Mouawad is a privately-held jewellery house founded in 1890 by Daoud Mouawad in Beirut, Lebanon, and now headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The firm has remained continuously under family ownership across four generations, with operations spanning workshops in Geneva, Bangkok, Riyadh, and elsewhere, and a retail and bespoke client base concentrated in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Mouawad is best known internationally for its custodianship of several of the largest and most significant diamonds and coloured stones to enter private hands in recent decades, and for its position as a leading supplier of high jewellery to royal and ultra-high-net-worth clients in the Gulf region.

History

The firm was founded by Daoud Mouawad as a goldsmith and jewellery business in Beirut, then part of the Ottoman Empire and a regional centre of commerce and craft. The business expanded under his son Fayez Mouawad in the early twentieth century and became increasingly oriented towards the Gulf market with the rise of regional wealth following the Second World War. The third generation, under Robert Mouawad (born 1946), expanded the firm's international reach with showrooms in Geneva, Paris, London, and major American and Asian cities, and focused the business on high jewellery and historic stones. The fourth generation now manages various regional operations.

Notable historic gems

Mouawad has held custody of several of the most significant diamonds traded into private hands in the modern era. The Mouawad Splendour is a 101.84-carat D-flawless pear-cut diamond, one of the few D-flawless diamonds over 100 carats in the world. The Incomparable Diamond, a 407.48-carat fancy brownish-yellow diamond cut from a 890-carat rough discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1980s, is among the largest and most distinctive coloured diamonds ever cut. The Magnificent Mouawad coloured diamond and a number of significant Burmese rubies and Kashmir sapphires have similarly passed through Mouawad custody. The firm has also produced widely-publicised commissioned pieces including some of the most expensive items of jewellery ever made by valuation, frequently for occasions in the Gulf, Asian, and European markets.

Workshop and craft

Mouawad operates principal workshops in Geneva (high jewellery and Swiss-precision setting), Bangkok (coloured stone cutting and setting, where the firm has long-standing relationships in the Thai and Burmese gem trade), and Riyadh (regional manufacturing and bespoke commissions for the Saudi market). The firm's workshops handle setting work to specifications appropriate for the largest and most valuable single stones in private circulation, and Mouawad pieces are routinely engineered for the security and presentation requirements of significant jewels.

In the trade and at auction

Mouawad pieces appear regularly at the high-jewellery sales of Christie's and Sotheby's, often achieving seven- and eight-figure results. The firm participates as both consignor and buyer in the international jewellery auction market and is a recognised reference source for valuation and provenance assessment of significant historic stones. Mouawad's combination of family continuity, custody of important historic gems, and active high-jewellery production places it in the small group of houses (alongside Harry Winston, Graff, and a small number of others) recognised internationally as the venue of choice for the highest tier of bespoke coloured-stone and diamond commissions.

Further reading

• Mouawad — house history and collections
• Christie's — historic jewellery and Mouawad pieces
• Sotheby's — high jewellery sales
• GIA — historic diamond reference