The Mouawad Diamond Gallery
It was in the early 1970s that Robert Mouawad first arrived on the jewelery auction scene. Soon his very presence in the sale-room was enough to send pulses racing when it was realized that a new, significant player had appeared. Along with his two contemporaries, Sheikh Ahmed Fitaihi of Jeddah and Laurence Graff of London, he has been responsible for some of the astonishing record diamond prices achieved in recent years.
Born in 1945, Robert Mouawad has purchased a number of the world's great diamonds, including the Nassak, the Indore Pears, the Premier Rose, the Jubilee, the Queen of Holland, the Tereschenko and the Taylor-Burton. But Robert Mouawad has never been content with acquiring only historical diamonds, adding several modern-cut gems to his list. At a New York auction in 1988 he purchased the 59-carat "D" flawless pear shape later to become known as the "Star of Abdel-Aziz" after King Fahd's youngest son. There have also been two fancy lilac pink gems, the Mouawad Lilac, a step cut weighing 24.44 carats, and the Mouawad Pink, a cushion cut weighing 21.06 carats.
Others, in increasing order of sizes, include the Mouawad White, a 48.28-carat marquise; the Mouawad Splendour, an eleven-sided pear shape weighing 101.84 carats; the Mouawad Monolith, an emerald cut of 104.02 carats; and the currently unnamed polygonal, a 106.00-carat modified pear shape.
"Each diamond is unique and has personality traits, some more appealing than others. The whiteness or fancy color, the size, the clarity, the cut, the immortal character, are all factors that contribute to the overall beauty of a stone. But it is the human touch that unveils its beauty. In its rough state it hides its true potential value. Also, the historical value of a gem, from its formation to its birth on the Earth's surface, and the many lives it has affected, are all intangibles that add to its mystique."
Such are the thoughts of a great collector and diamond connoisseur.
Yet not all of Robert Mouawad's acquisitions have been made at auction. In March 1991, in Antwerp, he purchased a 284.6-carat rough diamond that had been found in the Aredor mine in Guinea. Through his own group's office in Belgium, it was fashioned into the largest of all his eponymous diamonds: a magnificent emerald cut later named the Mouawad Magic, weighing 108.81 carats. It measures 32.91 by 20.73 by 16.83 mm; this "D" color, internally flawless gem is considered a collection item and is consequently "not for sale" at the present time.
