Cubic zirconia
One in a round setting at the lobe, the others set between the branchings of the tuft
- Cut
- Brilliant
- Note
- The number of the stones, the carat weight and the origin are not stated by the company
Collection Creazioni in Argento·Orecchini
Silver drop earrings in the shape of coral branches, with cubic zirconia
Seventy-two millimeters of branches opening out below the lobe, and there is not a gram of coral: it is silver shaped to the form of a frond.
€220,00
OL34O4ma
Drawn and built by hand at the bench, in Tosi.
A branch hangs below the lobe. At the top, resting against the ear, sits a round setting holding a zircon; from the setting a long, thin silver stem descends, running straight for more than half the height and then opening into a tuft of branchings. The branches are round in section, they divide and divide again, they cross and overlap, and they end in rounded tips like the ends of a frond of coral. Between one branch and the next the silver has been darkened and the ridges re-polished, and that contrast makes the tuft look denser than it is. Along the branchings, where two branches meet, further round cubic zirconia are set. Behind the setting is the post that goes through the lobe, and the butterfly back that holds it.
Fourteen grams and sixty of silver at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths, and seventy-two millimeters of height counting the fastening: these are long earrings, and almost half that length is stem, that is, weight pulling on the lobe from a single point. Of coral there is the shape here and nothing else: real coral is the calcareous skeleton of a marine animal that grows a few millimeters a year, and these branches are cast silver, shaped to the drawing of a frond. It is a distinction that has to be written down, because in a window the two things look alike. On the stones the company writes «zirconi» and stops there: in Italian that word covers two different minerals, and which of the two this is nobody states — so we do not state it either. Neither the number of the stones nor their carat weight is a figure the company gives.
The material
Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.
14.60
gramsSilver 925‰
- Metals
- Silver 925‰
- Finish
- Oxidized between the branchings, polished on the branches and on the setting
- Dimensions
- Height including post and butterfly back approx. 7.2 cm
- Technique
- Made entirely by hand. The tuft of branches is lost-wax cast in a single piece — the only way to get branchings that cross and overlap — then the tips are gone over one by one and the joints cleaned; the seats for the cubic zirconia are opened between the branches and the stones set by hand, the piece is oxidized and re-polished on the raised areas only, and the stem is soldered under the setting at the lobe, which carries the post and the butterfly back.
The stones
How it is made
The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.
- 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 uses up both the wax and the mold, and the model you started from no longer exists. It is the way to get what the saw and the file would 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 you start again from the wax.
- 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.
- Cubic zirconia
- In Italian a single word covers two different stones. Zircon is a natural mineral, a zirconium silicate quarried from rock: the oldest crystals known on Earth are of this. Cubic zirconia is zirconium oxide grown in a laboratory since the nineteen-seventies, colorless and hard, created to resemble diamond. The trade calls both of them «zirconi», and the word on its own does not say which it is. That is why the entry uses the term used by whoever made the piece and not another: adding «natural» or «synthetic» where the company has not stated it would mean writing down a fact that nobody has measured.
- 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.
- Post and butterfly fastening
- The post goes through the lobe and behind it a butterfly back holds it, two metal wings that grip the post by themselves. It is the simplest fastening there is, and precisely for that reason it has to be done well: the post has to be soldered square to the body of the earring, because if it starts even slightly crooked the piece hangs askew on the lobe and there is no straightening it by wearing it. The butterfly back, on the other hand, is the part that gets lost: it holds by friction, and friction falls 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 offering resistance you change it — it costs little, and it costs far less than the earring.
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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