Exhibitions Archive - 17th and 18th centuries
Mirror of the world. Masterpieces from the Dresden cabinet of curiosities
This exhibition brings together around one hundred remarkable artworks and objects collected between the 16th and 18th centuries by the powerful Prince-electors of Saxony. During a period marked by the struggle for imperial power between the Electorates of the Holy Roman Empire and the courts of Europe, this dazzlingly rich collection demonstrates the political power of the Prince-elector. Featuring objets d'art, instruments and scientific books, natural materials and ethnographic objects, the Kunstkammer or “cabinet of curiosities” was the first European collection to open to the general public, who viewed it as a place of knowledge and learning. This exhibition places an emphasis on the artistic quality and provenance of the works, which not only reflect the many global relationships and cultural exchanges, but also the Euro-centric world view they embody. A few historical objects are arranged so as to mirror works by contemporary artists, putting these historic collections into perspective through the key issues of our time.
14/09/2022 - 15/01/2023
Musée du Luxembourg, 19 rue de Vaugirard, 75006 Paris, France
Joséphine et Napoleon, une histoire (extra) ordinaire
This exhibition will focus on the pair’s love story, featuring jewellery, paintings, letters, illustrated documents and other artwork, displayed in the historic rooms overlooking the Place Vendôme. In addition to pieces from Chaumet’s collection, curator Pierre Branda has gathered items from public and private collections, including the Royal Danish Collection and the Louvre Museum. It is part of a series of events marking the “Year of Napoleon” in France, which will include exhibits at the Archives Nationales, the Musée de l’Armée and the Musée de Malmaison.
8/05/2021 - 18/07/2021
Chaumet, place Vendôme, 75001 Paris, France
A Newly Ordered World. Jewellery from the Napoleonic Era
Napoleon Bonaparte, whose 250th anniversary occurs in 2019, reorganized the European world in many respects. This provides the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim with the opportunity for a special exhibition on the new type of jewellery and fashion that characterized the Napoleonic era. These are Classicism as the "Style of Revolution" and the decorative Empire style that spread throughout western Europe as far as Russia. The values of the Enlightenment demanded an aesthetic of reason. It met the taste of a growing, self-confident and educated bourgeoisie and influenced all areas of culture - from architecture and painting, furniture, clothing and jewellery to literature and music. The visual arts created a spiritual aristocracy, breaking the tradition of an hereditary nobility. Over the course of the reign of Napoleon, the Empire style unfolded its representative splendour. With works by Chaumet, Napoleon's court jeweller, jewellery from his environment will also be on display.
13/07/2019 - 31/10/2019
Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Jahnstraße 42, 75173 Pforzheim, Germany
‘Consummate Elegance’ Jewellery designs by L. Vander Cruycen
In 2018 DIVA purchased an album of decorative prints. Thanks to the King Baudouin Foundation, DIVA also acquired a series of extremely rare preparatory drawings for jewellery attributed to L. Vander Cruycen, a jeweller who was active in Brussels and Paris in the 18th century. A selection of these acquisitions will be on display in the reading room at DIVA.
28/04/2019 - 15/06/2019
DIVA, Antwerp Home of Diamonds, Suikerrui 17-19, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium
Lords of the Ocean. Treasures of the Portuguese Empire of the 16th - 18th Centuries
More than two hundred artifacts from museums and private collections in Portugal, Russia and other countries will help to demonstrate, on the one hand, the magnificence of the Portuguese court, the traditions of Portuguese navigation, science and culture. On the other hand, they will present vivid evidence of mutual influence and cultural exchange between the metropolitan power and its dominions in India, China, Japan, Africa and Brazil. Exhibits include portraits and items which belonged to the rulers, military commanders, explorers, who played an important role in the history of the Portuguese colonial empire, ceremonial objects from palaces, jewellery, coins, liturgical objects, weapons and armour, documents, engravings, atlases, maps, navigation instruments and tools, manuscripts and books of the 16th–17th centuries. Of great interest are works of local art, which depict Europeans.
