the Cellini Convex Mirror

In All, Mirrors by Arif

The Cellini convex mirroris comprised of a gold metal leafed frame( which was in pretty bad condition before I restored it) an lavish use of crystal clear Venetian glass rods.  A few straw colored rods were used to give the frame more depth and nuance.  Fin ishing the inner rim are small glass cabochones.

This mirror is about 16 inches in diameter.  It resides in my studio till being shipped to one of my showrooms. 

Jewelry for walls.

Benvenuto Cellini ( 1500-1571) was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, draftsman, soldier, musician, and artist who also wrote poetry and a (in)famous autobiography. He was one of the most important artists of Mannerism. He is remembered for his skill in making pieces such as the Cellini Salt Cellar and Perseus with the Head of Medusa.

Throughout Benvenuto Cellini’s life, prolific periods of artistic output were often jeopardized by run-ins with the law. He was repeatedly prosecuted for sodomy, theft, and murder. Despite his notoriety, Cellini worked continuously for such august patrons as the popes in Rome, the Medici in Florence, and King François I of France. Cellini was born in Florence in 1500. Although his father, a well-educated, middle-class carpenter, wanted him to become a musician, Cellini began training as a goldsmith at the age of thirteen. Over the following few years, he worked with a variety of masters, studied antique sculpture, and began designing large-scale sculptural projects. At the royal residence in Fontainebleau, France, where François I imported numerous Italian artists in an effort to promote an artistic Renaissance in France, Cellini’s sculptural projects reached their most ambitious heights. In the last years of his life and after another period of imprisonment, Cellini turned to writing his autobiography and treatises on goldsmithing and sculpture. In 1558 he took religious orders but later renounced them. He was one of the most prominent and respected Italian Mannerist artists of the 1500s. Thank you Getty Center for the above.

Brilliant, an innovator, a voluptuary, a rebel and a bit of a rascal.

Self portrait

The sublime Salt Cellar created in 1543 for Francois I of France. It is made of ivory, rolled gold and enamel.
Perseus and the Head of Medusa created in 1545