Long before it became known worldwide for its pink sandstone facades, Jaipur earned a different reputation: as one of the great gemstone cities of the world.
A city built on trade and stone
Jaipur was founded in 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, and from its earliest years the city sat at a crossroads of overland trade routes linking India to Central Asia and beyond. Gemstones, alongside textiles and metalwork, moved through these routes, and the Rajput courts of Rajasthan were enthusiastic patrons of fine jewellery. That patronage drew skilled lapidaries and jewellers to the city, and the trade has continued, largely unbroken, for nearly three centuries.
The emerald capital
Today Jaipur is widely regarded as one of the world's principal centres for cutting and polishing emeralds, alongside other coloured stones such as ruby and sapphire that arrive from mines across Africa, South America, and Asia to be cut, graded, and traded here. Generations of Jaipuri cutters have developed particular expertise in reading a piece of rough emerald, deciding how to orient a cut to preserve weight and colour while working around the internal inclusions that are natural to the stone.
Johari Bazaar
Much of this trade still centres on Johari Bazaar, one of Jaipur's oldest markets, where jewellers and gem dealers have worked side by side for generations. It remains a working market rather than a museum piece: stones are still bought, sold, and set within walking distance of where they are cut.
A living craft
What makes Jaipur's gemstone tradition distinctive is that cutting, trading, and jewellery-making have always sat close together, often within the same families and neighbourhoods. That proximity is part of why the city continues to produce jewellers and gemmologists whose knowledge of a stone runs from rough to finished piece, and why it remains a natural home for a maison like ours.
