Brooch

When the Etruscan Regolini-Galassi tomb (named for its excavators) in Cerveteri, Italy, was excavated in 1836, the papal government invited noted jeweler Fortunato Pio Castellani and his thirteen-year-old son, Alessandro, to examine, and later restore, the extraordinary gold adornments found in the burial. Young Alessandro was particularly fascinated by the golden granulation on several ornaments. After many years of experimentation, he eventually mastered the art of embellishing gold sheet with minute gold balls based on the Etruscan examples, making the technique a hallmark of the Castellani firm.1 This circular, lobed brooch decorated with thousands of such spheres represents one of Castellani’s hand-fabricated designs.

Yvonne J. Markowitz, “Brooch” in Artful Adornments: Jewelry from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston by Yvonne J. Markowitz (Boston: MFA Publications, 2011), 82.