Gilded Rope Claw Musawwar Agate Ring

A dark Yemeni agate, natural and untreated, cut as a large oval cabochon. Pale blue-grey patches and a few green-yellow flecks are scattered through the near-black body, the kind of abstract field that the Yemeni trade calls musawwar, a picture stone, when the eye begins to read scenes into it.

Four gold-plated rope-twist claws hold the stone over a silver surround with a beaded rim. Along each shoulder run lines of small faceted black stones, a black-enamel triangle and a gold-plated cross-shaped rosette, with a geometric pattern carried down the shank. Oxidized recesses sharpen the contrast between silver, gold and black.

One piece, one stone, no second copy.