CHAPTER V. HOW TO SET A RUBY.
We will now continue our talk & consider the way of setting a ruby, and the box of gold in which it has to be fitted. This box, whether in a pendant, a ring, or what not, is always called the bezel. What you have first of all to observe in the setting of the stone in this bezel, is that the former must not be set too deep, so as to deprive it of its full value, nor too high, so as to isolate it from its surrounding detail. I mention this because I have seen mistakes made in both ways, and I am certain that practising jewellers who have a right knowledge of drawing and design would not go wrong in either the one direction or the other.
So let us place our fine ruby into its bezel. In order to what is technically called ‘set’[28] it, we must provide ourselves with four or five ruby foils[29] of which some should be of so deep a glow that they seem quite dark, and others differing in intensity till they have scarce any red in them at all. With all these different specimens of foils before us, we take hold of the ruby with a piece of hard black wax well pointed, pressing the wax upon one of the projections of the stone. Then your good jeweller tries his ruby now upon this foil, now upon that, till his own good taste determines him which foil will give most value to his stone. Sometimes the jeweller will find it may help him to move the stone to and from the foil, but he has to recollect that the air between the foil & the stone will always give an effect different to that afterwards given when the stone is set in the bezel where no air passes behind. Therefore your capable man places the cut foil in the setting, at one time bringing it close, at another interposing a space. Thereupon let him set his jewel with all the care, taste & delicacy of which an able man is master.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Legare.
[29] Literally leaves that are of themselves red.
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CHAPTER VI. HOW TO SET AN EMERALD AND A SAPPHIRE.
Now, as to the emerald and the sapphire, the same skill must be used with the foils adaptable to them as with those of the ruby. And because I consider that practice always has come before theory in every craft, and that the rules of theory, in which your skillful craftsman is accomplished, are always grafted on to practice afterwards, I will give you a case in point of what once happened to me when I was setting a ruby of about 3000 scudi in value. This ruby had, when it came into my hands, been very well set at different times by some of the best known jewellers of the day. So I was incited to work at it with all possible care. Seeing that I could in no way satisfy myself with the result of my efforts, I locked myself up somewhere where no one could see me; not so much because I did not wish my secret to go further, but because I did not want to be caught trying so mean an experiment upon so goodly and wonderful a gem. I took a little skein of silk stained with Kermes, and with a pair of scissors cut it carefully, having previously spread a little wax in the bezel. Then I took the tiny bit of silk and pressed[30] it firmly on to the wax with the point of a small punch. Then did I put my ruby upon it, and so well did it make, and such virtue did it gain, that all the jeweller folk who had seen it first, suspected me of having tinted it, a thing forbidden in jewellery except in the case of diamonds, of which more anon. But for this ruby, some of the jewellers asked me to say what kind of a foil I had put behind it, upon which I answered that I had put no foil behind it. At this reply of mine, a jeweller who was with the gentleman to whom the ruby belonged, said, ‘If the ruby has no foil, you can’t have done anything else but tint it in some way or other, and that you know is forbidden.’ To which I replied again that I had neither given it a foil, nor done anything forbidden to it. At this the jeweller got a little nasty and used strong language, at which the gentleman who owned the ruby said, ‘Benvenuto, I pray you, be so good, provided I pay you for it, to open your setting and show it to me only, I promise you I’ll not tell anyone your secret.’ Then said I to him that I had worked several days on the job, and that I had my living to earn, but that I would willingly do it if he paid me the price of the setting, and, moreover, do it in the presence of all of them, because I should be much honoured in thus being able to teach my teachers. When I had said this, I opened the bezel and took out the stone in their presence. They were very much obliged, we parted very good friends, and I got very well paid. The ruby in question was a thick one, & so limpid and luminous that all the foils you put beneath it gave it a sort of uncertain flash, like that which shimmers from the girasol opal, or the cat’s-eye, two kinds of stones to which the dunderheads, of whom I told before, would also give the name of gems.