Buccellati has been working silver into something extraordinary since Mario Buccellati founded the Maison in Milan in 1919. One of its most recognizable signatures is the Buccellati Caviar Silverware Collection: a line defined by a dense constellation of handcrafted microspheres, their texture unmistakably recalling the appearance of caviar. This Milan Design Week, Buccellati built an entire underwater world around it.
Aquae Mirabiles, presented at Piazza Tomasi di Lampedusa in Milan, took the form of a temporary water theatre. Step inside and the city disappeared. What replaced it was an imagined Atlantis, where Roman mythological figures, silver sturgeons, aquatic plants, and a wave-shaped banquet table came together in a submerged landscape. Curated by Federica Sala. Designed by Balich Wonder Studio. And illustrated throughout by British artist Luke Edward Hall.
Buccellati Builds a Submerged World Around the Caviar Collection
The Installation unfolded across two spaces. The first gallery presented silver sturgeons alongside pieces from the Marina collection. The second opened into a grandiose submerged banquet. The table shaped like a wave and set with the entire Caviar collection. Caviar spoons, trays, plates, ice buckets, wine glasses, flutes, and Murano glassware, all defined by the microsphere motif that Andrea Buccellati reinterpreted from an original 1930s design.
Luke Edward Hall's watercolor drawings ran through the entire installation. Neptune, Naiads, Sirens, and Tiberinus, god of the Tiber, populated the walls in Hall's distinctly playful and fantastical hand. The historical narrative wove through it all, from Ancient Rome to the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Milanese court of Ludovico il Moro.
This year, the Buccellati Caviar collection saw new additions: a complete flatware set, two caviar bowls in different sizes, and a bread plate, joining the existing range of spoons, trays, plates, ice buckets, and Murano glass pieces.
