One-of-a-Kind Designs from Zoltan David
2022 marks the 42nd year in the industry for iconic jewelry designer Zoltan David (figure 1). At the AGTA show, the authors had an opportunity to converse with David about his passion, career, and inspired jewelry creations.
Curiosity and the drive to create led David to his career in metalsmithing. For David, creativity can be furthered by an in-depth understanding of the materials and skillful maneuvers. While modern technology allows for efficient jewelry sketching and design, the lack of knowledge about metals—base or precious—limits the execution of a great design or even the creativity of the design itself. David’s jewelry pieces reflect this philosophy. Each of his creations is a three-dimensional “architecture,” which must be viewed from multiple directions to fully appreciate its beauty.
The “Time” pendant (figure 2) is David’s most recent award-winning design. In 2020, this piece won second place in the Business/Day Wear category of the AGTA Spectrum Awards. This pendant features a 19.54 ct fantasy-cut citrine as the center stone, surrounded by eight suspended metal elements forming two circles. The metal elements are made of iridescent blue and purple steel with 24K textured yellow gold inlays, a signature patented technique invented by David. In addition, all these metal elements are suspended and well connected with each other. David wanted to create a sense of rotation with this design: All elements rotate around the center of the universe, trying to find the perfect balance.
More than four decades of knowledge building and practice have made David’s jewelry pieces the perfect combination of metal art and architectural construction. The “Mirror Mirror” pendant (figure 3) represents the continuous exploration and technique refinement by the master designer. To fully understand this piece, one needs to carry out a jewelry “anatomy.” Starting from the center of the pendant, an elongated oval pink opal is encased by a cut piece of mother-of-pearl, which was carved and inlaid with beaded pure platinum. The mother-of-pearl is surrounded by polished surgical steel and inlaid with 24K engraved and shaped rose gold. All of these elements are nestled in a framework of green gold leaves. From the side view, diamonds mounted in the surgical steel layer are exposed through the space between the green gold leaves (figure 3, right).
Although renowned for his metalsmithing, David is also drawn to spectacular colored stones. The “Ruby Flight” ring (figure 4), a piece from the Duchess collection, features a 2.45 ct Burmese ruby. The ruby is held by 18K gold prongs between two platinum wings inlaid with 24K gold. The engraved and shaped gold inlays form patterns on both sides of the wings. The interior walls of the wings are set with melee diamonds in between the gold inlays, while the exterior walls are set with melee rubies along the inlaid lines. More than 300 melee rubies also decorate the edges of the wings. The shank of the ring is also one of a kind, made up of three components: a melee diamond stud band sandwiched by the bottom of the two wings.
From the start, David has been an eager learner and has never stopped his exploration of the metalsmith profession. He is involved in all aspects of his business: designing, crafting, and trading each one of his creations. As David said, he would like to keep traveling along this journey by continuously surpassing himself.
