Followed by a Gourmet Gazette Slide Show
Rome, Italy —A tiny mandala, the falcon-headed god of the Ancient Egyptians, Horus, a brilliant blue paying tribute to Lalique and an emerald-green sparkling leaf are just a few of the high art mosaic rings from the Roman house of Le Sibille. It’s a story of labor, craftsmanship and detail. Micro mosaic jewelry reached its height in 19th century Italy. This is jewelers as art which draws its inspiration from traditional mosaics but seriously scaled down in size. Micro mosaics are created rom tiny fragments of tesserae which is generally made from glass or enable and set in a way to form small picture.
Today the Italian company Le Sybille, founded in the 1990s, has brought this luxurious Roman jewelry into the forefront once again, creating handmade pieces in their Roman workshop. Camilla Bronzini, Francesca Neri Serneri and Antonella Perugini, the company’s founders, decided to revive this high art and craft and today the house’s iconic line is its handcrafted micromosaic jewelry.
Mosaics are an integral part of Roman culture that have been in style since Antiquity. The Romans would use them to decorate the walls of their villas, their tiles and table tops from the early days of the Empire. The subsequent miniature mosaic technique was born in the 1770s and drew its inspiration from the ancient mosaics of Imperial Rome. But it was in the Vatican workshop (La Reverenda Fabbrica) that developed the mosaics made of tesserae and this technique was refined over the centuries to make smaller and smaller works of art. The workshop offered ornaments for boxes, small paintings, jewelry and vases, authentic works of art, some of which can be seen today in the Vatican Museum.
La Sibille has taken up the torch and perpetrates this ancestral know-how to create pieces of jewelry that are beyond luxury, they are pieces of art. The three founders who are also designers were inspired by their personal research and knowledge from within their respective studies in art and archaeology. The Sibyls are well-known mythological characters who in Greek and Roman Antiquity were reputed for their ability to foretell the future. The Roman Sibyl was known as the Cumaean Sibyl.
©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette
Le Sibille
Via Muzio Clementi, 68/B 00193 Rome, Italy@lesibille
http://www.lesibille.com
A Gourmet Gazette Slide Show
The Blue Pixel micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The Odalisque micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The Mandala micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The Butterfly micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The Deep Blue micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette The Horus micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The Horus micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette The Leaf micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The Lalique micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette The Lalique micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The Pompei micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The San Clemente micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette 
The Vesuvius micromosaic ring fashioned by hand by Le Sibille in Rome. Photo courtesy Le Sibille. Handout via The Gourmet Gazette
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