You’d be forgiven for thinking that Cartier had resorted to a bit of sorcery in crafting these three rings, part of its latest fine jewelry collection, Sortilège de Cartier. Instead, it charged its craftsmen with creating a unique gem-within-a-gem setting in which a precious stone is enclosed in a custom-cut semiprecious stone, to luminous effect. “It creates a sort of illusion—you don’t know what the material is,” explains Pierre Rainero, director of image, style, and heritage at Cartier International.Surrounded by pavé diamonds set in platinum, an 8.29-carat cushion-cut yellow sapphire with citrine (below left) showcases the nuances of two similarly hued gems, as do the dramatic 7.78-carat pear-cut yellow sapphire set in a sharply hexagonal citrine (below center) and the 2.77-carat brown diamond and amethyst pairing (below right). Says Rainero: “A stone lives differently when it’s close to another stone.”
Photo courtesy of Cartier
