Blue Shield Aquamarine Gemstone from Madagascar 8.00 Carats

This exceptional aquamarine comes from Ankosbe Madagascar. I spent many years traveling to this area and it always produced fantastic aquas for me. This one I cut into a new design of a shield shape. Barion brilliant style pavillion with a stepped crown. It took several hours to figure this pattern out and you just hope that it produces good brilliance. I had just done something similar with a Mali garnet and it was a disappointment. I learned a little about the cut and made some changes and this time it really worked well. I could not have produced a more brilliant gem especially considering the low refractive index of aquamarine. Deeper pavillion angles and low crown was the key to this outstanding cut. This aqua measures 15.3 x 14 x 8.7 millimeters. This aqua is likely natural unheated color as the yellow that heating would typically remove is still apparent when viewed with the dichroscope. If heated it would likely get even deeper color but why take the risk of heating when it is already so beautiful