Sterling silver almond-shaped dangle earrings with faceted oval blue topaz

How it is made

The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.

01

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 would not — ribbons riding over one another, 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 started again from the wax.

02

Blue topaz

Topaz is an aluminum silicate, and in nature it is almost always colorless. The blue seen in jewelry almost always comes from a treatment: the colorless rough is irradiated and then heated, and the color that comes out is stable and does not fade. Blue topaz of natural origin exists, but it is rare and usually very pale — on a blue, saturated stone the treatment is therefore the rule and not the exception, and it is a declared and accepted practice in the gem trade. For whoever mounts it something else matters: topaz cleaves along a clean plane, parallel to the base. A knock given in the wrong direction does not chip a corner, it opens the stone in two — which is why it is held on claws that grip it around the edge and leave it free, and why on a topaz already in its seat a setting is not pushed over.

03

Post and butterfly clasp

The post goes through the lobe and behind it a butterfly holds it, two metal wings that grip the post by themselves. It is the simplest clasp there is, and precisely for that reason it has to be done well: the post must be soldered perpendicular to the body of the earring, because if it starts even slightly crooked the piece hangs askew on the lobe and there is no way of straightening it by wearing it. The butterfly, on the other hand, is the part that gets lost: it holds by friction, and friction drops off over the years until one day it no longer holds. You check it by pinching it lightly between two fingers, and when it has stopped resisting you change it — it costs little, and it costs a great deal less than the earring.