8/12/2017 – 25/02/2018
The Moscow Kremlin Museums, 103132 Russia, Moscow, Kremlin, Russia
Le goût de la parure. Portraits du château de Versailles
An exhibition of 28 paintings from the château de Versailles dedicated to the depiction of jewellery in portraiture of the time of Louis XIV. These works show the taste for jewellery among the aristocracy, featuring necklaces, rings, and earrings but also waist and shoe buckles, medallions and dress appliqués. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
15/10/2016 - 15/01/2017
Château d'Angers, 2, promenade du Bout du Monde, Angers, France
Second Hand. Wiederverwendeter Schmuck an barocken Monstranzen
Second Hand. Reused Jewellery in Baroque Monstrances
It is not rare to find valuable older pieces of jewellery used in Baroque monstrances. The pendants, brooches, rings or other insignia stand out due to their sumptuous enamels, precious stones and pearls. The pieces, which had gone out of fashion or whose owners had died, were donated to the churches and then reused by goldsmiths. This exhibition unites monstrances, jewellery and portraits of the former wearers of the jewellery.
10/06/2015 - 10/08/2015
DomQuartier Salzburg, Residenzplatz 1 / Domplatz 1a, 5020 Salzburg, Austria
Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels
When the Hoard was found in 1912 it was immediately heralded as a landmark find in the history of the jewellers’ craft because so little jewellery of this quality and date has survived. One hundred years on it is still regarded as a time-capsule of contemporary taste and it remains not only the most important source of our knowledge of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery in England, but also provides unparalleled information on London’s role in the international gem trade in an age of global conquest and exploration. The exhibition will explore the mysteries surrounding the Hoard, which is thought to represent a goldsmith-jeweller’s stock-in-trade. It will consider why and when it was buried and by whom. It will also use the jewels to explore the wider landscape of early Stuart London, and in particular, the clandestine world of the Elizabethan and Jacobean goldsmith-jeweller. It will offer new evidence about the individuals and communities engaged in mining, cutting, trading and buying jewels and it will look at their creative talents, craft skills and manufacturing techniques. The jewels will be shown with a range of objects to reflect craftsmanship, taste and fashion, and portraits of goldsmith-jewellers, patrons and consumers will be used to illustrate the importance of jewellery in early modern society.
11/10/2013 – 27/04/2014
Museum of London, London Wall, London EC2Y 5HN, UK
Der Totenschmuck der Anne Catherine Françoise de Chevalier
The funerary jewellery of Anne Catherine Françoise de Chevalier
Funeral rites in the 17th and 18th centuries were heavily interspersed with magical and superstitious elements. The burials, especially those of girls and unmarried women, were sometimes richly endowed with funerary jewellery. This exhibition shows the burial of Anne Catherine Françoise de Chevalier, who died in Tholey in 1762 at the age of six years and was buried in the abbey church there. The core of the funerary jewellery is the so-called Totenkrone. This was intended for a wedding in the afterlife, which had been denied the dead in this world. It consists of a circlet, and a small crown. Like the associated bracelet it is made from leonische filigree wire and adorned with real pearls and garnet inlays. A gilded bridal cross and an ensemble of children's jewellery and christening gifts of coral beads complete the remarkable find.
26/10/2013 – 19/01/2014
Saarlandmuseum, Museum in der Schlosskirche, Am Schlossberg 6, 66119 Saarbrücken, Germany
Preziose Antichità. Il Museo Profano al tempo di Pio VI
Precious Antiquities. The Profane Museum at the time of Pius VI
For the first time in over two hundred years, an exhibition will bring back to life in the Vatican the charm of the eighteenth-century collections of the Profane Museums at the time of Pius VI, before the Napoleonic requisitions. The original nucleus of the collections of profane antiquities in the future complex of the Vatican Museums, was created by Clement XIII (Rezzonico, 1758-1769) and enriched with further collections and furnishings under Pius VI (Braschi, 1775-1799). The conclusion of this demanding restoration project, which involved the entire collection and its context, is an opportunity to imagine a momentary "homecoming" of a nucleus of antique gems and cameos, mounted in elaborate Neoclassical settings at the end of the eighteenth century, and a valuable numismatic collection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman exemplars. Involved in the dramatic wartime events of the Napoleonic period, these works were transported to France as a war indemnity following the assassination of General Mathurin-Léonard Duphot in Rome in 1798. These works are accompanied by the beautiful copper plate engravings illustrating the collection of the Profane Museum, produced in the eighteenth century and held at the National Institute of Graphic Design
2/10/2013 – 4/01/2014
Vatican Museums, Room of the Aldobrandini Wedding, Palazzo Sciarra, Via Marco Minghetti, 22 – 00187 Roma, Italy
Preziosen im Entwurf - Schmuckentwürfe aus der Grafischen Sammlung
Gems in the draft - jewellery designs from the Graphic Arts Collection
Parallel to the special presentation 'The Jewels of the Maharajas - from the Treasuries of India's Royal Courts' the Grafische Kabinett displays examples from its rich collection of jewellery designs by gold and silversmiths. These illustrate the artistic ideas and creative processes of the jewellery pieces with which the Augsburg gold and silver workshops produced their luxurious jewellery. Graphic print templates of the early 17th Century show antique and exotic motifs in geometric shapes, while delicate drawings of the 18th Century show precious gems in graceful forms. These sheets reflect fantastic jewellery creations from around the world.
