Winter Bloom Earrings

The stone at the ear is carved, and carved as a snowflake. Twelve millimetres of blue topaz, its arms cut radiating into the crown and the centre left raised and frosted, so light breaks there rather than running clean through the stone. Faceting would have given the topaz sparkle; carving gives it architecture. The six-fold geometry reads because the arms are cut deep enough to cast their own shadow — the flake holds its form from every angle.

Beneath, the drop is built as a slender column: a band of diamond pavé, a single blue topaz bead, then a longer band of pavé. Stones of a millimetre set in tight rows, so the bands read as a fine frost across the metal rather than as individual diamonds. Narrow and rigid, the column is what holds the two large stones apart and keeps the whole line taut.

At the base, the weight of the piece — a chalcedony briolette of 24 by 9 millimetres, faceted the whole way round with no flat table anywhere, in a pale lavender-blue that runs almost to white where the light enters. Chalcedony is a cryptocrystalline quartz: translucent rather than transparent, so light diffuses within the stone rather than passing straight through it. On a briolette that is precisely the effect — the facets catch at the surface while the body glows quietly behind them.

The colour runs cool to cooler. Blue topaz at the ear, white diamond through the middle, near-colourless lavender at the base, in white gold that adds nothing of its own.

At 50 by 12 millimetres the earrings are long and very narrow, and almost entirely gemstone: close to thirty-six carats of stone across the pair, with the metal appearing as a pavé sleeve and a few fine claws.

Please enquire for certification and viewing.