I’ve given you a peek of the Giuliano dynasty’s intricate work before. This Renaissance revival piece is as complex and opulent as that one was subtle. It’s mind-blowing.
You see my point? Hyperbole is not possible when talking about this necklace. First of all, you can bet I’m obsessed with the color scheme. Pink, green, diamonds, blues, yellows! This is a happy necklace.
It’s also a really impressive one. Bentley & Skinner calls it “an important Renaissance-revival gold and enamel gem-set necklace by Carlo and Arthur Giuliano.” For background on the Giuliano family, please see this post.
Made between 1895 and 1914, this Renaissance-revival necklace is composed of gold openwork links applied with vivid enamel in tones of yellow and green. These links support festoons and fringes of various circular and pear-shaped colored stones including pink, blue and yellow sapphire, rubies, and purple spinel.
It’s about 15 inches in length (I assume that’s not including the festoons and fringes, but the description doesn’t specify) and is signed “C. & A.G.”
Look how impossibly delicate and deliberate the tiny details on the enamel are. It would have been so easy to make that plain green, but it’s patterned and embellished with all sorts of other colors. A work of art made of tiny works of art.
This amazing Renaissance-revival piece is currently for sale at Bentley & Skinner. All images and info in this post are thanks to Bentley & Skinner.
BONUS. Here’s a 2nd one. Because why not?
This one’s a solo number, just made by Carlo Guliano. It’s black and white, which sends me straight into ecstatic dreams of colorful gowns and cocktail dress. How divine would this Renaissance-revival beauty be with a bright, buttercup yellow or a deep purple?
Much like its colorful cousin above, its the tiny details that make this piece so exceptional. The necklace is designed as a graduated series of white and black enamel stylized links, accented by old-cut diamond spacers, the front suspending a swag terminating in a pear-shaped rose-cut diamond, mounted in 18K yellow gold.
It’s polka dotted, for pete’s sake. How amazing can one necklace be?
The correct answer to that question is: really pretty amazing, apparently.
This fabulous Renaissance-revival piece is currently for sale at Phillips. All images and info in this post are thanks to Phillips.
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[…] is far from the first time we’ve talked about my love of the delicate enamel work that the Guliano family was known for, but I think it is the first […]