The Pohl diamond was cut from a rough stone discovered in South Africa in 1934. Weighing 36.09 carats, the rectangular, grade-D colorless diamond is one of the finest stones ever to pass through Cartier’s workshops.
In January 1934, J. D. Pohl discovered a spectacular rough diamond in a mine not far from Pretoria, South Africa. Weighing over 280 carats, the stone was named after him. It was sold to a diamond dealer and sent to the United States to be cut into fifteen distinct stones. The largest, an intense grade-D, emerald-cut diamond weighing 38.10 carats, retained the Pohl name.
It reportedly first belonged to an opera singer before being acquired in the 1940s by Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, daughter of the founder of the Chrysler Corporation. She sold it at auction in October 1976.
Recut into a perfectly symmetrical rectangle, the henceforth 36.09-carat Pohl diamond was bought in 1998 by Cartier, who set it along with two baguette-cut diamonds on a platinum and gold ring for Princess Gabriele of Leiningen. In 2016 the princess sold it at an auction of her collection of jewelry.