Imperial Fan Earrings

The folding fan appears twice in each earring. At the ear, a small one caught part-open, its pleats modelled in white gold and its upper edge set with stones. Below, hanging from a single haloed gem, the large fan is spread to its full width — and built as a skeleton. The ribs run from the pivot to the outer rim, with the air left in between. A fan is a frame with a leaf stretched across it; Eve keeps the frame, and lets the skin behind become the leaf.

That is what makes something 52 by 50 millimetres so easy to wear. Solid, it would hang as a plate; open, it reads at full size and weighs almost nothing.

Pearls are set across the ribs at intervals, resting in the open spans rather than along the metal edges, so they appear to float within the frame. Short wedges of pavé fill sections of the gaps between them — the effect of painted decoration on a real fan, gathered near the pivot and thinning towards the rim.

The two versions are not one design in two colours. In the ruby, the pavé across the fan is diamond throughout, 2.08 carats of it, with ruby held at the two focal points alone: the halo above and the oval at the pivot. In the sapphire, the pavé itself is blue sapphire, 2.39 carats, and diamond retreats to the halos. One is a white fan with red at its heart; the other is a fan of blue. The construction is shared, the character entirely separate.

In both, the largest coloured stone sits at the pivot — the point a fan turns on, and the point the eye keeps returning to.

Eighteen pearls to the pair, in 14-karat white gold.

Please enquire for certification and viewing.