Aquamarine Ring
Discover my pieces featuring this magnificent stone from the Beryl family.
Aquamarine, subtle in its colour
Aquamarine is an important stone from the beryl family (which is also comprised of emeralds and morganites, amongst others). It boasts an ocean-like colour.
The most sought-after stones are usually the ones that have the most concentrated and intense sky-blue colour (it is possible that sometimes aquamarines have more of a greenish tint).
Aquamarines always have a very subtle colour, a light blue with a beautiful brilliance.
I like to work with them in two forms: either as a facetted stone with occasionally a slightly frosted aspect that gives it a bit more life, or aquamarine with a higher density of inclusions, where this specific blue colour comes out more clearly.
It was when I was in Brazil a few years ago that I bought some roughs that I got cut to make the ice-cube ring.
For a long time, the most beautiful stones came from Brazil, I am talking here more specifically of the Santa Maria which is the most sustained and dense aquamarine.
Nowadays the most beautiful specimens come mainly from Madagascar or Zambia. I also recently acquired some very small aquamarines of an incredible intensity, despite the blue usually dampening to become almost transparent in such small stones.
Hardness :
7,5 – 8
Origin :
Brazil, Madagascar, Mozambique, India, Zambia
Refractive index :
1,564 – 1,596
A preference for the cushion cut
The colour of an aquamarine is best admired on larger, facetted stones, where the colour is more concentrated.
Often aquamarine is cut in an emerald cut, because its crystals are usually on the long side. In my opinion the cushion cut concentrates the colour best and shows off the stone in a more interesting light.
The briolette cut (a stone cut with a large number of facets and lacking in a table, the flat surface that is usually found at the top of a stone) also works very well on aquamarines as is concentrates the colour strongly. I discovered some beautiful specimens cut this way in Jaipur in India; it is the speciality of Indian lapidaries A briolette aquamarine is displayed on the Cotton Ring.
I often use aquamarines in my creations, for example in the Ice Cube Ring, for which I choose half milky, half crystalline stones. These very beautiful diaphanous inclusions give them a cloudy sky-blue effect. It is a very poetic stone.