Red Lacquer Flower Earrings with Diamond

An elegantly contemporary earrings, decorated with carved cinnabar lacquer floral petals, leafs with diamonds and polished black wood vines and stems. The foundation of the earrings is 18K gold and black rhodium plated sterling silver, while the setting and the clasp are in 18K gold. The red lacquer petals were a part of an antique chinese hairpin, which was then cut and adorned into the design. 

Red lacquer is an eastern material collected from nature with extraordinary properties, like water proof with high heat resistance, flexibility and is not and is not available in the west. Red lacquer has been around for thousands of years for waterproof containers and both the Chinese and Japanese civilizations have refined the application of lacquer into ART. The Chinese (where it all started) developed the cinnabar, red lacquer by adding layers over layers of red natural lacquer on top of each other, each layer had to be dried and polished and it would take up to one hundred layers before the layers were thick enough for carving. Each layer would take 1-3 days and special ratios of oil and lacquer had to be kept to make sure that the lacquer could be still carved after 4-7 months of layering. It is then hand carved with master carvers, making them stunning pieces, often used in art installations and Jewellery. 

This piece took over 3 months to finish, with over 7 craftsmen and designers involved at various stages. 

Rose Cut Diamonds :  1.13 ct.
Baguette Step Diamonds:  0.17 ct.
Dimension: 4.55 (L) x 3.25 (W) x 0.95 (D) cm.
Weight : 29.48 g.