The Carlo Giuliano style denotes a distinctive aesthetic in high jewellery developed by the Neapolitan-born goldsmith Carlo Giuliano (c. 1831–1895) and sustained by his sons Carlo Joseph and Arthur Alphonse after his death. Working principally from his Piccadilly and later New Bond Street premises in London, Giuliano synthesised the formal vocabulary of the Italian Renaissance, Etruscan antiquity, and Hellenistic goldsmithing into objects that were simultaneously scholarly and wearable. The style is characterised above all by polychrome champlevé and plique-à-jour enamel in deep, jewel-like hues, fine granulation applied with a precision that recalled ancient Etruscan prototypes, and the deliberate preference for cabochon-cut gemstones over the faceted stones then fashionable in mainstream Victorian jewellery. Giuliano-style pieces occupy a significant position in the history of the Archaeological Revival and are represented in depth in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Historical Context and the Archaeological Revival

Giuliano's emergence as an independent maker in London during the 1860s coincided with — and was partly catalysed by — a broader European fascination with antiquity. The excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, ongoing since the mid-eighteenth century, had supplied a visual vocabulary of scrollwork, amphorae, and figural ornament that designers across Europe were absorbing. More immediately, the Roman goldsmith Fortunato Pio Castellani had, from the 1820s onward, been attempting to recover the granulation techniques of Etruscan jewellery, and his sons Alessandro and Augusto had brought that programme to international prominence. Giuliano had worked in proximity to the Castellani circle before establishing himself in London, and the influence is legible in his mature work: the same reverence for ancient surface texture, the same insistence on archaeological correctness of motif.

Yet Giuliano's output was never merely imitative. Where Castellani tended toward archaeological reconstruction, Giuliano permitted himself a freer synthesis, combining Renaissance grotesques with Hellenistic pendant forms, or setting a classical cameo within a frame of enamel scrollwork that owed as much to sixteenth-century goldsmiths such as Benvenuto Cellini as to any ancient prototype. This eclecticism, always disciplined by a refined sense of proportion, gave the Giuliano style its particular character: learned without being pedantic, historicist without being inert.

Enamel: Technique and Palette

Enamel is the defining medium of the Giuliano style, and its handling distinguishes authentic workshop pieces from later imitations. The workshop employed champlevé enamel — in which recessed cells are carved or cast into the gold ground and then filled with vitreous paste — as its primary technique, though basse-taille (enamel over an engraved or engine-turned ground that creates tonal variation through depth) and, in later pieces associated with the sons, plique-à-jour (translucent enamel without a metal backing, producing a stained-glass effect) also appear.

The palette is immediately recognisable: opaque or translucent blacks, deep Renaissance reds, turquoise blues, and a characteristic creamy white that Giuliano used for figural elements and foliate detail. These colours are typically deployed in tight, symmetrical registers — borders of alternating black and white enamel lozenges, or bands of red and blue separated by fine gold wire — that frame central elements such as cameos, intaglios, or gemstone cabochons. The enamel surfaces in genuine workshop pieces show a characteristic depth and slight translucency even in nominally opaque passages, a quality that results from multiple firings and careful grinding between layers.

Granulation and Goldwork

Alongside enamel, granulation — the application of minute spheres of gold to a gold surface without visible solder — is the most technically demanding aspect of the Giuliano workshop's production. The technique had been lost to European goldsmiths for centuries and was only partially recovered in the nineteenth century; the precise mechanism by which ancient Etruscan craftsmen achieved adhesion (now understood to involve a form of diffusion bonding facilitated by copper salts) was not fully elucidated until the twentieth century. Giuliano, like Castellani before him, achieved results that approximated the ancient originals closely enough to satisfy contemporary connoisseurs, though modern analysis has shown that Victorian-era granulation typically relied on hard solders of very fine gauge rather than true diffusion bonding.

The granulation in Giuliano pieces is deployed with restraint: typically as a textural ground within framed fields, as a border accent, or to articulate the junction between structural elements. It is rarely used to cover large unbroken surfaces, which would have risked overwhelming the enamel and gemstone elements that anchor the composition. The gold itself is consistently of high carat — typically 18-karat or above — giving finished pieces a warm, slightly matte surface quality that contrasts effectively with the vitreous brilliance of the enamel.

Gemstones: The Preference for Cabochons

Giuliano's choice of gemstones was as deliberate as his choice of technique. In an era when the brilliant-cut diamond dominated fashionable jewellery, the Giuliano workshop consistently favoured cabochon-cut stones: opaque or translucent turquoise, garnet, amethyst, moonstone, and pearl. This preference was both aesthetic and ideological. Cabochons aligned with the surface quality of ancient jewellery, in which polished rather than faceted stones were the norm; they also complemented the matte-textured gold and the deep, saturated enamel without competing with it for brilliance.

Classical cameos — carved in shell, agate, or sardonyx — appear frequently as central elements, set within elaborate enamel and granulation frames. Intaglios, both ancient and contemporary, are similarly incorporated. When faceted stones do appear, they tend to be rose-cut rather than brilliant-cut, again privileging historical correctness over the fashionable optical effects of the day.

Workshop Practice and Attribution

Carlo Giuliano operated his London workshop from approximately 1860 until his death in 1895, after which his sons Carlo Joseph and Arthur Alphonse continued production until the workshop's closure in 1914. Pieces from the father's period are generally regarded as the most accomplished and command the highest prices at auction; the sons' work, while technically proficient, is considered slightly more commercial in character and shows a greater willingness to accommodate Edwardian taste.

Attribution is complicated by the fact that Giuliano supplied pieces to other retailers — most notably Robert Phillips of London — and that the workshop's distinctive style was widely imitated during his lifetime and afterward. Genuine workshop pieces are typically signed with the maker's mark C.G. within a cartouche, though not all pieces bear a mark, and the mark itself has been reproduced on later imitations. Structural analysis, enamel chemistry, and comparison with documented pieces in museum collections remain the most reliable tools for attribution.

Influence and Legacy

The Giuliano style exercised a considerable influence on the broader Archaeological Revival in British jewellery, and its emphasis on craftsmanship, historical scholarship, and the integration of enamel with goldwork anticipates aspects of the Arts and Crafts jewellery movement that followed. Designers associated with the Arts and Crafts circle — including Henry Wilson and John Paul Cooper — shared Giuliano's preference for cabochon stones, handworked surfaces, and the subordination of gemstone value to overall design quality, even if their formal vocabulary was drawn from medieval rather than classical sources.

In the contemporary market, Giuliano pieces appear regularly at the major London and New York auction houses, where documented workshop examples achieve prices that reflect both their rarity and their art-historical significance. The style also remains a reference point for specialist makers working in the revival and historicist traditions, and for collectors of Victorian jewellery more broadly. The Victoria & Albert Museum holds one of the most comprehensive public collections of Giuliano workshop pieces, making it the primary institutional resource for the study of the style.

Further Reading

• Victoria & Albert Museum — Carlo Giuliano, Jeweller
• GIA Gems & Gemology — Archaeological Revival Jewellery