14k Yellow Gold Amethyst Ring with a Baguette Peridot Halo and Pave Diamond Corners

A pale lavender amethyst sits at the centre of this ring, an elongated cushion shape with its whole top face cut into a grid of small square facets rather than the usual spread of triangles. Around it, baguette cut peridots run in channels along all four sides, bright yellow-green and set shoulder to shoulder with no metal showing between them. Each of the four corners is filled with small pave diamonds, .05 carat total weight. The shank is wide, polished and tapered. 7.30 grams of 14k yellow gold.

Two colours, and they were chosen rather than collected. Pale violet and yellow-green sit almost opposite one another, which means each one makes the other look stronger than it would alone — the amethyst reads cooler next to the peridot and the peridot reads brighter next to the amethyst. Most rings with this many stones in them use four or five colours and end up looking like a sample card. This one uses exactly two and lets them work. The grid cut on the amethyst is the other decision worth noticing: a pale stone cut the ordinary way can look washed out because most of the light passes straight through it, whereas all those small flat facets across the top bounce light back at you from the surface. Which colour did you see first?