Men's silver ring with smooth oval top and engraved shoulders

On top there is a solid oval, as wide as the knuckle, and on the oval there is nothing: it is smooth, and the surface is left matt, so it does not mirror. All the work is around it. The two shoulders rise towards the head covered by scrollwork engraved with a burin that leaves not a millimeter empty — narrow leaves, curls winding on themselves, and at the center of each shoulder a rosette from which the design opens in a radiating pattern. The ground between one stroke and the next has been taken away and left dark, so that what remains on top comes forward light. The scrollwork turns under the edge of the oval and continues along the sides; inside, where the finger passes, the band is smooth and polished.

Eighteen grams of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths, and no stones. The weight is needed: under the burin the metal must have thickness to give, because the graver does not scratch — it lifts a chip, and that chip does not come back. On shoulders engraved like this the grooves are counted in hundreds and none can be gone over again: returning twice to the same stroke widens its edge, and a widened edge stops catching the light. The smooth head in the middle of all this is not a part left undone: it is the pause that lets everything else be seen, and that is why it is kept matt. Mirrored, it would reflect the room, and the scrollwork around it would disappear.