Designing Jewels

France has a long-standing, distinguished and highly influential history of jewelry making. The exhibition Designing Jewels: 200 years of French Savoir-Faire (1770–1970), along with its accompanying catalogue, explains individual achievements by showcasing the culture of developing jewelry designs from initial drawing to gouaché to masterpiece.

In its essays and object entries, the book highlights the importance of drawings as both a medium for conceptual development and a technical tool for the creation of sought-after works of art. The drawings also serve as records of knowledge transfer, and an inimitable style that evolved significantly between 1770 and 1970, forming the cultural foundation of both be spoke and mass-market designs.

This project presents a wide range of graphic works that demonstrate the various steps of the design process, using resources from private collections in Hong Kong and the VCA Patrimony department in Paris. Line and color drawings are among them; these are also a part of the long history of exquisite craftsmanship in the design and production of jewelry in France.

Florian Knothe studies and teaches the history of decorative arts in the 17th and 18th centuries with particular focus on the social and historic importance of royal French manufacture. He is interested in the early modern fascination with Chinoiserie and the way royal workshops and smaller private enterprises helped to create and cater to this long-lasting fashion. Florian recently launched UMAG_STArts, which teaches the science and technology of art, and he directs the newly developed the Master of Arts in the field of Museum Studies.

Mathilde Berger-Rondouin is an art historian specializing in the field of European Decorative Arts. She holds an MA in Philosophy from Karl Ruprecht Universität in Heidelberg, Germany, and another MA in History of Art Market and Collecting from The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK. Mathilde has been working in the fields of Limoges Tableware and French manufacture branding before coming to Hong Kong, where she is an Art History lecturer at L'ÉCOLE Asia Pacific, School of Jewelry Arts.