Medieval Rose Gold & Ruby Ring. The above ring has been designed created and crafted in Sydney, the design inspired by the finger jewellery worn by the well-off of northern Europe in the early 1500s, as depicted in painted portraits of the period. There was a definite delicacy of design in the jewellery of that time and place, and a liking for distinctive multi-gemstone settings.
Square cut gemstones were popular in the 1500s, but Diamonds were rare, and the like of the four small white Diamonds in the above “Medieval Rose Gold” ring did not then exist. The expertise to create the glitter of the small Diamonds in the above ring, in the “round brilliant” cut, had to wait until the mid 1900s. In the 1300s/1400s in northern Europe, in the Veneto, Germany and the Nederlands, the art of shaping a Diamond, an incredibly hard material, was in its very beginnings. If a Diamond were used in a piece of jewellery -and that in itself would have been rare, for Diamonds were rare- it would have had a pointy shape, the techniques available only allowing the artisan to follow the octahedral shape of the Diamond crystal.