Description
A round Burmese sapphire of 3.28 carats sits at the centre of this ring, unheated, and graded by GRS as vivid blue in the tone the laboratory designates royal blue. Unheated Burmese material at this weight and this saturation is the reference point against which other blue sapphires are measured — heat is applied to the great majority of sapphires on the market, and a stone that reached this colour without it belongs to a small group.
What Boucheron did with it is the interesting part. The Liz ring is worked in blackened gold, and the band is pavé-set with 252 further round sapphires — 5.35 carats in all, bringing the ring to 8.63 carats of sapphire in total. Set against darkened metal rather than white or yellow, the blue has nothing to compete with and nothing to reflect off: the colour sits on a black ground, and the centre stone reads as the concentration of a field of blue rather than as a solitaire on a plain band.
The centre stone was examined by GRS Gemresearch Swisslab in Lucerne and reported as a natural sapphire of Burmese origin with no indication of thermal treatment, measuring 8.30 by 8.25 by 5.95 millimetres. Report GRS2006-021009, dated 20 February 2006, signed by Dr. A. Peretti. The ring is Boucheron reference JRG0061553, in size 53, and carries the engraved number E19021 inside the shank. It comes with its original Boucheron box and pouch, the GRS report.
