It’s a rare feat to design a recognisable icon of jewellery, much less to mint an entirely individual style. But that is what the Milanese jeweller Buccellati has achieved since it was founded in 1919. The key to that is not merely a design detail or motif, but a unique and rare adherence to craftsmanship of mind-boggling virtuosity.
The brand’s signature lies in a heritage of gold craftsmanship through techniques as old as the Renaissance. Engraving by hand is the foundation, but the brand has a host of specific techniques—often, a mixture of several on a single piece of jewellery. Turn the pieces this way, that and around, and you’ll notice that nearly every surface has been intricately worked and crafted. That skill with manipulating the surfaces and textures of gold is what earned the brand’s founder Mario Buccellati the moniker of ‘prince of goldsmiths’.
Two of the brand’s contemporary collections that best exemplify this intense level of craftsmanship when working with gold are Macri and Tulle. Macri is designed to imbue precious gold with the texture and finish of silk fabrics. This is achieved with the rigato engraving technique, in which superfine lines are carved to create the effect of a textile. It’s simple only in theory: the handwork required of it is distinctive and rare. Each Macri piece contains at least 20,000 individual engravings, and the application of the rigato technique requires experience on the artisan’s part. It calls for highly specific cutting angles and forces on flat or curved gold surfaces, as well as the skill to precisely polish the jewellery to achieve the effect.
Pieces from the Macri line are also enhanced by diamonds. But instead of setting the gemstones straightforwardly with prongs or channels, Buccellati uses one of two carving methods to create star-shaped rosettes. There is modellato engraving, which sculpts a raised rosette, and ornato engraving, where the rosette detail is carved into the gold.
The Tulle collection, meanwhile, evokes the textures of Venetian lace. Where the Macri designs imbue solid gold with a surface lightness, Tulle does it by carving net-like openworked structures into the jewels. It’s one of the most complex methods in jewellery. For perspective, hand carving these structures into a plate of gold just half a millimetre thin takes a Buccellati goldsmith nearly a month.
The brand uses two main openwork designs: radial, where lines spread out from a centre, and honeycomb, where a hexagonal pattern is formed. Within and around these openworked structures are carved and shaped borders of gold that are set with diamonds and precious gems.
The use of virtuosic techniques in jewellery is not unique to Buccellati. But what sets the Milanese house apart is a dedication to these goldsmithing crafts that date back to the Renaissance, and which are so meticulously detailed they can only be enacted by hand. The result is jewels that are akin to wearable art pieces.
The brand is, in fact, one of the few major jewellery firms in the world where the founding family is still actively involved. In the present, the brand is led by third-generation creative director Andrea Buccellati, in collaboration with his daughter Lucrezia.
This idea of continuity was showcased in a recent exhibition by Buccellati in Venice, with four butterfly brooches designed by four generations. It showcased two remarkable things. First, and naturally, the evolution of styles, tastes and designs over decades. From the baroque eye of founder Mario Buccellati, to the glamour of his successor Gianmaria, the modern precision of Andrea and now the feminine directness of Lucrezia.
Second, and more impressive perhaps, the house and family’s adherence—regardless of the march of time—to the demanding intricacies of its prized craftsmanship. The tulle openworking, the engraved textures, the sculpted shapes of gold, all present today as they ever were.
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