A brilliant cut is a cutting style with a crown of facets above a pavilion. Its facet angles return light and spread it into fire.
In more detail
Light enters through the top, reflects off the pavilion and leaves at a different angle, so the colors separate. A rose cut, with no pavilion, can't do that. The first brilliants were the Mazarins of the mid-1600s. Many fancy shapes, such as the oval, pear and marquise, use a brilliant facet plan.
On a grading report
Named in the shape and cutting style line, for example "Oval Brilliant".
Related terms
- Round brilliant: A round brilliant is a round diamond with the brilliant facet plan. It has 33 crown and 24 pavilion facets: 57 in all, or 58 with a culet.
- Step cut: A step cut is a cutting style with long facets in parallel rows, like steps, around a large table. The emerald cut and the Asscher are step cuts.
- Rose cut: A rose cut is a dome of triangular facets on a flat base: all crown and no pavilion.
- Mazarin cut: The Mazarin, or double cut, is the first brilliant, from the mid-1600s. It has 34 facets in all, on a cushion outline with a wide, open culet.
- Fire: Fire is the flashes of spectral color that a cut stone sends out. In our census, fire is the share of returned light whose colors leave more than 0.6° apart.