Large Trillion Cut Citrine Ring with Open Sides in 14k Yellow Gold

One large trillion citrine fills the top of this ring — a triangle with softly rounded sides, set point down, in a pale greenish gold rather than the deep orange the stone is better known for. The crown is cut into a field of small facets instead of a few broad ones, so it breaks light into flickers across the whole face rather than throwing two or three flashes. A prong takes each of the three corners. Below the stone the shank splits into two arms that open a clear triangular gap on either side before they rejoin underneath the head. 7.70 grams of 14k yellow gold.

Those gaps are not just styling. A pale stone lives on the light that comes up through it from underneath, and a solid shank sitting flush against the pavilion blocks exactly that — which is why a light-coloured gem in a closed-back mounting goes grey and sullen on the hand. Open the sides and daylight reaches the bottom of the stone, so the whole thing reads lit from within instead of lit from the front. The three corners are the other consideration: a corner is the thinnest part of any cut stone, and a trillion has three of them to protect at once, which is why the prongs sit precisely there and nowhere along the sides. Doesn't it change a piece when the pretty part is also the working part?