Nouveau Éclat Ring

Yin and yang, cut in stone.

An oval face divided by a single S-curve into two interlocking halves: one carved from a single piece of mother of pearl, the other laid in invisibly set rubies. At the join, where the eye of the taijitu falls, an oval ruby sits claw-set — the one stone that belongs to both halves at once.

Drawn on paper, the figure is two circles and a line. Made in gemstones, it becomes something else entirely. Each material is cut as a crescent closing around the other, and the two meet along a curve that runs straight at no point along its length. Move either half and the other follows.

The rubies are invisibly set: every stone cut to its own shape to fill its position, grooved along the girdle and locked to a framework beneath, so the field reads as one continuous plane of red with no claw or bezel to interrupt it. Along the dividing curve each stone is shaped to the sweep of that line; against the outer rim, to the curve of the oval. No two in the field are alike, and at this scale a tenth of a millimetre would show.

The materials complete the argument. Mother of pearl takes light in and returns it soft and pale; ruby sends it back dense and saturated. Light against dark, cool against warm, each holding the other in balance — which is the whole meaning of the figure, and precisely the proportion Golden Ratio is built on.

Set in 14-karat white gold, the shank kept plain and narrow so the face carries the piece alone.

This piece has been sold.