Couture Show

Alessio Boschi at the Couture Show: one of the great jewelry artists shows the latest creations at the Las Vegas event ♦ ︎

Alessio Boschi’s creative highways lead to two different places: the first is the tradition of classical culture, between architecture and sculpture of Italy, miniatures and the Renaissance.
At the Couture Show, for example, Alessio Boschi does not neglect this creative vein, that inspired by classical art, starting from that of ancient Rome. As evidenced by the large necklace, which is accompanied by a ring and a pair of earrings, under the name of Imperial Acanthus. Acanthus leaves were an ornament that was used in Greek and Roman architecture. In Roman times the composite capital was born from the union of the lower part of the Corinthian capital, with the acanthus leaves, and of the Ionic capital. The acanthus had a strong symbolic value, in connection with the Augustan propaganda of a return to the golden age and to the cult of Apollo. Golden age that is evoked in the necklace with extraordinary Tahiti pearls and precious stones, together with two cameos always decorated with classic figures.

It is a style consistent with another exceptional piece by Alessio Boschi, a necklace in pure neoclassical style. A millennial leap that, however, has the same antiquity of the classical era as its subject. In this case, it is a precious and faithful necklace to the nineteenth-century taste: 18 strands of Baby Akoya pearls in a natural color and a large, magnificent, authentic cameo. In fact, the shell with the large head of Zeus refers to Tommaso Saulini, the most famous Roman engraver of the time. His works were a must-have in the nineteenth century, a souvenir of the Eternal City that cannot be renounced for the upper middle class and the international aristocracy who came to Rome for the Grand Tour. In addition, the Italian jeweler, like the refined dandy of then, it was inspired by Canova and Thorvaldsen, disseminating in the mount stylistic elements taken from the Greek and Latin sculptural tradition: a blaze of palms, acanthus leaves, garlands are engraved on the back.

This care for detail, for the finish even in the most hidden parts is precisely the Boschi signature. And, again, on the jewel there is the muted red of rubellite pearls, a shade beloved by Napoleon and also used in Egyptian art. But the real surprise is the pieces that make up the jewel: the hanging pearl fringe comes off and can be used as a brooch. Function already present in the origin (and fortunately maintained) of the cameo that is only inserted in the new structure. A tilting system makes the day and night of the Medici tombs appear, a dip in the Renaissance that recalls the classical age.

But the second place of creativity of Alessio Boschi is that of nature, with high jewelry that would like also to Greta Thunberg would also like. For example, with the Melting Arctic ring: a jewel that is a small world, as often happens with Alessio Boschi’s creations. The ring is built on a band in 18 carat white gold studded with white diamonds and micro Paraiba. The dome of the ring is a sculpted white topaz, which looks like a block of melting ice due to global warming. In short, high jewelry with a social message. The dome, however, opens and inside there are three bears, a mother bear with two cubs, surrounded by a series of blue moonstones, representing drops of water and branches of icicles set with sparkling gems.

Attention: the puppies are separated from the mother due to layers of loose ice frosted with quartz, floating apart. In short, a jewel and at the same time a theater, with furrows that emphasize the distance between one ice and another underlined by dark blue enamel (the sea that creates fractures in the ice) while white bears are attached to pieces of ice and they are carved in Tagua walnut, a South American tree, also called vegetable ivory.
Furthermore, the ring can stand upright because of its flat bottom sculpted with concentric ripples that imitate the circles created by a drop when it falls on a surface of the water, another reference to the melting ice in the Arctic region due to the climate changes.