Since ancient times, precious jewels have played an integral role in history, imbued with primitive beliefs. Crawling from Queen Victoria’s engagement ring to becoming an inseparable part of the Greco-Roman Heritage, serpent jewelry has always been in trend.
In 1884, Greek silversmith Sotirios Voulgaris (who Italianized his name to Bulgari) founded the firm in Rome. It was only natural that he should draw inspiration from the Greco-Roman heritage – and serpents were integral to that heritage. Throughout history, snakes have appeared in countless forms, but their most famous form is in bracelets – some with watches and others without – that wrap around the wrist several times.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the forms became more animalistic, and in the past decade, they have been reinterpreted in more geometric and stylized forms. If one single event triggered the explosion in Bulgari’s fortunes and the Serpenti’s notoriety, it was the decision to film the movie Cleopatra in Rome.
The Bulgari boutique in Via Condotti must have been like catnip for Elizabeth Taylor, the superstar with an already-famous love of jewelry. In a publicity still taken on set in 1962, she is wearing one of the first gem-set ‘secret’ Serpenti watches ever made by Bulgari (in her Cleopatra costume, she wore snake armbands created by the 20th Century Fox props department). Even better was her affair with her co-star Richard Burton right under Eddie Fisher’s nose.
At first highly abstracted, the forms evolved over the decades, becoming more animalistic through the 1960s and early ’70s and, in the past decade, reinterpreted in more geometric and stylised form once again.
Serpenti HJ by mask architects is a 3D digitally controlled piece, programmed in Grasshopper, Rhinoceros, and Inventor, and parametrically adjustable in terms of materials, stones, enamel inserts, etc.
Powered by a modified mechanical Caliber 842 Jaeger-LeCoultre, this timepiece has a power reserve of 38 hours, Hours/minutes, Moon Phase functions.
