The ring in three-quarter view on the white stone: the checkerboard amethyst in the yellow gold bezel and the burnished silver body cut with irregular openings.

Collection Marte·Anello

Marte ring in silver and gold with chessboard amethyst and gray diamonds

Four carats of checkerboard amethyst, over twelve grams of silver opened with irregular voids.

€1.110,00 A876amb

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

The body of the ring is oxidized silver, opened by voids that never repeat: the recesses stay black, the raised work comes back light, and the holes go right through. At the center sits the round amethyst, its crown cut checkerboard — on the surface you read a grid of little squares instead of the points of a brilliant, and the purple stays full rather than breaking into sparks. A yellow gold setting closes it, its rim beaten irregular, with four gold lobes folded over the stone. Around it, on the dark metal, the gray diamonds are planted one by one, each held by its own gold claws. It is the same body as the Marte ring with citrine and as the earrings with faceted amethyst: in one of these photographs the ring stands beside the earrings.

The amethyst is four carats, the same size as each of the two stones in the earrings. The natural gray diamonds, brilliant-cut, come to twenty-four hundredths of a carat in all. The silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths weighs twelve grams twenty, the eighteen carat yellow gold two fifty: fourteen grams seventy in the hand, and the gold is only where it has to hold something — the setting of the stone and the claws of the diamonds.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

2,50 gramsYellow gold 18kt 750‰
12,20 gramsSilver 925‰
4,00 carats Amethyst · round, checkerboard crown
0,24 carats Diamonds · around the stone, on the silver body
Metals
Yellow gold 18kt 750‰ · Silver 925‰
Technique
Made by hand. Silver body pierced with irregular openings, oxidized in the recesses and polished on the raised work; setting for the central stone and claws for the diamonds in yellow gold.

The stones

Amethyst

At the center, in the gold setting

Cut
Round, checkerboard crown
Carats
ct 4,00
Note
Single stone

The diamonds

Natural. Position, cut, carats, colour and clarity.

Around the stone, on the silver body 0,24ct Brilliant —Natural gray diamonds · total
Front shot: the four gold lobes folded over the edge of the stone and the grey diamonds in their prongs.
Three-quarter view from the right: how high the gold bezel lifts the stone above the silver body.
Side view: the thickness of the metal and the holes that cross it right through.
The ring standing, seen through the circle: the inside of the band and the height of the shank.
Three-quarter view from behind: the smooth shank widening into the pierced shoulders.
Close-up in three-quarter view: the black recesses of the burnishing against the re-polished raised parts.
The whole ring from the front: the cross-shaped outline of the shoulders around the amethyst.
On the bark, in three-quarter view: the colour of the amethyst in full light.
Macro on the crown of the stone: the grid of small squares of the checkerboard cut.
From above, on the wood: the irregular openings of the silver and the diamonds set without forming a ring.
On the wood, from a low angle: the profile of the bezel and the gold prongs that hold the diamonds.
The ring on the finger, showing its real size on the hand.
The ring next to the Marte earrings with the same amethyst: the earrings are 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.

Checkerboard cut
On the crown the facets do not converge towards a point: they cross in a grid of squares, like a checkerboard. It is a cut that does not look for sparkle but for depth of color, and that is why it is used on quartzes and on gems where the color is the subject.
Irregular voids
In geometric piercing the error is measured against the module that repeats; here there is no module, and every void has to be decided as it is opened. The risk shifts: not that a link comes out crooked, but that at some point the solid part is left too thin, and the piece gives way exactly there. Whoever does it holds together two things that pull in opposite directions, an outline that has to look random and a thickness that has to hold.
Oxidizing
The silver is darkened on purpose, and then polished back only where the light has to return. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the light on the raised work: it is a drawing made by subtraction, and whoever does it decides where to stop the cloth.
Gold and silver on the same piece
Silver melts at a lower temperature than gold and oxidizes quickly under the flame. Setting the two metals on the same piece means heating just enough for the solder to take without sinking the silver, and cleaning the joint before the black of the flame is sealed in under the gold.
Brilliant cut
Fifty-seven facets calculated so that the light entering from above comes back out the same way. It is the cut that makes a diamond sparkle, and the reason a badly cut diamond stays dull.
Amethyst
Amethyst is purple quartz, and the purple 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. That is why the color is almost never laid on evenly — it arranges itself in zones and bands, deeper on one side and paler on the other — and orienting the stone properly on the lap is exactly what spreads it out. It is as hard as citrine, seventh degree, and it is worn every day with no care against scratches; but that purple is the most delicate thing it has. A strong, continuous light fades it, and heat wipes it out altogether: an amethyst heated enough turns yellow, and that is how a good part of the citrine on the market is born. Purple once lost does not come back.

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.

All the creations by Anna Gioielli

Della stessa famiglia

Due modi di cercare quello che somiglia a questo.

Dalle stesse mani

See all (189)
All the creations Anna Gioielli