Galatea

Galatea is the work of one artist. Chi Huynh founded the company in San Dimas, California in 1994 after years of carving the wax models other jewelers could not, and he has spent three decades since inventing things the industry did not know were possible. Galatea holds patents on techniques nobody else can use, grows its own South Sea pearls on a farm off the coast of Vietnam, and hand carves every pearl it sells.

The collections each rest on a genuine invention. Diamond in a Pearl came first, in 1998, made as a gift for Huynh's wife: a diamond set inside the pearl itself, where the stone stands in for the grain of sand that started everything and the nacre around it stands in for love closing over hardship. Galatea Pearl goes further, nucleating the oyster with a colored gemstone bead so that hand carving the harvested pearl reveals the color glowing underneath the surface. Carved Pearl and Queen Bead are hand carved Tahitian and freshwater pearls, each one cut differently. DavinChi Cut is a patented gemstone cut inspired by da Vinci's line about being a mirror, and it shifts color as you move it. Momento embeds an NFC chip, so a tap of your phone plays back a recorded voice, a photograph, or a video stored inside the piece.

This is jewelry that rewards a close look and a longer conversation, which is why it belongs in a case rather than a browser window. Visit our Bartow or Valrico showroom to see how a carved pearl catches light and what the DavinChi Cut actually does when you turn it.