All About Cameos

Cameos are a 2,000 year old art form of sculptured, hand-carved jewelry.
Each cameo is a true one-of-a-kind work of art, possessing a timeless beauty.
 

Nestled at the foot of Mount Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples is the ancient town of Torre del Greco. This picturesque Italian fishing village has a worldwide monopoly on shell and coral cameo production, which they maintain with a labor force of about five thousand artisans. Cameo carving is an ancient skill here, where the ruins of Pompeii, only a few kilometers away, have yielded stone cameos preserved after the city was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79. The supremacy of the Torrese artisans was so great that on June 23, 1878, the School for the Manufacture of Coral and Cameos was founded by a royal ordinance of Umbert I in the same town. From this time forward, Torre del Greco and cameo carving have been intertwined. Today the craft is taught at the town's Institute of Fine Arts, and the products are publicized worldwide.

There are several leading cameo producers in Torre del Greco. Among them are Gennaro Borriello. Borriello founded in 1954 the company of Borrellio s.r.l. In the beginning, Borrellio employed about fifty craftsman and the daughter, Antonella Borrellio is the vice president of the firm and oversees the day to day production operations. Several internationally famous carvers work for the firm: Genaro Garofalo, Francesco Esposito, and Salvatore Balzano. The Borriello's emphasize that the shells they use are not dyed buy naturally, uniformly colored; only all-natural colored shells are used. They believe that only the male helmet shell has the thick layers required for a fine carving; female helmet shells have thin layers and are discounted as good carving material.

Antonella Borriello says that while some of their carvers have attended art school, many have not. a certificate or diploma in art is not required to get a job as a carver; neither is membership to a guild or association. What may be necessary, however, is a lengthy apprenticeship period, even if the man shows artistic ability. It can take up to five years to learn how to start and finish a cameo properly; once learned, the skill is maintained throughout the artisan's working career, as vocation changes are rare.

One of Borrellio's daughters married John Kessler.  John's work has been in many museums and he is a personal friend of Ronaldo's. Our cameos are purchased from John Kessler to insure great quality.