The ring set on light marble, seen from above: the three round glass pastes in a diagonal row and the two purple ovals wedged at the sides.

Collection Creazioni in Argento·Anello·Five staggered settings on an open ribbon shank

Silver ring with five pink, light blue, and purple glass paste stones, open three-band shank

Name: Silver ring with five pink, light blue, and purple glass paste stones, open three-band shank
Brand: Anna Gioielli
SKU: AA226
Price: 230.0 EUR
Availability: OutOfStock

Thirty-two millimeters by twenty-four of head, and five glass pastes: fused and faceted glass, not natural stones.

€230,00 AA226

Drawn and built by hand at the bench, in Tosi.

Five glass stones fill the whole head of the ring, thirty-two millimeters long and twenty-four wide: it covers the knuckle from side to side. Three are round and sit in a diagonal line — pink at the top, pale blue at the center, pink at the bottom — and the two oval purple ones slip in at the sides, lower down, in the spaces that are left; no two are at the same height and the settings touch. Every stone sits in a silver cup whose rim is cut into wide flat tabs, folded by hand over the girdle: from above they read as a ring of short petals around each color. The silver is mirror-polished everywhere, there is no oxidized part. Below the head the shank opens into three flat ribbons separated by two long slots, and from there you can see through the ring. Inside the pink and the pale blue, held against the light, you can see round bubbles and pale trails: that is the signature of glass, not a flaw in the work.

Fourteen grams and fifty of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths. For a ring that is a high weight, and almost all of it is in the head and the five settings: the open shank is what gives some of it back. The stones are glass pastes — glass fused, colored through the body and then cut and polished on the same wheel as gemstones — and the company declares neither their dimensions nor their carat weight; we do not add them. Glass sits around the fifth degree of hardness, two degrees below quartz: household dust contains sand, and sand scratches it, so the ring comes off before you put your hands into any work, and it is put away on its own, not in the same compartment as the others. It is made to order and ready within thirty days; the presentation box is included.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

14,50 gramsSilver 925‰

Metals: Silver 925‰
Style: Five staggered settings on an open ribbon shank
Finish: Polished
Dimensions: Ring 32 × 24 mm (length × width)
Technique: Made entirely by hand in the company's goldsmith's studio. The shank opens into three flat ribbons separated by two slots; each glass paste sits in a silver cup whose rim is cut into wide tabs, folded by hand over the girdle of the stone.

The stones

Pink glass paste

Two round, at the top and bottom on the axis of the head

Cut: Round faceted
Note: Fused and polished glass, not a natural stone; dimensions and weight not declared

Light blue glass paste

One round, at the center between the two pink ones

Cut: Round faceted
Note: Fused and polished glass, not a natural stone; it is the widest of the five

Purple glass paste

Two oval, at the sides and lower than the round ones

Cut: Oval faceted
Note: Fused and polished glass, not a natural stone; dimensions and weight not declared

The ring on the finger: the head covers the phalanx from side to side, and inside the light blue glass the bubbles can be seen.

How it is made

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

Glass paste: Glass paste is glass: fused silica, colored through the body with metal oxides, cast or pressed into shape and then cut and polished on the same wheel used for gemstones. It is not a stone and it does not pass itself off as one: you recognize it by holding it against the light, from the air bubbles shut into the pour and from the trails left by the glass moving as it cooled. It is a material as old as jewelry itself — the Romans made pastes from it to imitate emerald, Murano and Bohemia built two industries on it — and the color, being in the body and not on the surface, does not wear away with use. Whoever mounts it, though, is working a material softer than quartz, around the fifth degree: household dust contains sand, and sand scratches it. And glass does not cleave, it chips: a setting tab pushed with one blow too many does not leave a mark, it takes away a piece of the girdle, and that piece cannot be put back. It is closed cold, a little at a time, and once the stone is in its seat there is no going back.
Tab setting: The setting does not end in a continuous rim or in thin claws: the cup is cut all around into wide flat tabs, eight or nine per stone, and each is folded by hand over the girdle. Being wide they hold the gem more firmly than a claw and cover less of its side than a closed rim, but they all have to be brought down to the same height and with the same pressure: one lower than the others shows at once, because it is the circle of the setting that goes crooked, and one push harder than necessary chips the stone underneath. You work round in turns, closing opposite tabs two at a time, and you never finish one side completely before the other.
Shank opened into ribbons: The band does not arrive whole beneath the head: before rising it opens into flat ribbons separated by long slots, which come back together into one piece under the finger. It serves to take away weight and to let a wide head breathe, but it shifts the load — metal that was spread across the whole width now passes through thin strips, and the grip of the hand works on the two points where the ribbons open and close again. Those are the points to leave thicker, and they are also the ones where the file seems to be asking to be thinned, because that is where the design reads.

I don't look at what others are doing: I would rather create in my own style. That is what makes our jewelry recognizable.
Fabio Gori — Anna Gioielli, Tosi

Made for you

Every ring is made in the size of the person who will wear it: we settle it together before the work begins.

The goldsmith's workshop is also the place where made-to-measure jewellery is created and family pieces are restored: if you have an idea, or something you want brought back to how it was, that is where it starts.

Ask for a made-to-measure piece

Made by

Anna Gioielli

A goldsmith's workshop in Tosi, on the slopes of the Pratomagno: Anna opened it in 1988, her sons Fabio and Francesco carry it on. Piercing, repoussé, chasing and burin engraving — the Florentine school, with the workshop in full view of the shop.

All the creations by Anna Gioielli