Fancy Cut Green Spinel Ring with Dolphin Mount in 14k Yellow Gold

Two gold dolphins arc toward each other across the top of this ring, nose to nose, their bodies curving up out of the shank and their flukes closing over the stone to hold it where prongs would normally sit. Between them is a single fancy-cut green stone, a bright yellow-green cut to an elongated freeform outline that follows the space the dolphins leave rather than any standard shape, and transparent enough that it lights up from behind. Carved waves run down both sides of the shank from the animals to the back of the band. At 7.70 grams of 14k gold it is a substantial figural ring, with the weight sitting in the dolphins rather than in the band.

Figural jewelry lives or dies on whether the animal is actually modelled or merely suggested, and these are modelled — at a scale under half an inch you can still find the eye, the curve of the forehead, and the dorsal and tail flukes as separate forms. That is what separates a piece like this from a stamped charm ring: somebody sculpted it in wax before it was ever cast. The green stone held between them reads as water caught mid-leap, which is the whole conceit of the design and the reason the cut isn't a standard shape. Isn't a ring somebody sculpted more interesting than one that was stamped out?