Patent Application
20090235689
This invention relates to enhancing the appearance of gemstones, and particularly to enhancing the size and sparkle appearance of gemstones such as diamonds in presentation jewelry settings such as rings, pendants, bracelets, brooches and the like.
Gemstones are almost always worn or displayed in jewelry settings which are designed to enhance appearance. The most common of such settings and displays are rings, pendants, bracelets, brooches and the like and typical expedients for enhancing settings include the decorative use of surrounding a large central gemstone with smaller gems or chips of smaller sizes or of different cuts such as baguettes. Precious metals, such as gold and platinum, most commonly provide the base settings. Other expedients for enhancing appearance include the use of settings or mountings which elevate the gemstones to provide a larger appearance or the use of different gem cuts which enhance sparkle or brilliance. Since appearance with respect to jewelry is paramount, measures which provide illusions of enhanced or increased size, innovative decorative settings, and improved gem sparkle or brilliance are prized.
It is accordingly an object of the present disclosure to provide a method and a setting element for gemstones, such as diamonds, which provides the realistic illusion of a significantly larger gemstone.
It is a further object of the present disclosure to provide setting elements for gemstones which are matched in general color to that of the gemstones and which are non-planar to provide efficient reflective interaction with facets of the gem to make the gemstone appear larger.
It is another object of the present disclosure to provide a setting for gemstones such as diamonds which enhances the appearance of the gemstone by increasing the sparkle of the gemstone under ambient light.
It is yet another object of the present disclosure to provide such increased sparkle by providing a holding setting of the gemstone with one or more openings to permit increased ambient light to strike the underside of the gemstone normally not viewably exposed.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more evident from the following discussion and drawings in which:
a is a side view of the setting element shown in
a and 4b are partial front views of pendant settings for triangle and pear shaped diamond gemstones;
Generally the present disclosure comprises a gem setting and a method therefore for enhancing gemstone appearance, such as a diamond, in articles of jewelry by causing an optical perception of increased size and/or enhancing the sparkle of the gemstone. The present invention further comprises the gemstone settings and articles of jewelry with gemstones having such enhanced appearance. In accordance with the present invention a visible exposed surface of a gemstone having a lateral contour (determined by the particular cut of the gemstone) is closely surrounded by a length of a narrow strip of a reflective material such as of a precious metal of platinum or gold having an exposed non-planar reflective surface. It is understood that reflective materials of non-precious metals and the like are similarly operable in accordance with the present invention but in keeping with the value and cachet of jewelry it is preferred that precious materials be used. The length of the narrow strip follows at least a portion of the contour with the side of the narrow strip closely abutting the contour and preferably completely surrounds the visibly exposed surface of the gemstone whereby the exposed non-planar reflective surface of the narrow strip provides a lateral extension of the visibly exposed surface of the gemstone. The width of the narrow strip across the reflective surface is preferably between about 0.2 to 0.6 mm and is regularly non-planar with a repeated uniform pattern, preferably along its length, such as with a continuous sinusoidal type pattern of flats and troughs. If overall symmetry is not required, such as with non symmetrical gemstones, the non planer configuration may be appropriately and correspondingly non-regular or asymmetrical.
To further enhance the size enhancement appearance as an extension of the gemstone, the color of the narrow strip is approximately matched to that of the gemstone with, for example, yellow gold being used with a yellow diamond and platinum being appropriately used with colorless gemstones. Other colored gemstones can be matched to the gray or mirror-like reflective platinum. The color matched reflective strip is positioned adjacent the exposed surface of the gemstone and preferably directly adjacent a line on the gemstone such as the girdle line of the exposed portion of a diamond, whereby its non-planar surface efficiently reflectively interacts with the facets of the diamond or other gemstone to create an optical illusion of a larger size gemstone. With the strip size width of from 0.2 to 0.6 mm, the exposed surface diameter of the diamond or other gemstone is increased in size, by perception, by from about 0.4 to 1.2 mm.
Depending on the cut of the gemstone, this can provide a significant illusional increase in size of, for instance, from the appearance of a four and a half carat gemstone to that of a six carat gemstone or about an additional third of the original gemstone size.
The dimensional parameters of the narrow strip are generally functions of perception in a particular setting and are specifically related to the eye being able to discern the narrow strip as being separate from the gemstone. Thus, a greater width of the strip which tends to perceptibly separate the strip as a separate element or deviations from planar which are too little or too much and which do not appropriately reflectively interact with the gems facets (which may also be a function of the cut of the gemstone) to provide appropriate reflective intermeshing, is to be avoided. A planar strip is however simply decorative and does not provide the interactive reflectivity required for the optical illusion of greater size.
Though ideally the narrow strip should completely peripherally surround the gemstone, in settings where chips are directly set against the central gemstone or where there is little or no room for a full peripheral narrow strip, the strip may be partial rather than completely circumferential (or peripherally enclosing) to at least symmetrically enhance size appearance of portions of the central gemstone.
In another aspect of the present invention, with the central gemstone and smaller stones or chips which may surround it, particularly in a ring setting, the ring (or other supporting member or setting) is laterally split into separate elements to permit ambient light to enter the separation between the elements and strike the sides or underside of the gemstones to increase sparkle. In embodiments of the present invention, the separations or splits in themselves provide settings for additional chips, which are transparent or translucent and which permit the ambient light to pass through them for the requisite sparkle enhancement and increased ornamentation appearance. Alternatively, the spacing may be filled with decorative inserts of precious metal such as gold or platinum, with or without imbedded small gems. If the ring elements comprise total splits into separate members then a web connector or one or more bridging element are necessary to keep the ring from falling apart. In such embodiments, the web element may be further ornamented with monograms or designs which may be dictated by the designer for identification (with an imparted cachet) or by the purchaser for personalization.
With specific reference to the drawings,
The non-planar nature of the narrow strip 12 is more clearly seen in
The embodiment shown in
Ring 91 shown in
The ring 100 of
It is understood that the above discussion and embodiments are merely exemplary of the present invention with changes being possible in components, structure and relative configurations without departing from the scope of the present invention as defined in the following claims.
