Published on by Olivier Maupas-Sehikyan · Rings
Some commissions arrive with a jewellery box under the arm. One day, a mother pushed open the door of my workshop in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire, near Nantes, carrying hers. Inside lay everything needed to make a bespoke white gold topaz and diamond ring, even if she did not yet know it. This story moved me particularly, and I would like to tell it as I lived it. It is a story of leaves, blue light and three generations of women.
A mother, a jewellery box and an eighteenth birthday to celebrate
In the box were a ring she no longer wore, a damaged white gold chain and three loose blue topazes, lying there like drops of sky. The stones had come to her from her own mother. Before we had even spoken of design, I understood that they had already travelled through two women's lives.
Her request was clear. She wished to give her daughter, for her eighteenth birthday, a jewel to be handed down: not a simple birthday present, but the passing of a baton. The piece was to carry the lineage, the memory and the affection that flow from one generation to the next.
We talked at length, around the workbench. It was in the course of the conversation that the idea of foliage took hold. Leaves speak of growth, renewal and the roots of a family. She saw a family tree engraved in metal, and the image seemed right to me for a ring passing from mother to daughter.
One detail mattered to her: her daughter would be kept out of the project. The surprise was part of the gift. For my part, I was aware of what had been entrusted to me. Every gram of gold to be melted down, every topaze to be brought back into the light, bore the trace of her mother. Transforming old jewellery took on a meaning here that I have rarely felt so strongly.
Blue topazes and diamonds: choosing the stones and the gold
The choice of 18-carat white gold was made very quickly. Its cool brightness awakens the blue of the topazes without competing with it, and it unifies the whole with gentleness.
The three inherited stones have a limpid blue colour, close to Swiss Blue, the vivid blue of summer skies. Blue topaz is an elegant and robust gemstone: it reaches 8 on the Mohs scale, which makes it entirely suitable for a piece worn every day. In the centre I placed the largest, cut as a step-cut square (the emerald cut), a geometric form that suited it perfectly. The other two, oval, frame it in perfect symmetry. This trilogy speaks for itself: the grandmother, the mother, the daughter.
To accompany these stones, I chose four small brilliant-cut diamonds, carefully calibrated. They were to nestle in chased leaves, on either side of the oval topazes. Their white sparkle converses with the blue, and the gold binds the two together. A successful topaz and diamond ring is, above all, a conversation between stones.
For the style, I turned to the Art Nouveau of the late nineteenth century, which celebrated organic forms. René Lalique, the most famous jeweller of that era, drew on nature for his scrolls, flowers, acanthus leaves and plant veining. I wanted to reinterpret its spirit without copying anything. Nature, like a family, is endlessly renewed.
From drawing to casting: bespoke creation in my workshop
This ring was made entirely in my workshop, a few metres from the boutique. To my mind, this closeness is the soul of the bespoke jeweller's craft: the client was welcomed, advised and accompanied at every stage.
It all began with the drawing. By hand, I sketched several variations of the foliage motif. The challenge could be put in a single sentence: to marry the rigour of the square central stone with the suppleness of the leaves. Once the design was approved, I sculpted a wax model. This stage allows me to judge the volumes and curves before the final casting, and touch matters as much as sight.
The casting came next. The white gold from the client's old jewellery was melted in the crucible at over 1,000 °C. Little by little, these pieces from the past disappeared in order to be reborn in another form. Using the lost-wax process, the liquid gold took the shape of the model. Once cooled and removed from its mould, the raw casting was carefully cleaned, and I hollowed out the veins of the leaves with a graver. It was at that moment that the jewel began to breathe.
Setting, polishing and presentation: the moment when everything makes sense
Then comes the stage I dread and love the most: the setting. The central topaz was placed, then held by four white gold claws. This claw topaz setting is particularly suited to the emerald cut, as it lets light pass freely through the stone. The two oval topazes, for their part, were mounted in a closed setting, in a cradle of gold that follows their outline. The technique protects them while offering them a discreet casing.
Each diamond was then fitted one by one into its seat, at the heart of the leaves. I used grain setting: tiny grains of gold, raised with a graver, hold the stone and let its brilliance play. The gesture demands millimetric precision, and a great deal of practice of the hand.
Finally, the polishing. Every gold surface was buffed to a mirror shine, then the ring was inspected with meticulous care before being laid in its box. I was not present on the day of the birthday, but her mother told me about the scene: tears and smiles, in the same instant. Watching an inheritance be reborn in a new form is what I seek each time I design a jewel.
A bespoke ring in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire, near Nantes
If you keep in a drawer a ring that no longer suits you, a broken chain or family stones, come and show them to me at the workshop in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire, near Nantes. We will talk about what they mean to you, simply, and we will see together what they might become. Sometimes, a jewel is only waiting to be given a second story.
