The ring standing on a slab of light stone, the corolla seen from the front with the yellow enamel inside and the iolite at the centre

Collection Fiore d'Inverno·Anello

Fiore d'Inverno ring in silver with iolite and yellow enamel inside the corolla

Twenty-one millimeters of corolla, and inside the yellow of the enamel almost to the polished rim.

€185,00 AA104siol

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

A silver corolla a little over two centimeters wide, raised from a single sheet and left wavy at the rim. Inside, the ground is covered with yellow enamel that darkens and lightens following the folds of the cup, and it never reaches the outline: there the silver stays polished and makes a line of light all round the flower. At the center, in a round setting that rises just above the ground, a faceted iolite of a blue-violet that changes strength depending on how the hand is turned. Behind the corolla the metal is left rough and the setting is pierced at the bottom: looking inside the ring you see the point of the stone.

Thirteen grams of 925 silver and twenty-one millimeters across: the flower covers the knuckle from side to side, and from a distance the yellow is seen before the silver. The enamel sits in a cup that has no flat ground but a radiating pattern of folds, and the color follows them instead of covering them — that is why the yellow is never uniform. The studio does not state either the carat weight or the cut of the iolite, and does not state which of the enameling techniques the yellow belongs to.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

13,00 gramsSilver 925‰
Metals
Silver 925‰
Finish
Yellow enamel inside the corolla, polished outline
Dimensions
Flower diameter about 21 mm
Technique
Made entirely by hand in the company's goldsmith's studio.

The stones

Iolite

At the center of the corolla

Color
Blue-violet
Note
Faceted stone. Carat weight and cut not stated
Three-quarter view: the corolla rises above the round silver shank
From behind and from above, the back of the corolla and the join of the shank under the cup
Front view: the wavy rim of the corolla and the round bezel holding the stone
In profile, to see how shallow the cup is and the polished line running along the outline
The back: the raw silver behind the corolla and, through the shank, the pierced bottom of the bezel with the point of the iolite
From above, resting on the stone: the folds running from the centre and the veining of the enamel
The ring worn: the flower takes up the phalanx from side to side
On a tangle of dry branches, the corolla in raking light
Macro of the enamel and the bezel; the ring with the green enamel in the background is another piece and is not included in the price

How it is made

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

Corolla from a single sheet
The corolla is not an assembly of petals: it is a single sheet, hollowed into a shallow cup and left irregular at the rim, with the folds starting at the center and going outwards. The wavy rim is not corrected twice — stretched silver does not come back — so the first fold is the one that stays. In the middle of the cup is the only point that has to stay flat: it is the seat of the stone, and if the cup has moved there the setting does not sit.
Enamel
Enamel is glass: ground to a powder, laid on the metal and taken to several hundred degrees until it melts and becomes one surface with the piece. Before the fire it is a wet powder that a breath will move; afterwards it is not retouched, because correcting one point means sending all the color already fired back onto the fire as well, and at every pass you risk the bubble, the cooling crack and the color that shifts. The families have their own names and are recognized by how the metal holds the color: champlevé, when the color sits in hollows cut into the sheet; cloisonné, when it sits inside small walls of wire soldered to the ground; cold enamel, when in place of the glass there is a resin that hardens without fire. They are different techniques, and they are not attributed by eye.
Iolite
Iolite changes color according to the direction it is looked at from: along one axis it is a full blue-violet, along another it is almost colorless. The color of each bead is therefore decided by the cutter, at the moment of choosing how to orient it, and on a strand half a meter long that choice is repeated bead after bead. It is the reason why in a strand of iolite the beads are never all the same blue.

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 to the size of the person who will wear it: we settle it together before 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.