The oval cabochon turquoise at the centre of the burnished, pierced silver, with the four grey diamonds in gold bezels

Collection Marte·Anello

Marte ring in oxidized silver with an oval cabochon turquoise and four gray diamonds in gold bezels

Sixteen grams of silver pierced into craters and half a gram of gold, all of it in the four settings that hold the diamonds.

€750,00 AA236btu

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

The turquoise is an oval cabochon, pale blue, domed and polished without a single facet: the light does not go in, it stops on the curve, and in raking light you can see paler veining pass through it. It is not held by pointed claws but by silver beads pressed onto the edge of the stone, like drops cooled there. Around it the silver is oxidized and pierced right through: round and oval craters of different sizes, the recesses left black, the raised areas re-polished; the same surface continues down the flanks and onto the shank, which stays pierced all the way. The four gray diamonds do not form a ring: they sit at the corners around the turquoise, one to each quarter, and each has its own four-claw yellow gold setting. They are the only four points of gold on the piece.

Sixteen grams of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths make the whole body. The eighteen-carat gold is half a gram: thirty-two times less, and it is only in the four settings. Here the gold is not structure, it is the place you look. The four natural gray brilliant-cut diamonds add up to forty points of a carat: ten points each, so stones you count one by one by eye instead of losing them in a surround. The turquoise is stated to be natural. It remains a soft, porous stone — it scratches easily and drinks in whatever it touches — so the ring comes off before creams, perfumes and detergents: a blue that goes dull does not come back.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

16.00 gramsSilver 925‰
0.50 gramsYellow gold 18kt 750‰
0.40 carats Diamonds · four, at the corners around the turquoise
Metals
Silver 925‰ · Yellow gold 18kt 750‰
Technique
Made by hand in the company's goldsmith's studio. Body in silver, pierced and drilled into craters, oxidized in the recesses and re-polished on the raised areas; the turquoise held by silver beads, the four diamonds in yellow gold settings.

The stones

Turquoise

At the center, held by silver beads

Cut
Oval cabochon
Note
Natural

The diamonds

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

Four, at the corners around the turquoise 0.40ct Brilliant Natural gray diamonds, each in its own yellow gold setting · total
Close shot: the silver beads that hold the turquoise at the edge of the stone
Side view: the crater openwork runs from the shoulder down to the shank
Three-quarter view from below, with the depth of the holes that pass right through
The ring standing, the whole outline and the pierced shank
The side: the irregular openings and the re-polished raised parts above the burnished ground
The circle seen from the front, with the inside of the band
View from above: the four diamonds set at the corners around the turquoise
The ring worn, for the proportion with the hand
Group shot on a branch with two other turquoise rings from the same collection: the other two 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.

Turquoise
Turquoise is a soft, porous stone: it scratches easily and drinks in whatever it touches. That is why it is not faceted but shaped and polished into a dome, and why it is set last, on a cold, finished mount: under the flame turquoise turns green, and it does not turn back. Almost all the turquoise on the market is stabilized with resin precisely so that it will take the cutting, the polishing and the setting. Whoever wears it has one rule only: the piece comes off before perfumes, creams and detergents, because acids, cosmetics and heat put its blue out, and blue lost does not come back.
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 bright on the raised areas: it is a design 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. Mounting 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 from the flame is shut 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 dead.

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 in the size of the person who will wear it: we work it out together before the piece is made.

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.