Andres' emerald signet ring
“This is probably my favourite piece that I have designed!”
Andres has had many beautiful and wonderfully unique pieces made with us at Petra Jewellery. Just last year he fell in love with a purplish blue sapphire at our 45th anniversary event…he just had to have something made to hold it which is how we ended up with this pendant…
Handmade by our goldsmith Behzad, this pendant of a Casique is made from 18ct yellow gold and holds a stunning sapphire in its heart and wears a crown of diamonds.
Andres has a great love for his Colombian heritage and celebrates it through his bold and colourful jewellery. When we were making this pendant and melting down some of his mother’s gold, we were left with a stunning columbian emerald and so we now needed to find a home for it…
Andres came to see the emerald at our Winter Wonderland event last year and wanted to know what could be done with it…Rosie immediately knew what we should do.
Given the size of the stone, it could realistically only go into a pendant or a ring so we designed a signet ring that would make a statement!
We wanted the emerald to be front and centre but still protected so designed a chunky ring with a deep table (the top part of a signet ring) to be able to rubover set the emerald nice and flush.
Then, to tie the ring in with Andres’ other pieces, we created a scaled down version of the Casique to sit on either shoulder of the ring, this time with a diamond set in each.
The first step was to create the wax of the ring and then use the ‘lost wax’ casting method to cast it in Andres’ 18ct yellow gold.
Then Behzad created the setting that would go around the shape of the emerald perfectly. The emerald isn’t perfectly symmetrical, so this part was a little tricky!
He then melted a sheet of gold so that our engravers could laser cut the shape of the Casique for the shoulders - they were far too tiny for Behzad to cut by hand!
Then Behzad attached the pieces to the signet ring as well as the setting for the emerald. We then gave the stones and the emerald to our expert setter to carefully set into the ring as well as a couple tiny diamonds to go into the shoulders.
Then, to make the stone pop more, Behzad applied a matte finish on the ring except for the Casique on the shoulders and the rubover edge around the emerald.
A picture just doesn’t do the ring justice…
“Never in my life a few years ago did I think I would be designing gold pieces with you and Petra. It has been a wonderful journey of discovery and one of great satisfaction.”
“This was such an interesting project to work on. From the pendant through to the emerald ring, it was really special because it was Andres’ design idea and his story. I enjoyed learning more about the history and culture behind the piece, and it was a real privilege to handcraft something so beautiful and unique.”
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Or, if you still need a bit more inspiration, you can see these pieces and many other gorgeous designs in our bespoke collection here:
