Chinese Bronze, “Bianhu”
ANNIVERASRY RING
This sapphire anniversary ring boasts an amazingly handsome stone—an unusual color, an unusual shape, an unusual depth, and in general, a simply lovely jewel. Unfortunately, the owner, in her eagerness to sport this new anniversary gift, made the unwise choice of wearing it adjacent to her diamond eternity band. Because the sapphire was raised in its original setting (a not very worthy setting, we should note, for such a singular stone), it got badly scratched along its side by the diamonds of the eternity band. Ouch.
But the plot gets worse. Brought to a local, neighborhood jeweler, who had little lapidary/polishing experience, the stone was simply left in its setting and an attempt was made to polish or burnish it on the marred side, as a way to remove the scratches—a very unenlightened, unknowledgeable shot at repairing something so precious. Needless to say, the jeweler succeeded in scratching the stone more and—worse!—in damaging the metal frame.
So, by the time it came to us, it was, in a word, a mess. The frame had originally been a standard, “factory,” or catalogue kind of setting, totally incompatible with this elegant, deep, oval-shaped stone. So, now was the perfect time to reset and reconstruct it with the stateliness that it deserved. In planning for the restoration, we turned the stone sideways, thus making the ring more important-looking almost immediately, and then, to enhance the jewel, we created a new setting, an open-cage-style setting, so you can see how deep the remarkable stone is. This also enables you to see the stone from all angles, and it gives it a slightly more modern, unique setting, showing it off to its best advantage, and in the end, creating an almost completely redone, reconstructed ring.
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