Beautiful ways to get your rays

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Guilloché, a traditional mechanical engraving technique often seen on watch faces, is increasingly appearing in jewelers’ collections, turning what could be a blank slate of gold into intricate, light-reflecting patterns.

Foundrae employs the motif in its heart of gold medallions, which can be personalized with symbols and lettering; lucy delius use flutings that radiate from a central marquise-cut diamond, as in the sunburst pendant; Dior’s Rose des Vents line features an engraving on the face of a sun.

At the beginning of this year, Chaumet launched an entire guilloché-inspired series, Jeux de Liens Harmony Medallions, with its exclusive line of fine jewelry reinvented in delicate “sunbeam” beams of light.

buccellati Macri Classica yellow and white gold and diamond earrings, £7,400

Chaumet large gold and diamond Jeux De Liens Harmony pendant, £9,170

dior jewelery Rose Céleste gold, diamond and mother-of-pearl ring, £3,400

lucy delius Fluted Sunray gold and diamond pendant, £1,900

Van Cleef and Arpels has used the mechanical technique since the 1910s, to “provoke an intense whirlwind of light that captivates the eye,” says the maison’s CEO and president, Nicolas Bos. The latest Alhambra collection, launched this month, includes a necklace, ring and bracelet engraved with sunbursts within the line’s signature four-leaf clover. “With the use of the guilloché effect, the motif takes on a contemporary feel, while paying homage to the first long necklace ever created, which was yellow gold with pleats,” adds Bos.

Based in Milan buccellati, the effect is achieved with intricate hand engraving. “The techniques we have adopted use hand burins: ancient goldsmith tools made up of a particular shaped point,” says its creative director Andrea Buccellati. For its iconic bracelets, the “rigato” engraving is made up of parallel lines, while the drop-shaped dangling earrings are radially carved. “Engraving is for us a way of decorating a jewel and embellishing it even more.”