The stone was bought before there was a drawing, which is the only honest way to build a high-jewellery piece and the reason it took fourteen months.
What the stone decided
Everything. The emerald is 11.04 carats and slightly asymmetric, so the necklace is asymmetric too — forcing it into a symmetrical setting would have meant cutting the stone, and cutting a Muzo emerald to fit a drawing is vandalism.
What took the longest
Not the setting. The nine months in the middle were spent finding thirty smaller emeralds that matched it in colour, which is harder than finding the big one.
