Penrose Antiques

Description

We have for sale a truly lovely potential Christmas gift, a heavy silver necklace and chain by the excellent Italian jeweler and designer Orlando Orlandini.

This lovely Modenist necklace and bracelet are formed from heavy link chains in the case of the bracelet extending to a belt buckle type clasp and in the case of the necklace a tree bark effect clasp. Both the necklace and bracelet carry import silver marks for London 1976 along a 925 stamp. The bracelet carries the full O.P Orlandini mark to the buckle and both the necklace and bracelet carry difficult to read triangular marks and on the reverse a hand inscribed serial numbers/date ciphers, which would have been added by the silversmith but in both cases were not removed during finishing. I personally particularly like these faint inscribed marks, you feel the hand of the artisan on the work, just as you do with the masons mark on the foundation stone of a cathedral.

The 17 inch (43cm) necklace weighs a heavy 87g, and the 7.5 inch (19cm) long bracelet weighs a heavy 41g (the two together weighing just over 4 Troy ounces). Both are in a very good vintage condition, and both only carry the light surface wear one would expect from well looked after jewellery of this period.

O.P Orlandini
Orlando Orlandini was the son of a well known Italian sculptor and an equally well known Italian artist. However, Olando Orlandini unlike his parents pursued a career as a jeweler. He worked for a number of years for the very well known Italian jeweler UNOAERRE where he became the companies head designer, before setting up his own workshop in Florence in 1980, where he has focused on the developing his art in the design of exquisite gold jewellery. This necklace and bracelet are both typical of O.P Orlandini's work in the 1970s.