Merù Gioielli (Italy)
‘Choo-choo’ Pendant
circa 2000s
Traditional hand-painted pieces wrought by the artisans of Merù are considered by many of the studio’s devoted clients to be pearls of sweet nostalgia. Founded at the start of the 1960s, each Merù piece that is bought today (or indeed still trickling through the newer generations of its original owners) represents the ever-present and distinctive feel of the second-half of the twentieth century - the age in which the general demand for haute couture jewellery became slightly ousted by the welcomed emergence of high-quality and ‘crafty’ jewellery studios. Employing the exact same media (such as pure gold, enamel and precious stone) as used by Bulgari and Cartier, for example, the smaller and more independent houses like Merù developed a reputation based on their skilled intertwining of richly goods with a playfully unsophisticated yet ‘elegant’ touch of adolescence - no matter by or for whom the creation was eventually to be bought. The result is mirrored strongly in this contemporary pendant to the left, wherein the idiosyncratic streak of Merù is seen not only in the whimsical choice of imagery (is it possible to not hear the train’s soothing ‘choo-chooing’ in our minds?) but also in the sleek shaping of its gold mounting, whereby the ghostly influences of Greek coinage and even late seventeenth century English miniature portraiture can be traced. Merù creations are precious, if not occasionally somewhat costly, but they remain in this new era of digital designing and wax printing pearls of not only sweet nostalgia, but of enduring humility too.
