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Ronaldo Designer Jewelry, Inc. is proud to import only the finest Hand-Carved Cameo’s from Torre del Greco, Italy. Master Carver Gennaro Borriello is one of the leading cameo producers in Torre del Greco, and we bring you his remarkable shell cameos. As master carver, Borriello signs the back of every Cameo he sells, also checking the finer details of each carving. The finishing touches he adds to a piece have been known to transform a beautiful Cameo into a superb piece of art.
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. In the ruins of Pompeii, only a few kilometers away, stone cameos, preserved after the city was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79, have been discovered. 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 is Gennaro Borriello who founded the company of Borriello s.r.l in 1954. Antonella Borriello, daughter of Gennaro Borriello, 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, but naturally and 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 describes 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, in addition to natural talent, is a lengthy apprenticeship period. It can take up to five years to learn how to start and finish a cameo properly; once learned, the skill is refined and solidified throughout the artisan's working career, as vocation changes are rare.
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