Glorious Garden: Buccellati’s High Jewellery Blooms with Colour
If like me you have a passion for coloured gemstones, spare a few moments to gaze at the new Il Giardino di Buccellati High Jewellery collection that’s filled with a dizzying array of large sized gems chosen to reflect the colour palette of Impressionist paintings.
Buccellati describes this stone selection as its fil rouge or ‘common thread’ that links pieces together, no matter their design. Here, I invite you to witness Buccellati’s garden of creations for yourself.
Buccellati Centaurea necklace and matching earrings with Paraiba tourmalines, tsavorite garnets and diamonds from the Il Giardino di Buccellati High Jewellery collection
Buccellati is certainly not the only high jeweller to be inspired by Claude Monet’s water lilies or Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s wildflower meadows. In this case, however, it’s not the flower petals or the idyllic landscapes but the overarching colour palette that has shaped the Italian house’s latest high jewellery collection, Il Giardino di Buccellati. This selection of one-of-a-kind pieces is a siren song to gemstone lovers, with large tourmalines, topazes, sapphires, spinels and kunzites to choose from.
Buccellati Damascena cocktail ring with diamonds, tsavorites, sapphires and a 7.03 carat spinel from the Il Giardino di Buccellati High Jewellery collection
The inspiration has been really strong, explains Andrea Buccellati, the brand’s creative director. Once again, I wanted to create a high-impact collection reminiscent of the colours of nature in the Impressionist paintings. With these gems, it has been quite easy to enhance the chromatic combinations and to create an amazing and evocative garden. Our garden. Il Giardino di Buccellati.
Buccellati Sadar necklace and matching earrings with diamonds, tourmalines, tsavorite garnets and sapphires from the Il Giardino di Buccellati High Jewellery collection
A natural starting point for the collection is the ‘couples’ – a trio of cuff bracelet and ring combinations that are subtly united by colour. There’s the Lilium cuff bracelet in ‘rigato’ engraved yellow gold with a central flower-shaped rosetted composed of gold, pink sapphires, diamonds and a grass green tourmaline of 20.11 carats. The pink tone in this ring is picked up by the Gelsomino cocktail ring with an 8.60 carat rose topaz centre, surrounded by 32 Paraiba tourmalines.
Creations from the Il Giardino di Buccellati High Jewellery collection, including the Bouganville cocktail ring with a 25.85 carat kunzite (top left), the Gelsomino cocktail ring with an 8.60 carat topaz and a gem-set ear climber
Next, we are presented with a fiery palette of sun-soaked oranges and reds through the Dans du Feu cuff bracelet with an 18.52 carat rubellite surrounded by petals of diamonds and Paraiba tourmalines, and the Damascena cocktail ring with a symphony of diamonds, tsavorites, sapphires and an orange-hued faceted spinel of 7.03 carats. The final ‘couple’ – the Aubreta cuff bracelet and Petunia band ring – are crafted in white gold with the same textured ‘rigato’ finish, heralding a 23.31 carat purplish-pink kunzite and a 2.54 carat pink sapphire, respectively. Paraiba tourmalines are also used to great effect in this cuff and it’s amazing how this rare neon blue gem serves to enhance its neighbours, even if they are in a completely different colour family.
Cuff bracelets from the Il Giardino di Buccellati High Jewellery collection, including (from top to bottom) the Lilium cuff, the Aubreta cuff and the Dans du Feu cuff set with a large faceted tourmaline, kunzite and rubellite, respectively
Soft and romantic shades of pink appear at multiple points in the collection, including the Alyssum cocktail earrings, with two faceted kunzites of 15.50 carats, and the Iris cocktail ring with a 4.01 carat pink spinel encircled by petals of tourmaline and diamonds. There are details on every square millimetre of these designs, and one gets the sense that seeing them in-person would be the only way to truly appreciate them. The Lobelia cocktail earrings, for example, have concentric layers of diamonds, gold and tsavorites radiating outwards from two pear-shaped deep blue zircons of 12.72 carats. This hue is mirrored in the Agerato cocktail ring, which offers a 12.09 carat light blue zircon in a quintessentially Italian setting.
The Buccellati Lilium cuff bracelet with diamonds, pink and blue sapphires and a 20.11 carat tourmaline in 18k yellow gold from the Il Giardino di Buccellati High Jewellery collection
It is safe to say that the remaining pieces in the collection are beautiful, so I will just share some of the gemmological highs with you: a 15.05 carat green tourmaline; an 11.68 carat pale green tourmaline, two drop-shaped tanzanites totalling 12.23 carats; an 18.87 faceted oval tanzanite; two further kunzites of 10.75 and 25.85 carats; a 7.68 carat aquamarine; and a 9.37 carat morganite. Is this not the most delectable shopping list!
The Buccellati Euforbia pendant from the Il Giardino di Buccellati High Jewellery collection
To complete the Il Giardino di Buccellati offering there are two further pairings, this time necklace and earring suites called Sadar and Centaurea. The former is like layered petals of diamonds, tourmalines, tsavorites and sapphires, while the latter has a palette of Paraiba tourmalines, tsavorites and diamonds that appears straight from the sun-soaked gardens of the South of France. To put its scale in perspective, the Centaurea necklace has 22.94 carats of diamonds, 11.41 carats of Paraibas and a further 11.68 carats of tsavorites.
I will never not be inspired by a high jewellery collection that finds such joy in gemstones. The only hardship would be asking me to choose a favourite, as they each have such unique characters with their own place on the impressionist’s canvas.
WORDS
Katerina Perez With more than 12 years’ experience in the jewellery sector, Katerina Perez’s expert knowledge spans everything from retail sales and management to content creation, including brand building, jewellery writing and styling. Born and raised in St Petersburg, Katerina’s favourite hobby as a child was playing with the treasures in her grandmother's jewellery box, inspiring a lifelong love of jewellery from a very early age. She spent five years in St Petersburg University of Culture and Arts studying not journalism but business studies and languages, and her writing skills have developed as her passion for her favourite subject – jewellery – has grown. This is why her writing comes straight from the heart rather than the pages of a book. Daughter of an entrepreneur mother, Katerina exchanged her retail management job for jewellery writing in 2013 and hasn’t looked back since.
Related Articles
Designer Gifts: The Latest Men’s Jewellery for the Label Lover in Your Life
2024 has been the year that men's jewellery really got into its stride, shedding its traditional image, embracing innovation, and emerging as a bold and brilliant category in its own right.
Latest Stories
Add articles and images to your favourites. Just
Jeweller of the Month:MADLY Gems
Singaporean brand celebrates 10-year anniversary
Jewels Katerina Perez Loves
Continue Reading
Ask Katerina:Diamond Jewellery Styling Tips for Modern Dressing
Here are some of the answers I gave during the presentation to aid your jewellery dressing…
Brand Focus:Van Cleef & Arpels
Jewellery Insights straight to your inbox