Old cuts need light. That was the problem.
They were cut for candlelight and they hold light rather than throwing it back — which means they need a great deal of it before they come alive. And a diamond set the ordinary way, over a solid gallery, is lit from one direction only. Everything below the table sits in shadow.
So we started exploring ways to open up the bottom of the stone. This was work between the two of us, at the bench, over a long time and a number of versions that were wrong.
It is where we began cutting the band away beneath the diamond.
What came back
More than we went looking for.
The stone lit from beneath, which was the point. But also: the setting could sit **lower**, because removing metal under the diamond meant the seat no longer needed the height. The ring dropped closer to the finger.
And it still took a **flush wedding band** against it — which it had no business doing. A low setting normally fights the band that follows it; you end up with a shaped band, a gap, or a compromise. This one didn't.
Light, height and a flush band usually pull against each other. Solve one and you lose another. We had gone after the first and were handed all three.
We stumbled on it, almost by accident. That is the accurate account and we would rather give it than pretend to a plan we didn't have.
Versions that were wrong
The first opened the shoulders too far. It looked correct from directly above and lost its structure from the side — which taught us the thing the whole studio now runs on: the profile is the design. A setting that only resolves face-up is a setting drawn for a photograph.
That version is in the archive. It isn't for sale and never was.
Why five settings don't have it
A technique applied to everything stops being a decision.
Five of ours are built closed, because their structure depends on the metal beneath the stone rather than in spite of it. The rope setting carries its seat in the twisted gold — open it and there is nothing holding the stone. The offset and tilted pieces need a closed gallery to stay rigid. A cathedral setting rises into a solid seat by definition.
We could cut those open. They would be worse rings.