Collection Creazioni in Argento·Pendente
Ginkgo biloba leaf pendant in silver, hand-engraved striations
Sixty-six millimeters of leaf, and every striation on the fan is a groove drawn by hand.
Drawn and built by hand at the bench, in Tosi.
The pendant is a single leaf, as large as the palm of a hand: six point six centimeters high by five point four wide. The silver sheet opens like a fan from the stalk, and halfway along the upper margin a deep notch divides it into two lobes — it is that cleft that gives the plant its name, biloba, and makes the shape recognizable before anything else. The edge is not cut straight: it waves and ripples like that of the real leaf. Over the whole face run the striations, dozens of grooves that start narrow at the stalk and widen in a radiating pattern to the margin; the silver between one groove and the next has been darkened, while the ridges have stayed light, so that the veining reads from a distance. The sheet is not flat: it curves slightly backwards, and from the back you can still see the blows that raised it. At the top the stalk thickens, folds over and becomes the bail a gray silk cord runs through.
Fifteen grams fifty of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths, spread over a wide surface: it is a thin sheet, and on a thin sheet every groove takes away metal where none can be given back. The company states the striations as engraved by hand, and they are the reason the leaf does not look stamped: two neighboring grooves never have the same depth, and the light that comes out of them changes from one vein to the next. The cord is forty-eight centimeters long in all, in gray silk, with silver ends of the same fineness: it is the part that ages first, and it should be replaced before it gives way, not after. The silver, on the other hand, can always be re-polished — but only on the ridges: taking the cloth into the grooves carries away the dark that holds the design together.
The material
Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.
- Metals
- Silver 925‰
- Finish
- Dark in the depth of the striations, light on the ridges and the rim
- Dimensions
- Leaf 6,6 × 5,4 cm · silk cord, overall length 48 cm
- Technique
- Made entirely by hand. The shape of the leaf is cut from the sheet and the margin rippled one hump at a time; the sheet is then raised from the back so that it takes the curve, the striations are engraved with a burin one by one from the stalk towards the edge, the ground is oxidized and the ridges re-polished. The stalk is folded over to form the bail, and the silk cord goes into the silver end caps last.
How it is made
The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.
- Repoussé and chasing
- Repoussé raises the relief by working the metal from the back; chasing finishes it from the front, with punches that do not cut but move. You work on a sheet that has to give just enough and no more: a blow that is too strong thins it on the other side, and where the metal is already pierced that point can no longer be strengthened.
- Burin engraving
- The burin is a goldsmith's graver pushed by hand. It does not scratch: it lifts a chip of metal and leaves a clean groove that catches the light. It is the mark that for five centuries has distinguished the Florentine goldsmith's school.
- Oxidizing
- The silver is darkened on purpose, and then re-polished only where the light has to come back. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the light on the raised areas: it is a design made by subtraction, and whoever does it decides where to stop the cloth.
- Silk
- Silk is the thread of a silkworm, not a goldsmith's material: it cannot be soldered, it cannot be polished and under the flame it burns instead of heating. On a piece that uses it the metal is finished entirely first, and the cord goes in last inside the silver end caps, which close around it cold: from that moment nothing more is soldered on the pendant. It is also the only part that ages — it absorbs sweat and perfume, it frays where it rubs against the bail and when it gets wet it shortens and hardens — while the silver can always be re-polished. You look at where it enters the end caps, and that is where it should be replaced: before it gives way, not after.
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.
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.
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