This 0.67 carat sapphire from Ratnapura, Sri Lanka, displays a vivid, sunset-toned orange with warm depth and even saturation across the whole face of the stone. The cut is a round modified brilliant – the classic round brilliant faceting pattern expanded with additional facets, a more elaborate and far less common style of cutting that takes considerably more skill and planning to execute than a standard brilliant. The extra facet structure is cut with real precision here, with clean, symmetrical junctions that multiply the points of light return across the crown. Clarity is excellent, with the stone reading clean to the eye and full of life – in hand it throws sparkle from an unusually large number of distinct facets as it moves, giving it a busier, more scintillating presence than a conventional round. The color owes its full expression to conventional heat treatment, confirmed by an International Gemological Institute (IGI) Colored Gemstone Report.
