The pendant hanging from the silver chain: the burnished cap and the pearl beneath

Collection Marte·Pendente

Oxidized silver and gold Marte pendant with a pink-gold baroque pearl and diamond

Name: Oxidized silver and gold Marte pendant with a pink-gold baroque pearl and diamond
Brand: Anna Gioielli
SKU: P620bp
Price: 350.0 EUR
Availability: InStock

Sixteen millimeters and thirty-eight of baroque pearl, and above it a silver cap opened out into branches.

€350,00 P620bp

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

The pearl is the large part: a freshwater baroque with an irregular outline, one side lower than the other and a fold that turns around the body. The color does not stay still — the ground is warm cream, and over it run pink, gold and green depending on how it is turned. Above it is held by a silver cap that is not a sheet: it is a weave of thin branches crossing and leaving voids between one and the next, oxidized black in the recesses and re-polished only on the raised work, as in all the Marte pieces, and at the top it closes into the bail cut from the same design. On the front, among the branches, a single brilliant-cut diamond sits in a small yellow gold setting: it is the only gold in the piece. From the back the cap stays open, and the shoulder of the pearl shows through the voids.

The pendant measures thirty-six millimeters by twenty, and the pearl measures sixteen and thirty-eight across: the width is almost all pearl, the silver sits above it and not beside it. Six grams and twenty of silver for the pendant, twenty hundredths of a gram of gold for the small setting, and five hundredths of a carat of diamond, color G and clarity VVS. The chain is included in the price: silver 925, fifty centimeters, seven grams. The shape of the pearl was not chosen from a catalog — it is what the mollusc laid down layer upon layer, and the cap was built onto this one and no other, so the piece cannot be made again the same. Mother-of-pearl, though, is soft: it scratches with a fingernail and dissolves in acids, so the pendant goes on last, after the perfume, and is put away dry.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

6,20 gramsSilver 925‰

0,20 gramsYellow gold 18kt 750‰

7,00 gramsSilver, chain 925‰

0,05 carats Diamonds · on the front of the cap, in a small gold setting

Metals: Silver 925‰ and yellow gold 18kt 750‰
Finish: Oxidized in the recesses, polished on the raised work
Dimensions: Pendant 36 × 20 mm · chain 50 cm
Technique: Made entirely by hand. The silver cap is modeled into irregular branches and opened into voids, one at a time, then oxidized and re-polished only on the relief; the diamond is closed in a small yellow gold setting soldered between the branches, and the seat of the pearl is fitted to the profile of this one and no other. The silver chain is included.

The stones

Baroque pearl

Body of the pendant

Note: Freshwater pearl, diameter 16,38 mm

The diamonds

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

On the front of the cap, in a small gold setting 0,05ct Brilliant G VVSOne natural diamond

In three-quarter view: the diamond in the small yellow gold bezel among the silver branches

With the chain laid out: the Made in Florence plate and the hook

From the side: the cap runs down over the shoulders of the pearl and leaves it free below

The reverse of the cap: the silver hallmarks and the openings cut right through

The cap from the front: the burnished branches and the diamond at the centre

Hanging in the air: the pink, gold and green reflections that run across the pearl

Resting on the wood: the contrast between the burnished silver and the light of the pearl

From above: how much the cap covers and how much it leaves uncovered

From the side on the wood: the chain and the irregular outline of the pearl

How it is made

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

Baroque pearl: Baroque means that the pearl is not round, and that it has not been made round: the mother-of-pearl settled around a nucleus that had shifted, and every layer repeated the offset of the one before, until the body grew with its own humps and folds. A round one can be discarded and replaced with another of the same size; a baroque cannot, there is no second one with the same outline. Whoever mounts it is therefore working on a unique piece: the seat has to be fitted by hand to that shape, and forcing it chips the mother-of-pearl, which above the nucleus is a few tenths of a millimeter thick.
Pearl: The pearl is the only gem produced by a living animal, and it is not a mineral like the others: it is aragonite — calcium carbonate — held together by conchiolin, an organic substance the mollusc lays down between one layer and the next. That organic part is its weak point. On the hardness scale the pearl sits around three: it scratches with a fingernail, and the metal of another piece of jewelry marks it at the first contact. But the scratch is not the worst damage: being a carbonate it dissolves in acids, and sweat, perfume, hairspray and vinegar corrode the surface until the luster goes out. It goes on last, after the perfume, and comes off first; it is cleaned with a barely damp cloth and put away dry, never shut in a bag where no air passes. And you watch the thread or the cord that holds it too: it is the part that ages first, and it should be replaced before it gives, not after.
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 mesh comes out crooked, but that at some point the solid metal is left too thin, and the piece gives at exactly that spot. 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 carry.
Oxidizing: The silver is darkened deliberately, and then re-polished only where the light has to come back. The black stays in the voids and the recesses, the pale on the raised work: 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 of the flame gets closed in under the gold.
Brilliant cut: Fifty-seven facets calculated so that light entering from above comes back out the same side. It is the cut that makes a diamond sparkle, and the reason a badly cut diamond stays dull.

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