High Jewellery
Materials and Techniques
Most of the material here is chosen for how it behaves in low light. Shakudō, copper carrying a small proportion of gold, is brought to a near-black that absorbs light instead of returning it, while shibuichi, an alloy of silver and copper, is patinated to greys that shift with the angle. Against those, gold is worked in yellow, rose, beige and a grey alloyed with palladium, and the difference between them is used inside a single piece, not across a collection.
Titanium is anodised where a form must be large and light at once, the colour driven into the metal itself and not laid over it. Platinum is chosen when a stone asks for a colder setting, and silver is oxidised and sealed beneath wax.
Stones are set reversed as often as upright, the culet turned outward so that the points stand proud of the surface and take the light at an angle. Pavé is laid as a continuous skin across a body, collets and bezels are used where an edge must be drawn and not filled, and the metal beneath is often pierced, either as an ajouré worked through the structure or as a honeycomb cut into a reverse that is seen only when the piece turns.
Cuts are commissioned to the piece and not bought to a catalogue: rubies cut as portraits, flat-surfaced so that colour carries the composition; topaz in hexagonal steps; tanzanite as an octagonal step of uncommon proportion; tourmaline as graduated cylinders that taper toward a centre.
Mirror polish is set against patina on the same body, so that one surface returns the light and the other keeps it. Inscriptions are engraved beneath the oxidation and stay there, legible only when the surface is turned against the light.