A FINE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIVAL GOLD AND ENAMEL 'CAMPANA' BRACELET, BY MELILLO

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 1… Read more

Castellani had the opportunity to study ancient jewellery when they were entrusted with the care of the Campana collection after Giovanni Pietro Campana, family friend and director of the Sacro Monte di Pieta, was imprisoned for illegally acquiring funds, thus leading to the collection being confiscated. This gave the firm the opportunity to repair and make casts of the jewellery so as they could be used for their upcoming revivalist designs, with these bracelets being one of the more popular adaptations. Indeed, their design was taken from a group of Etruscan jewellery 'said to come from' Tarquinia, illustrated in S. Weber Soros and S. Walker, Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry, New Haven 2004, p. 212. The three hinged 'Etruscan bracelets' are now recognised as pastiches: they are, in fact, an assembly of flattened elements of a very typical Etruscan type of jewellery, the 'a baule' earrings of the 6th century BC. Of cylindrical form they were richly decorated with granulation and filigrée work. It is thought that these assembled bracelets had been constructed and added to the Campana collection before the Castellani firm examined them, although the Castellanis have also been suspected to be their creators.

Details

A FINE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIVAL GOLD AND ENAMEL 'CAMPANA' BRACELET, BY MELILLO
The seven square panels designed as a series of floral and foliate motifs decorated with polychrome enamel, granulation, filigree and ropework borders to the similarly decorated semi-circular terminals, circa 1900, 19.5 cm. long
Unsigned

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Cf. S. Weber Soros, S. Walker, Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry, BGC Yale, New Haven, 2004, pp. 185, 213

Cf: G. C. Munn, Castellani and Giuliano: Revivalist Jewellers of the Nineteenth Century, Trefoil Books, London, 1984, pp. 94-104, Illus. 105-109

More from Important Jewellery

View All