A ring, and a proposal, in Taupō
Some of the best news we receive arrives quietly, by email, weeks after a piece has left the gallery.
Earlier this year a client came in looking for an engagement ring. He spent time with the collections, and settled on a one-of-a-kind ring from Tessa Blazey's exhibition Kindred Spirits: the Yu Shu Lien & Li Mu Bai Ring, named for the two characters played by Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat in Ang Lee's 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Two stones held in one band, each with its own colour and cut, sitting close but never quite touching.
The ring is carved in wax and lost-wax cast into 18ct yellow gold, so the texture along the band is the maker's own hand rather than a finish applied afterwards. It is set with a free-form Australian parti sapphire, cut by Pebble Sprout, beside an emerald-cut pale pink Ceylon sapphire. Parti sapphires carry more than one colour in a single stone. In this ring, blue and green shift against one another depending on the light.
He proposed at Lake Taupō, on the North Island. She sent us a photograph of her hand held out over the water, the gold warm against all that blue and green, and the two stones reading almost like the lake itself. Then a second one, taken later, the ring moving on her hand as she turned it.
We are always glad to hear where a piece has ended up. A ring bought at Pieces of Eight is rarely bought quickly. It is chosen after a long conversation about the wearer, and then it goes off to have a life we mostly do not see.
Congratulations to them both!
Our engagement collections hold the work of many artists, each with their own hand. Book an appointment and our team will guide you through the collections, talk you through the gem stones and the makers, and help you find the right ring. If nothing is quite right, we can commission one for you.
Credits
Ring: Yu Shu Lien & Li Mu Bai Ring by Tessa Blazey, from Kindred Spirits, 2024. Stone cut by Pebble Sprout. Photography courtesy of the client.
