Artistic Depiction of a Carré Cut Diamond

The term “carré” comes from the French “Quarré”, which means “square” or “squared”, but based on early accounts, it appears as though it originally just meant "faceted". As lapidary skills developed and more shapes were able to be fashioned, the carré began to represent a square stone, which today is usually seen with a step cut base.

The carré cut is a fairly rare cut, and it is something that you will usually only find in vintage pieces. Very popular in the Art Deco period, carré cut diamonds had the ability to stand out as the center stone, or they could be smaller stones used to accent another feature stone.

The carré is similar in some ways to an Asscher cut, but it does not have the cut corners, and less facets underneath produce a different type of “mirror” effect.