Sapphire, diamond and rock crystal ring, by Seaman Schepps circa 1940. A platinum and white gold ring vertically set with two hexagonal cabochon sapphires of differing sizes in collet settings with an approximate total weight of 4.00 carats, each encircled by a single row of forty eight round eight cut diamonds in bead settings with an approximate total weight of 0.70 carats, saddled over an inverted emerald-cut rock crystal, above an open gallery, flanked by tri-part shoulders, and on a square shank.

Seaman Schepps was born in New York City’s tenement-dominated Lower East Side in 1881, the son of Hungarian immigrants. Rising from these humble beginnings, he built a business that featured designs which drastically departed from the traditional modes of his day. These adventurous jewels came to define a new style that became popular with the elite of the 1930’s—movie stars, socialites, barons of industry, and royalty—a clientele which earned him the title “America's court jeweller”.

The present ring is typical of Schepps designs of the mid-to-late thirties. In the early part of the 1930's, when he first started to produce his own jewelry in any significant quantity, his designs were- while original- predominantly symmetrical, two-dimensional and set with matched stones. Pieces produced in the latter years of the decade, however, are markedly sculptural, oftentimes with unmatched stones in irregular arrangements, as exhibited here with sapphires of differing sizes and saturations, and the asymmetrical layout. The use of a faceted, upturned rock crystal was revolutionary, and unique to his aesthetic.

This ring is in excellent condition.