Luxury jeweler, Graff, has unveiled its latest, and perhaps its most beautiful diamond creation, the “Graff Lesedi La Rona,” a 302.37- carat square emerald cut diamond.
Unearthed at the Lucara Karowe mine in north-central Botswana, the hypnotic Lesedi La Rona weighed a record-breaking 1,109 carats in its rough form was the largest gem quality rough diamond discovered in over 100 years. This magnificent stone has been identified by The Gemological Institute of America as possessing exceptional quality and transparency, earning the full significance of its name, which means ‘our light’ in Botswana’s Tswana language.
Graff, which has cut and polished the majority of the 20 largest diamonds, discovered this century took over 18 months to cut and polish the stone.
Even with their experience, the Lesedi La Rona presented a unique challenge to Graff's expert gemmologists. They had never analysed a stone of such a prodigious size so using highly sophisticated software, custom built to tackle the magnitude of the Lesedi La Rona, Graff’s gemmologists looked deep within the diamond, plotting the natural imperfections inside the stone with complete precision. At first, the analysis of the stone concluded that a 300 carat principal diamond simply wasn’t achievable. Laurence Graff, however, was convinced that it could be possible and he set the challenge to the team of expert gemmologists and highly skilled polishers.

“My love affair with diamonds is life-long, and crafting the Graff Lesedi La Rona has been an honour – it is beyond words.” LAURENCE GRAFF
Upon sending the finished stone to the GIA for certification, it was confirmed that Laurence Graff’s challenge had not only been met, but exceeded. The Graff Lesedi La Rona weighed an awe-inspiring 302.37 carats and was a top D colour, with exceptional clarity and both excellent polish and symmetry. Alongside the Graff Lesedi La Rona, a total of 66 beautiful “satellite” diamonds were also polished from the world-famous rough diamond, ranging in size from under a carat to in excess of 100 carats. Each diamond is inscribed with Graff, Lesedi La Rona and its unique GIA number, and accompanied with a certificate of authenticity from Graff and the GIA