Archaeological Revival Jewellery

Archaeological revival jewellery copied and reinterpreted the gold jewellery of ancient Etruria, Greece and Rome, using techniques - especially granulation and fine wirework - that 19th-century goldsmiths had to rediscover. Led by the Castellani family in Rome, it became one of the most admired styles of the mid-Victorian period and shaped what educated Europeans thought “classical” jewellery looked like.

Origins: Excavation and Collecting

The style grew directly out of archaeology. In the 1820s and 1830s, excavations of Etruscan tombs in central Italy uncovered gold jewellery of extraordinary fineness. The Regolini-Galassi tomb at Cerveteri, found in 1836, was among the richest. Collectors such as the Marchese Campana assembled large collections, and when Campana’s collection was sold to Napoleon III in 1861, much of it went to the Louvre, putting ancient gold on public view in Paris.

Jewellers who studied these pieces were struck by details they could not easily reproduce, above all granulation: patterns of minute gold spheres fused to a gold surface without visible solder.

The Castellani of Rome

Fortunato Pio Castellani founded his firm in Rome in 1814. With his sons Alessandro and Augusto, he studied ancient jewellery closely - Alessandro became a respected collector and dealer in antiquities - and from the 1830s the firm specialised in close copies and free interpretations of Etruscan, Greek and Roman pieces. Castellani jewellery used fine granulation (though not identical to the ancient method), twisted and plaited wire, applied rosettes, amphora-shaped drops, bullae (round pendants), and mounted ancient coins, scarabs and intaglios. The firm also made micromosaic jewellery with early Christian and Byzantine motifs.

Castellani pieces are often marked with a monogram of two interlaced, back-to-back Cs. They were shown at international exhibitions in London and Paris in the 1860s and were widely imitated.

Carlo Giuliano and London

Carlo Giuliano, born in Naples, established himself in London around 1860, at first working for other firms, including Robert Phillips of Cockspur Street, before trading under his own name. Giuliano combined archaeological goldwork with Renaissance-style enamel and became the leading exponent of the style in Britain; his sons continued the business after his death in 1895. His work is often marked “C.G.” in an oval.

Other London jewellers working in the style included John Brogden and Robert Phillips, while in Paris Eugène Fontenay made distinguished Etruscan-style work. See Victorian Jewellery for the wider context.

Granulation and Wirework

Ancient granulation used a method of fusing grains to a surface that left no visible solder. Nineteenth-century goldsmiths came close but rarely matched it exactly; their grains are often less even and sometimes show traces of solder at the base. The method used by ancient goldsmiths was only convincingly reconstructed in the 20th century, when H.A.P. Littledale demonstrated a colloidal hard-soldering process in the 1930s. See What Is Granulation? and What Is Filigree?.

Motifs and Forms

• Etruscan forms: bullae, amphora drops, rosettes, fringes of tiny pendants, and diadems and wreaths of gold leaves.
• Greek and Roman references: Greek key borders, Hercules-knot clasps, heads of Medusa and Bacchus, and mounted ancient coins.
• Inscriptions: short Greek or Latin mottoes in applied gold letters.
• Egyptian motifs: scarabs and lotus forms, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

Mass-Market Imitations

The style’s success led manufacturers, especially in Birmingham, to produce cheaper “Etruscan” jewellery. These pieces were usually made from thin stamped or die-struck sheet gold, with granulation imitated by stamped beading or soldered wire, and with hollow construction. They are often attractive and are period pieces in their own right, but they lack the crisp, individually applied grains and wire of the Castellani and Giuliano workshops.

How to Recognise Archaeological Revival Jewellery

• Yellow gold, often with a matt or bloomed surface, rather than gem-set display.
• Granulation, twisted and plaited wire, applied rosettes and fringes of small drops.
• Mounted coins, scarabs, intaglios or ancient-style cameos.
• Classical inscriptions in applied lettering.
• A maker’s monogram such as the Castellani interlaced Cs or Giuliano’s “C.G.”, on the finest pieces.

Under magnification, separately applied grains and wires suggest workshop production; regular stamped beading suggests a mass-market piece.