The company has not said how much it paid for the diamond. The size of a tennis ball and covered in carbon, it was discovered in Botswana last year and will be cut into gems.
Its name, Sewelo, means "rare find" in Setswana, and the stone will be turned into a collection of fine jewelry, according to Lucara, a Canada-based diamond mining company which is partnering with Vuitton and an Antwerp-based manufacturer to produce the gems, and which owns the mine where it was found.
The largest diamond was the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, discovered in South Africa in 1905, which yielded high-quality stones.
