The antique cushion — sometimes called the old cushion — is a square or rectangular gemstone cut with softly rounded corners, a high crown, a relatively small table facet, a deep pavilion, and an open culet. It represents the dominant cutting paradigm of the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth century, preceding the mathematical optimisation that would eventually produce the modern round brilliant. Where contemporary cuts are engineered under electric light for maximum brightness and scintillation, the antique cushion was shaped by hand on a horizontal wheel, calibrated by eye, and intended to perform in the warm, directional glow of candlelight or oil lamps. The result is a stone that sacrifices some of the crisp, mirror-like return of light associated with modern cuts in favour of a softer, broader dispersion — a quality collectors and period-jewellery enthusiasts frequently describe as romantic or painterly.

Historical Development

The antique cushion evolved gradually from the earlier table cut and rose cut traditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As lapidaries gained confidence with the polishing wheel and began to understand the refractive behaviour of diamond and coloured stones, they added facets to the pavilion and crown in an attempt to redirect light back through the table. By the early eighteenth century, a cushion-shaped outline had become standard for large diamonds and fine coloured gemstones alike, partly because it preserved the greatest weight from the typical octahedral rough crystal, and partly because the rounded corners reduced the risk of chipping during setting.

The style reached its apogee in the Georgian and early Victorian periods, when virtually every significant diamond and coloured stone entering the European market — whether from the Golconda fields of India, the newly discovered Brazilian deposits, or the sapphire and ruby mines of Burma — was fashioned in some variant of the cushion form. Individual cutters worked without standardised angle tables; facet placement, symmetry, and proportions varied considerably from stone to stone and from one cutting centre to another, giving antique cushions a handmade individuality that modern machine-cut stones cannot replicate.

Distinguishing Characteristics

Several physical features distinguish a genuine antique cushion from later cushion-shaped cuts:

• High crown: The crown height is typically a substantial proportion of total depth — noticeably taller than on a modern cushion brilliant — which contributes to the stone's three-dimensional, almost domed appearance when viewed from the side.
• Small table: The table facet is considerably smaller relative to the girdle diameter than in modern cuts, often occupying only a third to half of the crown width. This concentrates light entry and exit through the upper facets rather than the table alone.
• Large, chunky facets: The facet count is lower than in modern brilliant cuts, and individual facets are correspondingly larger. This produces broad flashes of colour and light rather than the fine, rapid scintillation of a modern stone.
• Open culet: Rather than terminating in a point, the pavilion ends in a polished flat facet — the culet — which is visible as a small circle or dot when the stone is viewed face-up through the table. In larger antique stones, the culet can be quite prominent.
• Irregular symmetry: Because each stone was cut by hand without mechanical guidance, outlines and facet arrangements are rarely perfectly symmetrical. This irregularity is considered a hallmark of authenticity rather than a defect.
• Deep pavilion: The overall depth percentage is higher than in optimised modern cuts, which can make antique cushions appear smaller face-up relative to their carat weight.

Optical Character and Light Performance

The optical behaviour of an antique cushion is fundamentally different from that of a modern brilliant, and understanding this distinction is essential to appreciating the cut on its own terms. Modern round brilliants are designed to achieve total internal reflection across a precise range of pavilion angles, returning the maximum possible white light to the viewer's eye. The antique cushion, with its steeper crown, larger facets, and non-optimised pavilion angles, allows more light to escape through the base and sides of the stone. The light that does return tends to do so in broader, slower flashes rather than rapid pin-point scintillation.

Critically, the larger facets of the antique cushion act as more effective prisms, separating white light into its spectral components over a wider area. This produces pronounced fire — coloured dispersion flashes of red, orange, and blue — that many observers find more visually compelling than the intense but smaller fire of a modern brilliant. In candlelight or other warm, low-intensity illumination, this dispersive quality is particularly striking, and the stone appears to glow from within rather than to sparkle sharply. Under the broad, diffuse lighting of a modern office or retail environment, the same stone may appear somewhat sleepy or glassy by comparison with a modern cut — a perceptual difference that is important for buyers to understand before purchase.