9/03/2013 - 12/05/2013
Grafisches Kabinett, Maximilian Strasse 48, D-86150 Augsburg, Germany
Le XVIIIe, le Bijou et la Femme
The 18th century, jewellery and women
An exhibition of 18th-century jewellery, placing it in its historical and social context focused on Women and the Enlightenment.
6/10/2012 - 13/02/2013
Musée de l'orfèvrerie, Château de Seneffe, Rue Lucien Plasman 7-9, 7180 SENEFFE, Belgium
The Lee Rings
Two gold and enamel rings were given by the town of Totnes to Katherine and Christian, the grand-daughters of Richard Lee senior, a wealthy wool merchant, in the 17th century. This was in gratitude for the fact that he had presented the Church Walk to the town in around 1612, to be used as an Exchange. One of the rings has been in Totnes Museum for many years, but the other was thought to have been lost. This ring has now been identified as one in the V&A, and the two are shown together in this exhibition, reunited for the first time in almost 400 years.
15/03/2012 – 31/10/2012
Totnes Elizabethan House Museum, 70 Fore Street, Totnes, TQ9 5RU, UK
Catherine the Great: an Enlightened Empress
Sharp, funny, generous, iron-willed and passionate, Catherine the Great was one of Russia’s most successful rulers and one of the greatest art collectors of all time. Presented in partnership with the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, this unique exhibition is showing only in Edinburgh. The exhibition features more than 600 priceless works collected by the Empress. See spectacular paintings, outstanding costumes and uniforms, dazzling cameos, snuffboxes and jewellery, hunting weapons and exquisite works of art seldom seen outside Russia.
13/07/2012 – 21/10/2012
The National Museum of Scotland (Exhibition Gallery 1, Level 3), Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, UK
Gold, Jasper, and Carnelian: Johann Christian Neuber at the Saxon Court
Since antiquity, gemstones (also known as hard or semiprecious stones) have been cut and polished for use in jewelry, in the creation of vases and cups, and in the decoration of palaces. Rediscovered and developed in sixteenth-century Florence, pietra dura (hard stone) objects were collected and sometimes used as political propaganda among the Medici. A sign of wealth, taste, and power, they were also offered as diplomatic gifts or acquired by foreign sovereigns. In the following centuries, they not only aroused admiration at major European courts but also prompted artists to work with gemstones. In eighteenth-century Saxony (part of Germany), the technique was revived again by Johann Christian Neuber (1736–1808), one of Dresden's most famous goldsmiths. The Frick Collection presents the first comprehensive introduction to Neuber's oeuvre, including important diplomatic gifts and approximately thirty-five snuffboxes, bonbonnières (candy boxes), and fashionable accessories.
30/05/2012 - 19/08/2012
The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021, USA
Brilliant Impressions: Antique Paste & Other Jewellery
A glittering exhibition of paste and other jewellery dating from the golden years of the 18th and 19th centuries. Catalogue Antique Paste & Other Jewellery by Diana Scarisbrick, £30
15/06/2010 - 29/06/2010
S. J. Phillips Ltd, London, UK
The King's Blood: relics of King Charles I
An exhibition drawing on public and private collections to show a small group of relics associated with King Charles I, whose death over three hundred and fifty years ago still polarises opinion. Venerated as a saint by some, his relics took on a huge significance for royalists. Exhibits include the chalice from which he took his last communion, his pearl earring, and a fascinating gem-set reliquary. Admission is free, but catalogues will be sold in aid of The Down’s Syndrome Association.
11/05/2010 – 21/05/2010
Wartski, London, UK