Freshwater pearl
One per earring, suspended below the coin on a through post
- Cut
- Uncut
- Note
- Flattened and slightly squared in shape, 15 × 18 mm. The company declares neither whether they are cultured or natural, nor the carat weight
Collection Fiorino·Orecchini
Sterling silver dangle earrings with reproduced florin and square freshwater pearl
Twenty millimeters of reproduced fiorino above a flattened pearl of fifteen millimeters by eighteen.
€135,00
OA164
Drawn and built by hand at the bench, in Tosi.
From the hook hangs a round silver coin, and beneath the coin a white pearl. The face that turns outward carries the lily of Florence in relief, with the three points open and the two scrolls running down the sides; the ground around it is dark and the flower comes forward pale. Along the rim, broken by the lily, runs the word FLORENTIA, and outside the letters turns a ring of raised beads that closes the disc. Here the coin has no frame: it is itself the body of the earring, pierced top and bottom. From the upper hole a ring carries the lever back, coiled into a spiral beneath the curve; from the lower hole a through post runs down inside the pearl and is closed at the bottom with a small silver bead. Turning the earring over you see the other face of the coin: Saint John the Baptist standing, with his halo and cross-staff, and around him the words S·IOHANNES·B. The pearl is neither round nor drop-shaped: it is flattened and squared, four barely rounded sides and a surface moved by undulations, so that the reflection does not stay in one place but runs in pink and green bands as the earring turns.
Six grams of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths in all: the company declares that weight once only, without saying whether it is for one earring or for the pair, and we do not decide that in their place. The coin measures twenty millimeters and five hundredths across, the pearl fifteen by eighteen, and the whole earring fifty-five. The fiorino is a reproduction, not an antique coin: the real one is the gold coin Florence began striking in 1252, with the city's lily on one face and Saint John the Baptist on the other. Here that design has been remade in silver and oxidized so that the flower and the letters lift off the ground. Whether the pearls are cultured or natural is written nowhere, and we do not write it in their place. The same warning holds for all of them, though: they are calcium carbonate held together by an organic substance, they sit around the third degree of hardness and they dissolve in acids, so they go on after the perfume and come off first.
The material
Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.
6,00
gramsSilver 925‰
- Metals
- Silver 925‰
- Finish
- Oxidized silver coin, relief and beaded rim re-polished · polished hook
- Dimensions
- Total length of the earring 55 mm · diameter of the coin 20,05 mm · pearl 15 × 18 mm
- Technique
- Made entirely by hand in the company's studio: the fiorino reproduced in silver and oxidized, the relief and the beaded rim re-polished, the disc pierced top and bottom, the ring and the lever back fitted above, the through post carrying the pearl closed at the bottom with a small silver bead.
The stones
How it is made
The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.
- Reproduced fiorino
- The fiorino is not antique: it is a reproduction of a Florentine fiorino, made in silver. The real fiorino is the gold coin Florence struck from 1252, with the city's lily on one face and Saint John the Baptist on the other, and the words FLORENTIA and S·IOHANNES·B along the rims: that design is what is reproduced, and nothing else. What is reproduced is a low relief — a lily, a standing figure, a few letters along the rim — and in a low relief a tenth of a millimeter is the whole difference between an outline that reads and a smudge. The blank that comes out is not a flat disc: it is higher at the center than at the edge, and the edge itself is not an exact circle. That is what decides the mount. The frame closes on the rim, where the metal is steadier and where there is no design to cover, and it is tightened cold — a flame passed over the field of the coin would flatten exactly the relief it is being mounted for, and a flattened relief does not rise again.
- Oxidizing
- The silver is darkened deliberately, and then re-polished only where the light has to come back. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the pale on the raised work: it is a design made by subtraction, and whoever does it decides where to stop the cloth.
- Pearl
- The pearl is the only gem produced by a living animal, and it is not a mineral like the others: it is aragonite — calcium carbonate — held together by conchiolin, an organic substance the mollusc lays down between one layer and the next. That organic part is its weak point. On the hardness scale the pearl sits around three: it scratches with a fingernail, and the metal of another piece of jewelry marks it at the first contact. But the scratch is not the worst damage: being a carbonate it dissolves in acids, and sweat, perfume, hairspray and vinegar corrode the surface until the luster goes out. It goes on last, after the perfume, and comes off first; it is cleaned with a barely damp cloth and put away dry, never shut in a bag where no air passes. And you watch the thread or the cord that holds it too: it is the part that ages first, and it should be replaced before it gives, not after.
- Lever back clasp
- The hook passes behind the lobe and closes on itself. It goes on with one movement, has no screws to lose and carries the weight without pulling.
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 piece leaves the bench made to order: sizes and details are agreed 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.
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.
Della stessa famiglia
Due modi di cercare quello che somiglia a questo.
Dalle stesse mani
See all (189)-
Fiore d'Inverno Earrings in silver with peridot and green enamel, 13 mm corollas
€130,00
-
Fiore d'Inverno earrings in silver with amethyst and yellow enamel inside the corolla
€140,00
-
Fiore d'Inverno Ring in silver with citrine quartz, sinuous hammered wire shank
€150,00
-
Hammered silver heart pendant with two-tone purple enamel diamonds, silk cord included
€180,00