Antique Cushion versus Old Mine Cut

The terms antique cushion and old mine cut are frequently used interchangeably in the trade, and the distinction between them is not universally agreed upon. In the strictest usage, the old mine cut refers specifically to a diamond cut produced during the period when Brazilian and Indian mines were the primary sources — roughly the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries — and is characterised by a particularly high crown, very small table, and a girdle outline that tends toward a squarish cushion shape with pronounced corners. The antique cushion is sometimes used as a broader term encompassing old mine cuts as well as later hand-cut cushion-shaped stones produced through the mid-nineteenth century, including some that approach the proportions of the transitional cut that preceded the modern brilliant. In practice, gemmological laboratories and auction houses often use the terms interchangeably for cushion-shaped stones of pre-industrial character, and buyers should not place excessive weight on the distinction unless a specific historical attribution is being claimed.

Antique Cushions in Coloured Gemstones

While the antique cushion is most frequently discussed in the context of diamonds, the cut was applied equally to fine coloured gemstones throughout the Georgian and Victorian periods. Burmese rubies and sapphires, Colombian emeralds, and Brazilian topazes and chrysoberyls were routinely fashioned in cushion forms during this era. In coloured stones, the high crown and large facets of the antique cushion serve an additional optical purpose: they allow the cutter to orient the stone to display the most saturated colour through the table while managing pleochroism — the directional variation in colour that many coloured gemstones exhibit. The open culet, visible as a window through the stone, can also help a buyer assess the depth and evenness of colour in the pavilion.

Antique cushion-cut coloured stones from important historical periods — particularly Burmese sapphires and rubies in their original Georgian or Victorian mounts — command significant premiums at auction, both for the quality of the material and for the integrity of the cut as a historical artefact. Altering such a stone to a modern cut would destroy its period character and, in most cases, substantially reduce its value.

Modern Reproductions and Revival Cutting

Since at least the 1990s, a number of specialist cutters have produced new stones in antique cushion proportions, responding to sustained collector and designer demand for the aesthetic qualities of period cuts without the provenance constraints of genuine antiques. These modern antique cushions are cut by hand or with computer-aided guidance to replicate the high crown, small table, large facets, and open culet of historical examples, while achieving somewhat better symmetry than a genuine eighteenth-century stone. They occupy an interesting market position: they offer the romantic light performance of the antique style in new material, but they lack the historical authenticity that commands the highest premiums for genuine period stones.

Several contemporary jewellery designers have built significant reputations around the use of antique and antique-style cushion cuts, and the form has influenced the broader cushion-cut category, which remains one of the most popular shapes for engagement rings and important coloured-stone jewellery in the early twenty-first century.

Assessment and Grading Considerations

Gemmological laboratories grade antique cushion-cut stones using modified criteria that acknowledge the inherent irregularity of hand-cut work. The GIA, for example, issues cut quality assessments for antique and old mine cut diamonds that take historical cutting conventions into account rather than applying the same standards used for modern round brilliants. Buyers should be aware that a lower symmetry or polish grade on an antique cushion does not necessarily indicate damage or poor workmanship — it may simply reflect the hand-cut character that defines the style. Conversely, an antique cushion that has been repolished to improve symmetry may have lost some of its period character and, depending on the extent of the work, a measurable amount of weight.

When evaluating an antique cushion for purchase, attention should be paid to the integrity of the culet (chips or abrasion are common in old stones), the condition of the girdle (often left unpolished and slightly bruted in period diamonds), and whether the stone has been recut or repolished at any point in its history. A stone in original, unaltered condition will generally be preferred by serious collectors over one that has been improved.

Further Reading

• GIA: A History of Diamond Cuts
• Gems & Gemology: Antique Cushion Cut Diamonds