Silver ring with two opposing drop-shaped amethysts and a faceted peridot

How it is made

The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.

01

Pear cut

A faceted pear is half round and half point: at one end the outline closes in a full curve, at the other it narrows to a vertex. The shape is cut before the facets, and from there on there is no going back — everything that comes afterwards has to stay inside that line. The difficult point is the symmetry about the axis that runs through the point, because the axis is the first thing the eye reads and a point off center cannot be put back where it belongs. Underneath, the pavilion follows an outline that is not round, so the facets cannot all be alike: they have to be calculated one by one so that the light comes back from the narrow end too instead of going out there. And the point is where the stone chips: that is why the mounting always takes it there.

02

Cabochon cut

No facets: the stone is roughed down and polished to a continuous dome. It is not the easiest cut, it is the cut that hides least — on a smooth surface every undulation can be read with the naked eye, while among facets it is lost. And the light does not come back in sparks: it enters, crosses the thickness and rises again carrying the color with it, so what you look at is the color and not the fire.

03

Plate setting on an open back

The setting is not a cup: it is a sheet of silver bent around the outline of the stone and closed on itself, and there is no bottom beneath — the seat is open through, and the gem can be seen from behind as well. The edge is fitted cold, one stretch at a time, pushing it onto the dome with a burnisher until there is no play left: the sheet has to be tall enough to hold and low enough not to climb onto the color. With no bottom under it, the stone settles only on its outline, and a stretch left slack does not show up in the studio: it shows up once the ring is worn.

04

Amethyst

Amethyst is violet quartz, and the violet does not come from a pigment: it comes from a few atoms of iron that ended up in the lattice in place of silicon and were then struck by the natural radiation of the rock. For that reason the color is almost never laid on evenly — it arranges itself in zones and bands, deeper on one side and lighter on the other — and orienting the stone properly under the wheel is exactly what serves to spread it. It is as hard as citrine, the seventh degree, and it can be worn every day without worrying about scratches; but that violet is the most delicate thing it has. Strong continuous light fades it, and heat erases it altogether: an amethyst heated enough turns yellow, and that is how a good part of the citrine on the market comes about. The violet once lost does not return.

05

Peridot

Peridot is olivine, and the green does not come to it from a treatment: it is iron, inside the crystal from the moment it formed. For that reason the color does not depend on how it is turned — it has no good axis and bad axis — and it stays that green with a yellow note inside it that no other gem repeats in the same way. The difficulty is in setting it: between six and a half and seven on the hardness scale it is softer than the quartzes, it fears acids and sudden changes of temperature, and it almost always has inclusions that the heat of friction can open. It is polished wet and with frequent stops, and the setting is closed by pressing a little at a time: the force that settles a quartz is already too much on a peridot.