Scagliola, also known as artistic marble or artificial marble, has been at the core of my work for over twenty years.
It is a technique rooted in tradition, yet it continues to offer endless possibilities for artistic and decorative expression even today. I hand-craft mixtures of scagliola and natural pigments, blended with water and animal glues, to reproduce the veining of fine marbles or to create completely new designs and colours, according to the client’s requests.
This ancient craft, developed between the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has been handed down through the centuries thanks to master artisans who worked throughout Europe. It was used to adorn churches, palaces and royal residences: a perfect substitute for natural marble when the latter was too expensive or difficult to obtain, but also chosen for its beauty, lightness and suitability for curved or decorative surfaces.
Over time, great families of Italian scagliola masters such as the De Toma, the Axerio, the Dellavedova and many others brought this technique to the most prestigious art workshops in Europe. It was from master Silvio Dellavedova that I learned the secrets of the craft, continuing to study and teach this technique with the same dedication as those who came before me.
Artificial marble is obtained through the processing of scagliola. The term “artificial marble” comes from the ancient concept of artificium, which in Latin meant “made with skill” or “crafted with art.” Not by chance, it is also known as “artistic marble.”
Scagliola is a substance obtained from fired gypsum, or calcium sulfate, mixed with water and animal-based glues. To this base I add powdered pigments: natural earths, metallic-based pigments and synthetic pigments, known as anilines. These are selected and blended to achieve the desired shades. Colour preparation is essential: sometimes more than fifty different tones may be used to recreate the veining of an ancient marble or to invent entirely new ones.
Depending on the result I want to achieve, I work the mixture using two techniques: dry or wet.
Dry is a method that, as the name suggests, involves combining dry pigments: in this way, the veins are created by placing the pigments side by side, which are moistened only at a later stage.
Wet, on the other hand, is a method in which the individual pigments are mixed with the scagliola to obtain coloured batches that are then combined, forming the veining.
Each mixture has a different consistency and, once ready, can be applied to panels, columns, walls or furnishing elements, becoming a compact and luminous surface.
Each colour, each vein is a recipe of its own: no two scagliolas are ever identical. This is precisely what makes artistic marble a living material, able to adapt to different shapes and contexts while retaining its inherent natural elegance.
But scagliola is not limited to covering the walls and columns of historic buildings: today, it finds new forms of expression in contemporary art and design.
I create architectural elements, furnishing accessories and decorative objects, as well as artistic marble jewellery, all born from the same material research that has accompanied this tradition for centuries.
The veining that once adorned walls and columns now comes to life in rings, bracelets, pendants and cufflinks made of 925 silver or 24-carat gold, where the colours of malachite or lapis lazuli meet the elegance of precious metals.
In recent years, the lightness and strength of artistic marble have also been applied in interior design projects and nautical fittings, where aesthetic research meets functionality — demonstrating how a technique born in the eighteenth century can still dialogue with the needs of contemporary design.
