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Giovanni Corvaja

Giovanni Corvaja Goldsmith
Contact
Italian, English
Hours:
By appointment only
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The golden fleece

  • • Giovanni regards his craft as a journey, not a destination
  • • Each piece requires hundreds of kilometres of gold wire
  • • In 2019 he was finalist at the Loewe Craft Prize

Giovanni Corvaja is a renowned Italian goldsmith whose works have been acquired by the most prestigious museums and collectors in Europe, America and Australia. “I believe that manipulating and transforming gold is the most beautiful activity there is,” he says. “It allows you to concentrate a huge amount of energy, details, dedication and passion into small objects.” Thanks to his solid background and training, for 30 years Giovanni has been probing the artistic, formal and technical aspects of goldsmithing. Inspired by Greek mythology and the study of Alchemy, his researches led him to the creation of his own Golden Fleece: by reducing gold and platinum to the dimension of one fifth of a human hair, he discovered a whole new world of expressive possibilities in the field of jewellery.

Read the full interview

Works

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Gold Box

Gold Box was created as a tactile hand sized treasure, expressing fine craftsmanship through the amount of intricate, hidden details. The enamel was applied following Giovanni’s own technique: on each of the granulated wire was placed a piece of enamel, melted with a microscopic flame to form small glass beads. The artwork required more than seven months of solid work to be completed.

Width 9 ml
Height 6 cm
Depth 9 cm

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Mandala Bowl

The Mandala Bowl is entirely composed of gold wires of two different diametres: some are 50 microns and some 100 microns (0,1mm). Approximately, it required about 4,000 metres of 18ct gold wires to achieve this impressive artwork.

Width 11.2 ml
Height 4.5 cm
Depth 11.2 cm

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Pendant

Encaged in a rigid constructed frame of 750 gold is suspended a cloud of ultra-thin platinum filaments holding hundreds of drops of vitreous enamel. The platinum filaments are 0.035 mm in diametre.

Width 3.1 ml
Height 6.5 cm
Depth 3.1 cm

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Brooch

Inside a frame of 750 gold some very fine filaments of gold thinner than a strand of human hair, hold in suspension a cloud of little drops of Niello. The artwork is part of the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York USA

Width 6 ml
Height 6 cm
Depth 1.5 cm

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The Golden Fleece Ring

Composed of 104,272 single wires (total: 2.085 km of wire) this ring, though entirely made in gold, feels like a ring of fur to touch. It is part of the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art.

Width 1.8 ml
Height 2.4 cm
Diameter 1.6 cm

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