Kent Raible Saucers

Each piece of Kent Raible jewelry showcases the master goldsmith's love for the craft. The Washington state-based designer uses ancient techniques to create exquisite 18-karat gold cocktail rings, dangle earrings and pendant necklaces. 

Raible’s contemporary accessories are set with the finest colored gemstones and feature layers of incredibly detailed granulation, a method of ornamentation common in Byzantine jewelry (and employed in Etruria as well) that sees a piece’s surface decorated with granular spheres of precious metal. Together with his wife, Lynn, Raible has grown his passion project into a thriving and recognizable brand.

Raible's first exposure to metalwork was in a high school jewelry class in the early 1970s. It sparked his interest in the material, and he would go on to spend years studying goldsmithing and design. Though Raible is largely self-taught and never apprenticed under a master goldsmith, he did seek out knowledgeable teachers to help hone his skill and traveled to Germany to study during the 1980s.

Since then, alongside establishing his studio, Raible has become a teacher himself, leading workshops at the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts in San Francisco and the Penland School of Craft in South Carolina. He also offers self-guided online courses and in-person workshops.

Raible's work has garnered acclaim and recognition over the years. One of his masterpieces, the Floating City necklace, is part of the permanent collection at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Finished in 1996 — and partly inspired by the legend of Atlantis — the accessory took two years to make and features diamonds, tourmaline, sapphires, chalcedony and amethysts. A sculpture of Raible’s was included in “The Art of Gold” exhibition organized by the Society of North American Goldsmiths. That same sculpture won the 2015 Saul Bell Design Award competition in the Hollowware/Art Object category. 

Raible continues to offer workshops and make covetable jewelry. He is also inspiring a new generation of jewelry artists, such as Southern California-based designer Loren Nicole, who studied under Raible to learn more about gold granulation.

On 1stDibs, find Kent Raible rings, earrings, necklaces and more.

In the United States, ear piercing didn’t really become popular until the 1950s and ‘60s, but our desire for a dazzling pair of vintage earrings has deeper roots than that. In fact, wearing earrings actually goes back thousands of years, and you can find many tangible connections between now and then in how we continue to talk about these treasured accessories.

Women wore ornamental earrings — studs and hoops at the very least — in Ancient Egypt, which is home to mines that are among the earliest sources of emeralds in the world. Emerald earrings are highly prized today, and their quality lies in their rich, saturated color. The highest-quality emeralds are green or bluish-green. Earrings worn by the affluent in early Roman civilizations were set with precious stones such as diamonds and pearls, and a clean-looking pop of pearl on the front of the lobe is as timeless as ever. Hoop earrings are imbued with symbolism and cultural significance for many, and on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Ancient Near Eastern Art Gallery is a pair of simple gold hoops from Mesopotamia dating to between 2600 and 2500 B.C.

Today, ear piercing is very popular all over the world, and, as a result, it is difficult to overstate how much everyone pines for a good pair of earrings — modernist drop earrings, glamorous Victorian hoops, geometrically complex chandelier earrings, you name it. Sure, jewelry trends and the fashion darlings of social media come and go, but earrings have a staying power that seems impenetrable: The still-strong love affair between British royals and Cartier earrings is more than a century old, glossy 1970s hoops from legacy houses such as Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels remain the statement makers they’ve always been and although people have been stacking earrings for many moons, the allure of an expertly mismatched stack of charms and studs still feels fresh and new.

While there is no shortage of modern earring designs to choose from, the classics, like coral earrings, Art Deco–style earrings and diamond drop earrings are still heavy hitters. On 1stDibs, find a wide range of antique, new and vintage earrings today.