A jade and sterling silver ring set with a large bright green oval cabochon, bezel set. The mounting carries blue enamel scrollwork on the shoulders and a row of small faceted blue stones on either side. The band is open at the back and adjusts to the finger.
In four lines
- A large bright green oval cabochon, bezel set on sterling silver.
- Blue enamel on the shoulders and a row of blue stones, not identified.
- An open band: no size to choose, it adjusts to the finger.
- A very even green: this page discusses it below, it does not boast about it.
This green is the most even in the catalogue, and I am going to say so
The cabochon is a bright, clear, translucent green, of a regularity that shows neither patch nor vein. That is what makes it spectacular, and it is also what this site teaches you to look at closely on all its other pages.
A perfectly homogeneous colour on a natural stone is rare, because chromium did not settle to order. It can come from severe sorting through a large lot, or from a coloured impregnation. I have neither weighed it nor had it analyzed, and the treatment status of this piece is not determined, like that of this whole catalogue.
What I refuse to write is the opposite: not “untreated”, not “natural”, not “A jadeite”, not “type A”. Those four words are exactly the ones the market uses when it does not know, and French decree no. 2002-65 makes silence about a treatment an offense, not a discretion. What the letters A, B and C cover.
The blue enamel, and the blue stones
The shoulders carry blue enamel scrollwork, laid within metal cloisons. It is colorwork, not stonework: an enamel is a coloured glass fired onto the metal. It fears thermal shock and chemicals far more than the jade itself does, and it chips if you knock it.
The small faceted blue stones are not named by my supplier. At that size, a synthetic spinel, a blue cubic zirconia and a glass look alike. I will call them neither sapphire nor topaz. Naming a stone wrongly is precisely what the decree on trade descriptions penalizes.
An open band, and why there is no size to choose
The two ends of the band do not meet at the back. You slide it on from the side of the finger, then close it with light pressure. So you will see no size dropdown above the buy button.
On a ring with a head this high, a setting that is too loose lets the stone tip onto the side of the finger: close it one notch tighter than what feels comfortable on the first try. And do not open it every day, the metal tires.
Sterling silver, and what it actually does
Sterling silver is an alloy of 92.5 percent silver, the rest being mostly copper. It tarnishes in air, which is normal and cleans off with a silver cloth, carefully avoiding the stone and the enamel. On acidic skin it can also mark, because of the copper: that is rare, it is not a manufacturing defect, and regular rinsing is usually enough.
Jade is tough, but its hardness stays ordinary, 6.5 to 7 for jadeite: the quartz in dust, which rates 7, dulls a dome far more surely than a knock. A bezel setting holds water under the stone: dry it completely. Never ultrasonics, never steam, never solvent, neither for the jade nor for the enamel. Hardness and toughness, and care in detail.
