Most exhibitions about Bulgari jewels have so far highlighted the glamorous world linked with these precious gems. Visitors who had the chance of seeing previous retrospective or anniversary exhibitions celebrating pieces including Serpenti, Monete and Parentesi, will probably remember multiple black and white images of Elizabeth Taylor in dazzling Bulgari necklaces.
Things will change, though, at the end of the month when the exhibition "Bulgari and Rome" opens at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.
Curated by Lucia Boscaini, director of Bulgari's Historic Legacy department, the exhibition doesn't look just at the actresses who loved and donned Bulgari pieces in their lives, but at the links between the jewels and the art and architecture of ancient and modern Rome. Designers working at the Italian jewellers company often turned to these inspirations to create some of their most extravagant pieces.
Founded in Rome in 1884 by Sotirio Bulgari, for decades the company used its famous landmarks as the starting points for its most famous pieces.
If you leaf through a book about Bulgari and glamour you may not be able to realise that the silhouettes of some of the necklaces favoured by actresses and celebrities perfectly recreate the architectural shapes of the Colosseum, of Saint Peter's Square, the Spanish Steps, the fountains in the Piazza Navona and the Pantheon.
Yet once they are juxtaposed to the art and architecture that inspired them, these necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches in gold or platinum integrating precious stones of every colour, clearly show their connection with these landmarks.
The cut of the gems reproduces at times the domes of the Roman skyline; the geometrical compositions and disposition of the stones calls to mind the elaborate Cosmatesque decorations, while Baroque elements from magnificent basilicas are evoked in the most intricate Bulgari pieces, and rows of diamonds seem to recreate the structure of broad city squares.
The 145 pieces of jewellery from Bulgari's Heritage Collection (comprising jewellery that belonged to Elizabeth Taylor, plus some designs on loan from private collections like Baroness Thyssen's) will be displayed alongside 32 paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs by different European artists who depicted the city of Rome in their works, including Canaletto, Gaspar van Wittel, Ippolito Caffi and Arthur John Strutt.
All the works are on loan from the Museo di Roma (Palazzo Braschi) and the Galleria Borghese, the Capitoline Museums and the collections of Banco Intesa San Paolo and the Circolo della Caccia.
This game of juxtapositions works particularly well in some cases: a bracelet from 1934 combining diamonds and rubies recalls in its oval shape the architecture of the Colosseum while retaining in its geometries an Art Deco style.
A series of brooches from the 1930s (two of Sotirio's sons, Giorgio and Constantino, had already taken over the business after their father's death in 1932) evokes instead the colonnade and Piazza San Pietro, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini who proposed a plan based on the elliptical shape, but then reworked it in the form of a colonnade with four rows of columns guiding pilgrims to the basilica.
The elliptical shape eventually returned in the 1970s and 1980s, with the use of the oval in pieces made in gold combined with motifs created by different precious stones.
The 1930s proved to be very inspiring architectural years for Bulgari: an elongated brooch dating 1934 features three large diamonds set in a row imitating the alignment of the fountains - the Four Rivers in the centre, designed by Bernini, flanked on either side by the fountains of the Moor and of Neptune - in one of Rome's most famous squares, Piazza Navona.
The curving lines of the steps in Piazza di Spagna - restored a while back with sponsorship by Bulgari - inspired the creation in 1938 of a platinum and diamond necklace that can be converted into two bracelets, two elongated brooches and two further smaller ones, representing a typical example of convertible jewellery (the Spanish Steps provided fresh inspiration for a new piece, designed in 2016 and consisting in a gold necklace set with emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds that evoke the azaleas embellishing the steps in spring).
In the same year Bulgari produced a pair of platinum and diamond earrings inspired by the sculptures of the angels on the Ponte Sant'Angelo bridge, built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian to unite the Campus Martius with his mausoleum.
Between the '50s and the '60s Bulgari produced more pieces inspired by architecture: a 1955 gold and platinum necklace that can be converted into a brooch featured three lines of rubies and a delicate diamond bow paying homage to the Tridente, a meeting of three streets, Via del Corso, Via Ripetta (the city's oldest street leading to Saint Peter's) and Via del Babuino leading to Santa Maria Maggiore.
Again in 1955 Bulgari produced brooches in platinum, rubies and diamonds for Anna Magnani - who would wear them with her "Tridente" earrings in an affirmation of her Roman origins. The brooches featured the outsize circular star that decorated the paving in Piazza del Campidoglio.
A ring with natural pearls and diamonds dating 1963 reproduces the domes of the twin churches on the Piazza del Popolo, also designed by Bernini, one of the first sights to be seen by dignitaries and pilgrims entering Rome via the famous square.
Later pieces were more focused on architectural geometries: around the '70s, the octagonal form in the carved and painted wooden ceilings of Rome palaces was turned into oversized and glamorous pendants attached to longchained necklaces like the one given by Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor on her 40th birthday in 1972.
The pentagonal form of Castello di Sant'Angelo appears in a sumptuous necklace from 1991 which has precious stones symmetrically arranged on a gold base and a striking combination of colours and stones.
Further architectural features were ingeniously used in other designs: the hieroglyphics on the Egyptian obelisks in Rome inspired necklaces with insets with mother-of-pearl and carnelian; the typical Sanpietrini pavements (made of bevelled stones of black basalt placed one next to the other) were recreated in necklaces and bracelets combining precious stones of different colours.
A series of brooches from the late 1980s with a concentric pattern of various colours pay instead tribute to the symmetry of the Temple of Venus, while the spectacular dome of the Pantheon inspired various striking pieces in the '90s.
Apart from the jewellery, fashionistas will enjoy the glamorous photographs accompanying this event, but "Bulgari and Rome" will manage to fascinate also visitors with other interests, providing accessory designers with intriguing ideas that will hopefully inspire them some great achitectural pieces.
"Bulgari and Rome", Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, from 30th November 2016 to 26th February 2017.
Image credits for this post
1. Silver necklace by Sotirio Bulgari, 1880, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
2. Giuseppe Vasi, Saint Peter’s Square, Musei di Roma, Rome, Palazzo Braschi
3. Triple clip brooch in platinum with rubies and diamonds, 1930, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
4. Silver powder compact with gold coin from Bavaria (1410-1436), 1940, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
5. Serpenti bracelet-watch in gold with white enamel, emeralds and diamonds, 1975, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
6. Bulgari Roma watch in gold with cord and leather strap, 1975, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
7. Choker in gold with rubies, sapphires, lapis lazuli and diamonds, 1979, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
8. Ippolito Caffi, Colosseum, Rome Museums, Palazzo Braschi
9. Necklace and pendant earrings in gold with diamonds, 1992, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
10. Necklace in gold with emeralds, amethysts, citrines, pink tourmalines, sapphires and diamonds, 1991, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
11. Earrings in platinum with diamonds, 1938, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
12. Parentesi necklace in gold with diamonds, 1982, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
13. Bracelet in gold with topazes, amethysts, citrines, peridots and tourmalines, 2013, Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome
14. Ippolito Caffi, Piazza del Popolo, Museums of Rome, Palazzo Braschi
15. Necklace in gold with blue and yellow sapphires, cultured pearls and diamonds, 1988, Private collection of Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza
16. Claudia Cardinale attends a Bulgari exhibition at the Italian Embassy in Paris, wearing a platinum necklace with a central oval diamond, 11th November 1962
17. Ingrid Bergman on the set of "The Visit" (1964) wears Bulgari jewels. Credit: Alinari
18. Model wears a sautoir in gold with emeralds, rubies and diamond by Bulgari, ca. 1970, Photo Gianni Penati, Conde Nast America
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