Bulgari gold, ruby, and diamond snake bracelet, 1950. Photo

Bulgari gold, ruby, and diamond snake bracelet, 1950. Photo

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Bulgari gold, ruby, and diamond
snake bracelet, 1950.
Photo: ©Antonio Barrella, Studio
Orizzonte, Rome. Courtesy of a
private collection.
A new book and an exhibit display Bulgari’s Serpenti watch-bracelets.
Bulgari-Bulgari gold Tubogas watch bracelet,
circa 1980. The black dial has gold hands,
gold baton-shaped indexes, and Arabic
numerals in the six and twelve o’clock
positions.
Photo: ©Antonio Barrella, Studio Orizzonte,
Rome / The Bulgari Heritage Collection
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When Bulgari opened its Serpenti Exhibition and
Carlo Maria Mariani’s painting Incantamento (“Enchantment”) shows the Gorgon with Bulgari snake rings on her serpent tendrils. Bulgari commissioned the work of art for a 1996 commemorative book, La pittura delle gioie (The Joys of Painting). Courtesy of Bulgari.
Retrospective at its Fifth Avenue store in New York
earlier this year, the stars came out in force to see
the firm’s reticulated golden snakes on display.
Marion Fasel, who also authored the new companion
book from Assouline, curated the exhibit and its treasures
and included numerous Serpenti timepieces from both
the current collection and from the Bulgari archives.
Excerpted from the Assouline book, the following pictures beautifully demonstrate that Bulgari’s
use of serpents as models for its jewelry, watches
and accessories is a long and rich legacy. The Italian
jeweler and watchmaker, reaching back to its GrecoRoman heritage, began incorporating the snake into
its designs in the 1940s.
A 1940s design style called Gas Pipe inspired the
Tubogas technique Bulgari uses to create the Serpenti, but the Italian jeweler expanded the concept
to include adding a watch to the snake’s head—
which made the Serpenti more than strictly jewelry,
and served to create the emblematic timepiece
collection for Bulgari. Many of these snake ‘heads’
featured movements from top Swiss firms such as
Jaeger-LeCoultre, Audemars Piguet and Movado.
As Fasel explains in her book, Elizabeth Taylor’s
publicity picture from the set of the 1962 filming
of “Cleopatra” included Bulgari serpentine jewelry.
By the late 1960s, as Italian design from all fronts
became a leading import into the United States as
fashion publications (notably, Vogue, whose editor
Diana Vreeland was an unabashed Serpenti fan)
began to feature many Bulgari Serpenti jewels and
watches on their pages. Trendsetters began to wear
Serpenti seemingly everywhere.
In 2009 Bulgari celebrated its 125th Anniversary
with a major retrospective in Rome that included
many Serpenti pieces. Tubogas watch-bracelets
from the 1940s through the 1960s were part of the
Diana Vreeland wore her Bulgari enamel snake belt as a necklace for a portrait taken in the red room of her New York City apartment.
Photo: Jonathan Becker
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Elizabeth Taylor’s legendary Bulgari diamond, emerald,
platinum, and gold snake watch-bracelet, as pictured on the
cover of the Assouline book by Marion Fasel.
Photo: ©Antonio Barrella, Studio Orizzonte, Rome.
A Bulgari design for an
emerald, diamond, ruby and
yellow enamel bracelet.
Carlo & Gian Luca Illario.
Black and white enamel and gold
snakebracelet by Bulgari, circa 1965.
Close-up of a one-of-a-kind Bulgari High Jewelry Collection
Serpenti necklace set with pear-shaped diamond eyes and more
than 228 carats of diamonds on the scales. Photo: Doug Rosa
Photo: ©Antonio Barella, Studio
Orizzonte, Rome
A 1940s design style
called Gas Pipe in-
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spired the Tubogas
technique Bulgari
uses to create the
Serpenti.”
exhibition while the brand also updated its Serpenti
Collection designs. The new versions were larger
and bolder and featured baton-shaped indexes and
Roman numerals, guilloche dials and more gem accents. One of the first stars to own one of the new
models was the late Elizabeth Taylor, whose rich
Bulgari collection was recently on display at the
company’s Los Angeles boutique.
This year, in addition to the New York retrospective, Bulgari celebrates the Chinese Year of the
Snake with special limited edition watch-bracelet
models created for Bulgari boutiques in China.
These models feature a widespread use of red gems
and a richer red gold as red is associated with good
luck in China. In addition, a special ad campaign
featuring Rachel Weisz shows the actress wearing
Serpenti snake bracelets on her arm and Tubogas
serpent watch-bracelet wraps around her wrist.
Enjoy these Serpenti pictures, courtesy of Bulgari
and Assouline.
Bulgari Tubogas watch-bracelet, circa 1971. The double-coiled gold snake Tubogas
bracelet has a square case with Jaeger-LeCoultre and Bulgari signatures on the
gold soleil dial. Photo: Studio Orizzonte, Rome / The Bulgari Heritage Collection.