Origen, that is, return to the origins. It is the name of one of the new collections of Carrera y Carrera, the largest Spanish jewelery brand that has returned to full-scale play after a brief interlude. The name of the collection is significant. The collection follows the style of the house: very rich, with the intention of competing with the world of sculpture, including exotic animals, interpreted with realism, together with ornamental and architectural elements. The use of bas-relief and the combination of glossy and matte is also among the distinctive features of Carrera y Carrera. Many of Carrera y Carrera’s jewels, in fact, are small works of naturalistic goldsmithing, with statuettes, animals and plants that seem to have come out of a laboratory from the Baroque period. Like another of the novelties, the My Angel collection: follows the same direction, with a mini sculpture of a golden angel combined with the letters of the alphabet.
On the other hand, the goldsmith tradition of eighteenth-century Spain is still alive. Of course, Saturio Esteban Carrera, a young emigrant to Madrid at the end of the nineteenth century, where he opened a small jewelery company called Barrio de las Letras, would never have imagined it. Instead, the jewels of the Maison of the Spanish capital have been worn by royalty (the tiara for the Queen of Belgium, in 1960) or exhibited in museums, such as the Dream of Icarus, chosen by the Kremlin museum.
