Laykin Classics · Made to Order
The Madame Chang
Designed in the 1940s
Price upon request · From $85,000
Designed for a woman who addressed the United States Congress.
Built upon a tradition thousands of years old.
In February 1943, Soong Mei-ling — Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the leader of Nationalist China and one of the celebrated Soong sisters — became the second woman in history to address a joint session of the United States Congress. She came to Washington to rally American support for China's war effort, and she did so with a command of the room that left senators and representatives alike speechless. During her visit to the United States, she became a client of Laykin et Cie.
The ring we designed for her draws on a tradition far older than any jeweler's atelier. At its heart is the form of the traditional Chinese wedding ring — the adornment that graced the wedding fingers of the Middle Kingdom for thousands of years, a form of quiet permanence and cultural depth. Around it, twenty point diamonds set in the Laykin manner: precise, restrained, allowing the stone at the center to speak.
The center stone is imperial jade — the rarest and most revered jade in Chinese culture, prized above all other gemstones for its depth of color, its translucency, and its meaning. The Madame Chang can also be made with fine jade of other grades, which adjusts the price accordingly. Each ring is made to order, individually, in our atelier. No two are identical.