Art, fantasy and virtuosity of Alessio Boschi: his extraordinary jewels explained by himself ♦ ︎
There are so many jewelers. There are few artists. But the jewelers-artists are even less. And even less. One of these goldsmith sculptors, a visionary who looks at the future through the past, a sophisticated stone conqueror and of the soul of the stones, is Alessio Boschi. Eclectic, but attached to the tradition, imaginative, but without falling into the extravagant, gorgeous, but within the limits of good taste: Alessio Boschi is a unicum that should be safeguarded as the picturesque Bagnoregio, a small village near Orvieto, where he lives when isn’t around the world looking for stones, pearls and inspirations.
Is it perhaps the millenary atmosphere that breathes in Civica di Bagnoregio (if you do not know the little town, you must go to visit it) to push Alessio Boschi on a journey through the sign that art history has scattered around Italy. The 2017 collection, for example, was inspired by the fountains of Rome, which is part of the Historica line.
Milan
The line with the apse windows of the Duomo of Milan is beautiful, like the very chic bracelet. There is the pavé version and the most accessible only engraved. The closure has tiny diamonds embedded and then molded in the shape of a double blade to keep the closure together. There is also a reduced version of bracelet with three pearl threads. Milan is a jewelery collection that testifies to the link between the French gothic bloom and the Lombardy capital: there is also a yellow and yellow diamonds and pearls.
Florence
The Florence line instead flies to a higher level. It is made of pink and gilded gold: it resembles the Gothic style and the double windows of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore and the bell tower of Giotto and Florence. The Florence bracelet is made of pink gold, with springs and grooves mounted to form non-metal bifurcated sides, but held by a pair of double-decker bras which follow the shape of the hooked stone at the ends of trilobate motifs. In practice, those wearing the bracelet do not see anything about the metal on which they are mounted. The order of the two bifors is marked by gold-plated punctured columns with grooves with small tiny diamonds: it is seen only by the near, but the effect is extremely bright and precious. Note the tiny golden capitals, micro-pavé and gold-plated diamond lilies. Flower earrings are separable in several pieces, with decorations on the back of diamond pattern in brown diamonds. The Flower Necklace is also separable: the columns are separated.
Venice
Gondola ring, one of a kind ring, represents the lagoon of Venice. It is made of a blue Australian black opal with black nuances. It is a very difficult stone to cut without breaking it, like the lagoon, exactly. The ring also uses emeralds and sapphires on the sides, Paraiba tourmalines and blue and yellow Akoia blue pearls. Within the ring gallery, which depicts the Rialto bridge, there is a gondolier. There are also two versions of earrings combined with the Gondola ring. The first one has a fossilized wooden gondola that looks like onyx, with different clips and butterflys with Venetian motif. The second version has an imperial topaz and the gondolier seems to climb. The galleries of the two rings are completely different: one has Rialto, with the gondolier on the reflection of the waves. In the other, the gondolier is in the foreground with the sunset in yellow diamonds cut as window. Always in Venice, one of the most famous places is the Bridge of Sighs, which inspired a ring. The Bridge of Sighs, for those who did not know it, led to inhospitable Venetian prisons, and the sighs were those who saw the sunshine for the last time. Boschi fully engraved diamonds, cut specially to follow the shape of the bridge. Each single pass is a diamond, and in the middle of nine mystery setting stones there is a natural spinel, purple as the color of Venetian aristocracy. In the gallery there is the Door of the Card, one of the monumental entrances of Palazzo Ducale, which leads to the Grand Council, with the engraving of the Lion of San Marco with Doge Foscari, rosettes with diamonds and masks. Inside the ring is the classic surprise of Alessio Boschi: a Venetian lady with her husband in jail by Alabarda’s armed guards.
Verona
The Romeo and Juliet ring originates from the purchase of a large sapphire with a window, that is, the light goes through the stone. The sapphire was already emerald cut, and in natural yellow, so not heated. “I wanted to create a jewel with a stone so pure and transparent that you could put something visible to the naked eye below,” Boschi’s says. “The sapphire found in Bangkok was the occasion to celebrate the impossible love between Romeo and Juliet, the drama written by Shakespeare. Inside the jewel there is, in fact, a hand-engraved magazine, representing the tomb of young lovers. It houses a small mosaic-shaped pendant, a Roman fabric of the Vatican school, a style other than that of Ravenna of Sicis or the Byzantine style of Istanbul. It is a miniature that evokes the dramatic scene of Juliet while poisoning. That’s why the top of the ring has a rectangular shape: the sapphire window is functional to the design. When the ring opens, thanks to a mechanical movement similar to that of the Fabergé egg, a pendant is raised with engraved Capuleti and Montecchi coats of arms. The pendant also turns into a bracelet, adorned by a small heart pierced by an arrow to remind you that love is stronger than anything else. At the sides of the ring are the engravings that reproduce the famous balcony of the two lovers, adorned with 0.5mm diamonds. A second secret compartment houses a miniature Romeo statue on his knees, with a rose in his hand. On the other hand, Juliet’s tomb, whose hair is not engraved in one piece of gold (anyone can do it). Instead, the hair is made one by one, woven together with gold: the yet another challenge of the Boschi to the impossible. Impossible to imitate, for sure. The ring is the result of two months of processing only for micromosaic. There is also the earring with the inscription “amor vincit omnia”, love wins everything. Like fantasy.
