In 1919, Mario Buccellati, who was named the "Prince of Goldsmiths" by the poet Gabriele d'Annunzio, created a fine jewelry business that has remained loyal to its origins. From the father Mario, to the son Gianmaria, to the grandson Andrea, the techniques of a bygone age have been preserved in order to give rare stones and precious materials the attention they deserve. All three have been endowed with great drawing skills. In a hundred-year-old tradition, the Buccellati style is one of fine jewelry that crosses an intangible line to become a work of art: unique pieces that seem to have come straight out of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Gold lace, showers of rare stones, the mysterious shimmer of precious metals: these are the results of almost two hundred years of artistic creation and the affirmation of a timeless style and a unique expertise.
For the first time, this volume illustrates the entire history of the exclusive, jeweled creations of Mario Buccellati. Since 1919, when he opened his first store near La Scala opera house in Milan, his jewelry has been highly sought for the luxury of its stones, its perfect craftsmanship, and most importantly the genius of its designer. Mario Buccellati reveals the shimmering stones and delicate settings that have made Buccellati one of the world's preeminent marques in jewelry. The book also pictures the other magnificent objects d'art that testify to the vision of their creator: silver receptacles and tableware, engraved boxes, and lifelike silver sculptures of animals. The text tells of Mario Buccellati's first commissions, his close friendships with prominent clients, his innovative methods, and the legacy of design he passed on to his heirs.
The extraordinary jewelry made by the famous international fashion house and its masters. An Italian story. This book illustrates a century in the history of goldsmith art through the treasures of the Buccellati Foundation designed by Mario and Gianmaria Buccellati, heirs to the illustrious Italian tradition which flourished during the Renaissance. By following the Renaissance canons Mario Buccellati, defined by Gabriele d'Annunzio as the "prince of goldsmiths," created his works, reinterpreting them in a very personal, unique and easily recognizable way. He deserves credit for having made the "Buccellati style" famous around the world, appreciated by members of the ruling houses, by popes and by intellectuals.
Basing himself on a careful study of all hitherto published (and some unpublished) Old-Babylonian literary texts - roughly 270 different compositions of all literary genres - Dr. Wasserman systematically leads the reader to a number of insightful conclusions regarding distinctive style and outstanding features of the Old-Babylonian literary system (as opposed to everyday texts, such as letters). The three opening chapters - Hendiadys, Tamyīz, and Damqam-īnim - are mainly concerned with syntax, but also connections with inalienability, a semantic issue. Chapter four and five, Merismus and Simile, focus on semantics (though also including word order). The last chapter, Rhyming Couplets, is fully devoted to form, with elaborations on such semantic problems as performative speech acts. The concluding pages delineate the contours of the Old-Babylonian literary system; genres and 'genre-families', the dichotomy between oral and written traditions, and the distinction between learned and popular literature. With a detailed catalogue of all known literary Old-Babylonian compositions.
Exemplars of Kingship conveys the astonishing life of the art of the Akkadian kings by assessing ancient and modern responses to its dynamic forms and transformative ideologies of kingship.
"Through meticulous research, this book explores the Italian twentieth-century jewelry and goldsmithing landscape. This is the first time the topic is investigated in such a comprehensive manner, having previously only been dealt with limitedly to specific producers or production areas. Following the evolution of an art that is the result of millenary stratifications, this volume contains over three hundred images illustrating jewelry produced between 1900 and 1990. The chapters follow a chronological order and systematically look at the political and economic events influencing the fate of jewelry, as well as the fashion, the role of women, the artistic and architectural experiences, and the tastes of the time. Alongside the most prominent maisons feature less-known jewelers of doubtless creativity and artistic quality. Detailed biographies of each of the jewelers mentioned are included at the end of the volume"--Back cover.
The exhibition "Beyond Babylon : Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.," held in 2008 - 2009 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, demonstrated the cultural enrichment that emerged from the intensive interaction of civilizations from western Asia to Egypt and the Aegean in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. During this critical period in human history, powerful kingdoms and large territorial states were formed. Rising social elites created a demand for copper and tin, as well as for precious gold and silver and exotic materials such as lapis lazuli and ivory to create elite objects fashioned in styles that reflected contacts with foreign lands. This quest for metals--along with the desire for foreign textiles--was the driving force that led to the establishment of merchant colonies and a vast trading network throughout central Anatolia during the early second millennium B.C. Texts from palaces at sites from Hattusa (modern Bogazköy) in Hittite Anatolia to Amarna in Egypt attest to the volume and variety of interactions that took place some centuries later, creating the impetus for the circulation of precious goods, stimulating the exchange of ideas, and inspiring artistic creativity. Perhaps the most dramatic evidence for these far-flung connections emerges out of tragedy--the wreckage of the oldest known seagoing ship, discovered in a treacherous stretch off the southern coast of Turkey near the promontory known as Uluburun. Among its extraordinary cargo of copper, glass, and exotic raw materials and luxury goods is a gilded bronze statuette of a goddess--perhaps the patron deity on board, who failed in her mission to protect the ship. To explore the themes of the exhibition--art, trade, and diplomacy, viewed from an international perspective--a two-day symposium and related scholarly events allowed colleagues to explore many facets of the multicultural societies that developed in the second millennium B.C. Their insights, which dramatically illustrate the incipient phases of our intensely interactive world, are presented largely in symposium order, beginning with broad regional overviews and examination of particular archeological contexts and then drawing attention to specific artists and literary evidence for interconnections. In this introduction, however, their contributions are viewed from a somewhat more synthetic perspective, one that focuses attention on the ways in which ideas in this volume intersect to enrich the ongoing discourse on the themes elucidated in the exhibition.
