Baroque freshwater pearl
One per earring, hanging below the cap of branches
- Cut
- Uncut
- Note
- Approx. 15 × 20 mm; each pearl has a different outline from the other. The maker does not state whether they are cultured or natural, nor their carat weight
Collection Creazioni in Argento·Orecchini
Sterling silver drop earrings with branch cap and 20mm baroque freshwater pearl
Twenty millimeters of baroque pearl under a cap of silver branches, and not even the two of the pair have the same outline.
€220,00
ODD2mar
Drawn and built by hand at the bench, in Tosi.
Below the hook hangs a white pearl that is not round: the body swells at the bottom, draws in towards the top and carries along its outline bumps and folds that are not repeated from one earring to the other. Over the pearl, lowered onto its crown like a hand, sits a silver cap made of thin branches, round in section, that divide, cross and overlap; the rounded tips run down past the edge of the cap and rest on the shoulders of the pearl, and that is what holds it. Between one branch and the next the silver has been darkened almost to black and only the ridges have been brought back to polish: the dark behind makes the weave look denser than it is, and lifts the white of the pearl away from the metal. At the top the branches gather, draw into a single stem and become the ear wire, which tapers to a point and passes behind the lobe. At the bottom of the pearl you can see the small silver ball that closes the pin running through it.
Twenty millimeters by fifteen for the pearl, fifty-two millimeters for the whole earring counting the hook: a little under half of what hangs from the lobe is pearl, and that is why the piece reads from a distance. The maker writes “approx.” beside those two measurements, and rightly so, because a baroque pearl has no single size: in the photographs the two of the pair do not even have the same outline as each other, and a third would be different from both. There are five grams twenty of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths; the maker states that weight once only, without saying whether it is for one earring or for the pair, and we do not decide it in their place. Whether the pearls are cultured or natural is written nowhere, and we do not add that either. The same warning holds for all pearls: 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. Here there is a second reason to go carefully: the black between the branches is the part that makes the design, and a cloth rubbed hard in there takes it away.
The material
Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.
5,20
gramsSilver 925‰
- Metals
- Silver 925‰
- Finish
- Oxidized between the branches, polished on the ridges and the hook
- Dimensions
- Height with ear wire 52 mm · pearls approx. 15 × 20 mm
- Technique
- Made entirely by hand. The cap of branches is lost-wax cast in a single piece — the only way to obtain branchings that cross and overlap — then the tips are gone over one by one and the joins cleaned; the seat is fitted by hand to the shape of that pearl and no other, the piece is oxidized and brought back to polish only on the ridges, and at the top the branches gather into the ear wire.
The stones
How it is made
The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.
- Baroque pearl
- Baroque means that the pearl is not round, and that it has not been made round: the nacre built up around a nucleus that had shifted, and every layer repeated the offset of the one before, until the body grew with its own bumps and folds. A round pearl can be set aside and replaced with another of the same size; a baroque one cannot — there is no second pearl with the same outline. Whoever sets it is therefore working on a unique piece: the seat has to be fitted by hand to that shape, and forcing it chips the nacre, which over the nucleus is only a few tenths of a millimeter thick.
- 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 a 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 its 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 the air cannot pass. And the thread or cord that holds it is worth looking at too: it is the part that ages first, and it should be redone before it gives, not after.
- Lost-wax casting
- The model is built in wax, coated in refractory plaster and then heated until the wax runs out: what is left is a void of the exact shape, and into that void the molten silver is poured. To get the piece out the mold has to be broken, so every casting consumes both the wax and the mold, and the model you started from no longer exists. It is the way to obtain what the saw and the file could not — ribbons that overlap, undercuts, voids closed on every side — but if the metal does not reach the end of a thin branch the piece comes out incomplete, and it cannot be mended: it is melted down and begun again from the wax.
- Oxidizing
- The silver is darkened on purpose, and then brought back to polish only where the light has to return. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the bright on the raised work: it is a design made by subtraction, and whoever does it decides where to stop the cloth.
- Ear wire fitting
- The hook passes behind the lobe and closes by 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
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