far rarer than ordinary near-colorless diamonds, and the best are prized precisely for the color that a white diamond is graded down for having. The stone normally lives on display at the Tiffany flagship store in New York.

Weight

128.54 carats

Color

Fancy yellow (from nitrogen)

Found

~1877, Kimberley, South Africa

Facets

82 (cut by George F. Kunz)

Home

Tiffany & Co. flagship, New York

The takeaway

The Tiffany Diamond proves that color and cut, not just size, make a legend. A jeweler who chose fire over carats turned a yellow rough stone into a century-long icon — one so precious it is shown to millions but worn by almost no one.