The pair resting on white stones, the two amethyst drops pointing down

Collection Marte·Orecchini

Marte earrings in oxidized silver leaf with polished drop amethysts and gold posts

Name: Marte earrings in oxidized silver leaf with polished drop amethysts and gold posts
Brand: Anna Gioielli
SKU: OA150
Price: 360.0 EUR
Availability: InStock

Sixty millimeters from lobe to tip, and the posts are gold so the silver never touches the ear.

€360,00 OA150

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

Each earring is made of three pieces hung one from another. At the top, on the lobe, there is a silver leaf from which all the tissue has been taken away: the central rib and the side veins are left, curving and closing back on the edge, and the void in between. The silver is oxidized in the recesses and polished back along the veins, as in all the Marte pieces, and through the voids you can see the yellow of the post behind. Below, hanging from a ring that lets it swing, there is a cap of the same silver hollowed into craters, with a few round beads on the raised work: it closes onto the shoulder of the drop and holds it. The drop is amethyst, long and tapered, and it has not a single facet: it is a continuous polished surface that narrows at the top and closes round at the bottom. The purple is not even — it runs in bands, paler and darker — and inside the stone you can see veining and a few small dark inclusions.

From lobe to tip the earring measures sixty millimeters, and more than half that length is stone; the drop is seven millimeters and ninety-eight hundredths across. Ten grams fifty of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths make the two leaves and the two caps. The eighteen carat yellow gold is ninety hundredths of a gram and is all in the posts that pass through the lobe: it is not an ornament, it is the decision not to let silver touch skin, and from the front the gold is barely visible. Amethyst is quartz, and its purple comes from iron that entered the lattice while the crystal was growing: that is why the color runs in bands instead of being solid, and why a stone is chosen one at a time, looking at where the dark band falls. It is also a color that wears out — heat turns it and strong, continuous light slowly puts it out — so the earrings are not left in the sun on the windowsill.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

10,50 gramsSilver 925‰

0,90 gramsYellow gold 18kt 750‰

Metals: Silver 925‰ · Yellow gold 18kt 750‰
Dimensions: Earring length 60 mm · drop diameter 7,98 mm
Technique: Made by hand in the company's goldsmith's studio: the silver leaf opened up until only the veins are left, oxidized in the recesses and polished back along the veins; the cap, hollowed into craters, closed onto the shoulder of the drop; the jump ring that lets the stone swing; the lobe posts in yellow gold, to keep the silver off the skin.

The stones

Amethyst

One drop per earring, hanging from the silver cap

Cut: Polished drop, without facets
Note: Natural amethysts, diameter 7,98 mm

View from behind: the yellow gold posts and butterfly backs behind the silver leaf

Hanging from a dry branch, with the drops free to swing

The drops close up: continuous surface without facets and bands of colour inside the stone

The leaves cut open down to the veins alone, burnished in the recesses and polished on the veins

The earring worn: sixty millimetres from the lobe to the tip of the drop

Front view of the pair: leaf, cap pierced with craters and drop

How it is made

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

Polished drop: The drop has not a single facet: it is cut down and polished to a continuous surface, narrowing towards the top and closing round at the bottom. On a curve that long there is nowhere to hide a mistake — one side fuller than the other reads with the naked eye, and the stone hangs crooked. And the light does not come back in sparks: it goes in, crosses the whole length and comes back up carrying the color with it, including the pale bands and the veining the stone has inside.
Irregular voids: In geometric piercing the error is measured against the module that repeats; here there is no module, and every void has to be decided as it is opened. The risk shifts: not that a link comes out crooked, but that at some point the solid part is left too thin, and the piece gives way exactly there. Whoever does it holds together two things that pull in opposite directions, an outline that has to look random and a thickness that has to hold.
Oxidizing: The silver is darkened on purpose, and then polished back only where the light has to return. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the light on the raised work: it is a drawing 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. Setting 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 of the flame is sealed in under the gold.

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.

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.

All the creations by Anna Gioielli