Buccellati’s Magnolia is back

Buccellati’s Magnolia brooch is back, a best seller especially in Eastern countries. Floral brooches have in fact always been an integral part of the Maison’s creative process since the beginning, demonstrating that nature is a source of great inspiration for all generations of Buccellati designers. The Magnolia brooch, originally in yellow gold, made its debut in the Buccellati jewelry range during the 1980s, when Gianmaria Buccellati designed a Magnolia set among the creations intended for the Wako mall in Tokyo, Japan. It was such a success that, in the 1990s, the designer introduced a new interpretation of this flower, with white gold petals and yellow gold pistils, used to create matching brooches and earrings.

Since 2002, the brooch has been further embellished with the addition of diamonds on the central pistils of the flower and in 2004, variations in white or yellow gold with a central pearl or precious stones were created. After the Magnolia, the series has been further enriched with new brooches with a floral design: from the carnation, the lotus and the frangipani, through the sunflower and the narcissus, to the more delicate anemone and clematis, all made with the striped and segrinato engraving techniques and embellished with diamonds, pearls and colored stones.

The common thread that links the Magnolia brooches, from the oldest to those in production today, is the segrinato engraving, which gives the petals a softer texture. It is obtained strictly by hand, by engraving overlapping lines in different directions, not preordained, so that the petals seem real, soft, moved by the wind. Since the 1930s and 1940s, the segrinato technique was mainly used on silver objects, such as boxes and vases. In the following twenty years, however, this type of engraving reached its maximum value in goldsmith objects, as it was considered ideal for giving movement to leaves, flowers and fruits that made up bracelets or brooches, thus giving a highly realistic rendering of the natural world.

Recently acquired, the rare yellow gold leaf bracelet, designed by Mario Buccellati and handmade in the 1950s, represents the pinnacle of the development of this technique. It was precisely in this period that the founder of the Maison further enhanced the refined engraving techniques and captured the potential of segrinato to best render the surface of natural elements, such as leaves. A series of documents found in the Archive, including a clipping from a famous American newspaper, celebrates this intuition, underlining the opaque effect of segrinato and the uniqueness of this bracelet handmade in Italy, today admirable in the historic Buccellati collection. And it is a technique that the Maison still uses for various details and that is diligently passed down by craftsmen from father to son, in a passage of knowledge and skill, essential to maintaining excellence.