Pisa
The ring inspired by the famous leaning tower reproduces the upper part, the one with the skylight. It’s a one-of-a-kind, with purple and pink cut-off princess sapphires, framed by microdiamans, with bows orders that look slightly Byzantine. No matter how you can turn the tower, it will never be straight on your finger but, of course, will always hang on one side. The jewel is made with the technique of mistery setting on one side while on the other there is a side rosette made of purple sapphire buff top (above cabochon, faceted below) surrounded by a micro pavé. Also this ring has a surprise: it opens and inside are the symbols of the ancient Marinara Republic (Pisa was a small state during the Middle Ages) engraved and a small tower as pendant.
Rome
The Colosseum becomes a double jewel, but with the appearance it originally had in the imperial era. The jewel is in white gold, with three orders of columns and as many capitals in Ionian, Doric and Corinthian style. Below you can see the sandblasted relief with the legionaries, their elves and spears, the eagle and the imperial insignia of ancient Rome. In the first gallery of the Coliseum there are princess diamonds, cut by hand. Not only: they are cut to fit the frame curvature. Here is the art of Boschi: Choosing a brilliant cut with light-reflecting faces, square-shaped as in this case, entails considerable material expense. It would have been cheaper to cut a step, even a rectangular shape, so baguette. But it would have given a less beautiful, colder light. Instead, the entrances are cut into baguette steps, specially designed to have different light. In the first ring with the Coliseum there are the smallest black diamonds in the world: 0.7-0.8 carats. Under this dimension, black diamonds can not be cut. For this reason the second and third rings are black enamel. The most difficult thing was to find the way to climb the white part: it’s hard to find 0.6 carats in India (after the crisis, says Boschi, this size does not cut it anymore). Instead, the last step near the arena is 0.5 carats, as well as the stones that engage the stones are microscopic. The bigger up ring has black princess cut diamonds mounted to the contrary, to give the idea of studs. They represent the windows of the Coliseum and each ring-sector is divided by row of black baguette diamonds. So the overall light that is very beautiful is given by the incisions of various cuts of stones.
There is also a second version of the Colosseum: the one that represents it as it is to our day. It is in pink gold, with the same work of recess, but this time with emeralds: a stone hard to work, which is easily cracked. At the center there is the hoax and the horses used in the games of ancient Rome. There is, finally, the blossomed sandbox, and when the ring turns from the hypogeum, the tiger and the lion come out of the chains mounted on the tracks.
Nature, animals
Next to the Historica collection, Boschi cultivates other continuous lines such as Naturalia, inspired by plants, flowers and animals, and Thalassa, which celebrates the creatures of the sea. An example to be framed is The Great White Shark, a brooch of the Thalassa line, a unique piece and the most important of the 2017 production: a large (but light) brooch from the shape of a fish. The muzzle, fins and tail are in keshi pearls, while the body recalls the shades of fish that in nature can be of two colors, with the back of a blue tending to gray and the bottom in pale blue. In jewel this effect is made by a combination of light indigo and aquamarine Santa Maria: two varieties similar to the nuances of the ocean.
The stones are mounted in jours (a day), ie without a metal base to receive light from below. And in the true Boschi style, even the shape of the frame is unusual: every single plot resumes the shape of the scales of fish, an artistic virtuosity that does not affect the yield.
The fish surprise
The recess is perfectly smooth to the touch, because the stones are cut again on the edge to eliminate any difference in height. To make the brooch portable, the whole frame or frame is in palladium, the new luxury of jewelery. The metal is forged with a difficult melt, because palladium is a metal that requires high temperatures, rather than platinum. To work on the palladium it takes a particular machine and can only be used in alloy with another metal. A Thai company is the only one in Asia to allow this processing.
The result is a 40% lighter brooch than conventional frames. Boschi Jewelry, as always, hide unexpected details. In this case, the fish’s stomach opens up and reveals a pink gold compartment, where the coral reef creatures are engraved by hand: octopus, clown fish, violin fish. Not only that: with a spring the broom door opens and closes to hold a pair of earrings. The shape of the jewel is round and the brooch is not only worn for one direction but in three dimensions. Pearl and diamond earrings represent the dorsal fin emerging from the sea and are inspired by the famous waves of Japanese artist Hokusai: they have a long removable gold pendant chain with small pearls, and the closure clip is shark-shaped.
Alessio’s flowers
Boschi usually replicates each model to ten pieces. For the Chinese market he designed a series of Peony rings in the Naturalia line. The novelty is the theme of the lotus, flower from which is extracted a precious essential oil, more expensive than gold. The ring is made with sapphires, pink rose and pseudomy pink pearls, with a deliberately selected tourmaline with inclusions, because it makes the idea of the drops of essence sprung from its pistil: a courageous choice because it emphasizes how the designer privileges creativity , rather than adapt to the rules of the market. “In my opinion inclusions are not necessarily imperfections,” says Boschi at gioiellis.com. “In some cases give vitality and light to the stone and give it uniqueness, for example the Paraiba tourmaline.” Then there are the wisteria collection (wisteria collection) pieces, other Chinese high-purple jade flower and tsavoriti mixed with yellow diamonds for the leaves and the trellis.
A touch of India
The Palace Flowered is a ring representing the acanthus leaf revisited in the style of Rajastan, with India’s colors on a double-arch frame, like the moghul palaces, with purple sapphires, pink pear-shaped cut, tsavoriti in different shades and drops of emeralds.
