Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain's leading theatre designer of the 1930s, '40s and '50s. He created settings and costumes for all forms of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well as working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.

Romeo and Juliet was Messel's third film and his first for Hollywood. He designed the settings with the production's art director, Cedric Gibbons, and the costumes with MGM's principal costume designer, Adrian (Adrian Adolph Greenberg). Romeo and Juliet were played by Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer.

This model was created by Oliver Messel for the Capulet’s villa. Messel had spent four months in Italy researching for the film and during his trip, he took 2,769 photographs of villas, piazzas, balconies, frescos and paintings. All this research material was used in the production of the film, which in 1936 was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s most expensive production. The paintings of Bellini, Carpaccio, Botticelli and Pietro Della Francesca were studied for inspiration for costumes and sets. Romeo and Juliet was nominated for four Academy Awards including Set Design and Best Picture.