STILE DI PALLANTI Italian Jewelry: Our Blog

Silver Octopus Sculpture: head & legs come together

Fabio’s silver octopus sculpture is starting to come together.

Removing excess solder from the octopus head

The octopus legs have been soldered to its head

Silver Art: Octopus Sculpture – preparing the silver head & legs

Filing to a rounded point each of the eight solid sterling silver wire octopus legs.

Filing the octopus legs

Raising the small sheet of solid sterling silver to give shape to the octopus head.

Silver sheet with octopus head design before raising

Raising the silver sheet to form the octopus head

Aquamarine Earrings & Pendant: a Birthday Commission in White Gold

A very special client of ours commissioned us to make for her a pair of aquamarine earrings and matching pendant for her birthday. The cut aquamarine gemstones were her own and, given their fine quality, Fabio suggested making the earrings and pendant in 18K gold rather than sterling silver.

She wanted a simple, elegant design and her inspiration was “water droplets”. Together a few sketches were made and in light of both the concept of water and that she did not usually wear yellow gold, white gold was decided upon. Fabio also suggested the addition of diamonds within the design to enhance the brilliance of the gemstones.

The resultant aquamarine earrings and matching aquamarine pendant are shown below. She has named them “April Showers”. I think they are beautiful.

The chain is also in solid white gold.

Aquamarine earrings and matching aquamarine pendant in 18K white gold

The new silver art sculptures: looking on a beach near Punta Ala, Maremma for the base rocks

Fabio knows just the rocks he wants to use for the bases of the two new octopus and cerianthus sculptures, so we go looking on a rocky beach in a cove near Punta Ala, Maremma. A beautiful late December afternoon.

Found one!

The local in situ rock is a beautiful colour in the late December setting sun.

The in situ rock at the Punta Ala cove

Ideas for two new silver art sculptures

Fabio has two new ideas for silver art sculptures: an octopus and cerianthus. As with our jewellery, his creations are heavily influenced by his passion for the sea. His greatest love is sub aqua fishing in the local Tyrrhenian Sea (Mar Tirreno).

Sketch of silver octopus sculpture

Sketch of silver cerianthus sculpture

Casting a Gold Ingot

When we have sufficient waste gold from our jewellery creations – filings, cut-off scraps etc – Fabio will melt them down into a gold ingot.

It is quite an amazing thing to see a gold ingot forming in front of you own eyes. They are normally the kind of thing most of us only see on 007 James Bond or action-packed bank heist films!

Pouring the molten gold

gold ingot

Gold dust: forbidden to vacuum in our workshop!

There is only one ‘rule’ in our workshop and it is that I am forbidden from vacuuming or washing the floor because of the gold dust that collects on the floor over time.

Even though (as every gold and silversmith does) we are meticulous in collecting the fine silver and gold dust and particles that collect when we are working with our creations, the quantity of gold and silver that collects on the floor and in the filters of the machinery amongst the general dust and dirt is more than suffient to warrant its collection and safe retention.

Whenever we have around 10kg to 15kg of dirt and dust, this is taken to Florence for burning and processing to separate out the precious and semi-precious metals of gold, silver and copper. In total 200g to 300g of metals may be recovered in this way.

One less room to clean isn’t a problem! Wish I had just as good excuses for the others!!