Multi Stone Kundan Ring with Pearl Drops

The busiest ring in the range, and deliberately so. Stones in red, green and clear are set across a fan-shaped plate, each one bedded in a flat rim of gold-tone metal, with a crescent of green at the top and a scatter of smaller stones filling the field below it. From the lower edge hang small pearls and gold-tone beads on short links, so the ring has a fringe that moves.

About the design

This is a ring doing a bridal job. Everything about it — the massed multicoloured stones, the flat gold rims, the fringe along the bottom edge — is borrowed from the large borla and maang tikka pieces of Rajasthani bridal sets, shrunk to fit a finger. That is why it looks like a fragment of something larger: it essentially is.

The red-green-white combination is not decorative accident. It is the reduced form of the navratna, the nine-gem arrangement of Indian astrology, where each stone answers to a planet and the group is worn for balance rather than for looks. Costume pieces keep the colours and drop the astrology, but the palette is why the combination still reads as auspicious.

On the hand

Be clear about the fringe: it moves, it catches, and it will tangle with a loose knit. This is a wedding and festival ring, worn alone, with a hand that is not going to be doing anything much. Wear it on the index or middle finger with a lehenga or a heavy silk saree.

How it fits

There is no ring size to get right. The band is an open coil that flexes, so it fits a range of fingers. Set it once with the ring off the hand, gently, and leave it; metal tires from being flexed, not from being worn.

Colours and availability

One colourway is stocked, with the stones mixed as shown. There is one pair available.

Metal, stones and care

American Diamond is the Indian trade name for cubic zirconia: furnace-grown, hard enough to hold a sharp facet edge, and a little more dispersive than diamond. The coloured stones beside it are glass, because glass takes a deeper shade than CZ will.

Underneath the colour it is brass. That is why it sits with some weight rather than feeling like foil, and why it holds its shape.

The photographs on this page are of the piece itself under ordinary light rather than a studio set-up, so what you see is close to what arrives. Screens do shift colour, golds especially, so if an exact shade matters to you, ask on the enquiry and we will describe it against something familiar.

Spray scent first, dress, then put this on. Wipe it clean when it comes off and keep it closed away from damp air and from harder jewellery. All Keyura orders are paid in advance; cash on delivery is not offered.