Cut Famed 726-Carat Jonker Gem : Founder of Kaplan Diamond Firm Dies

Lazare Kaplan, Russian-born founder of the prestigious diamond firm bearing his name but best known to the world as the craftsman who cut the 726-carat Jonker diamond, has died at age 102.

Kaplan, a legendary figure in world diamond centers, took on the risky job of cutting the enormous diamond for famed diamond dealer Harry Winston in 1936. The stone had been found on a farm near Pretoria, South Africa, by a man named Jacobus Jonker,

Although Winston was a competitor, Kaplan said he took on the assignment not for the then astronomical $30,000 fee involved but for the experience his older son, Leo, would gain.

He said he expected it to be a simple cleaving because the giant stone had already been studied by many European experts who had told Winston where it should be divided. But Kaplan--who was to examine the diamond for nearly a year--soon became convinced that those experts had marked the stone in spots that would have destroyed it.

When Kaplan and his son finally put a mallet to the stone, the result was 12 diamonds, the largest at 126.65 carats later sold to King Farouk of Egypt for a reported $1 million. Its last owner was said to be a Japanese who paid $4 million. Other diamonds from the cleavings ranged from 40.6 to 5.3 carats.

One of 13 children, Kaplan was born July 17, 1883, in Zabludova, Russia. He emigrated to the United States from Belgium in 1914 and later founded Lazare Kaplan and Sons.

Kaplan also was credited with introducing the diamond-cutting industry to Puerto Rico, now one of that territory’s leading businesses.

Kaplan died Wednesday at his farm near here.