Yellow diamonds have been highly coveted for several decades, but Laurence Graff, once a scrappy apprentice in London’s Hatton Garden jewellery district, now the paterfamilias of an international empire, was among the first to champion them. In 1974, he bought the Star of Bombay, a 47.4-carat square, canary-hued gem held by an aristocratic Indian family, challenging the centuries-old primacy of pure, colourless stones. Since then, the company, now headed by his son Francois, has acquired many of the world’s most spectacular specimens, which get their golden shade from impurities in the nitrogen they contain. Over the years, the house has also amassed a cache of smaller yellow diamonds, which its artisans incorporate into effervescent modern pieces. These cascading earrings are set in gold, with 62 fancy pear-shaped stones together totalling…
