Tiffany

This fancy yellow diamond helped earn a 19th-century jeweler, Charles Lewis Tiffany, the nickname “King of Diamonds.” Tiffany acquired the South African diamond in 1878 for $18,000. A famous gemologist of the era, George Frederick Kunz, supervised its cutting—a task that took nearly a year.
Today, the Tiffany Diamond is the icon of Tiffany & Co., where it has been on view for nearly 70 years. Tiffany designer Jean Schlumberger designed three jeweled settings for the Tiffany Diamond in 1956. The current setting “Bird on a Rock” was mounted in 1995. This is the first time the Tiffany Diamond has been shown at a U.S. museum outside of New York.
The temporary display of the Tiffany Diamond celebrates the opening in this gallery of our New Acquisitions Case, dedicated to displaying gemstones acquired by a newly established fund, The Tiffany & Co. Foundation Endowment.